20 Questions You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Ask…Richard from The Five Aces
Next up with the answers it’s Richard from The Five Aces. To hear some highly accomplished gold dust check them out on myspace. ‘If You Reap’ keeps dragging me back so be warned! Another difficult one to decide where to post. The rnb and Stax influence in some of their tunes will I’m sure be of interest here and on The Right Side Of Funky but there’s so much more to them than that, as you will discover (if you haven’t already). Thanks Richard!
I’m Richard, usually to be found centre-stage in The Five Aces with a microphone pointed at my head. Aside from that I write the bulk of the songs, do the recording and some other stuff. We also have a side project called The Bottleneckers where I sing and play harmonica.
1. How would you best describe what you do to the uninitiated?
I suppose it depends how uninitiated they are. We play rhythm and blues music, aimed at the dancefloor. Trying to describe it is only detrimental, most people usually like it when they hear it.
2. Where would you say you are with regard to your career right now?
Music isn’t my career, I don’t think it’s likely that we could make a living from music in this day and age, unless we wanted to play business orientated music.
3. Which song (not neccesarilly yours) best sums you/the band up and why?
Not sure if you mean the sentiment of a song’s lyrics, or the style of music? If the former, then perhaps Kick the Bucket, from our current album and 45, which is a rhythm and blues dance song, with a twist… Musically, I don’t know. People often come up and say the band or the singer sounds like this or that particular thing, but it’s usually something that’s been of very marginal influence and reflects their own musical pallette more than it does ours. We’ve a fairly healthy range of influences for what we’re doing.
4. Who would you say has been your biggest inspiration (musically or otherwise)?
Nobody in particular. Swinging bands with good singers and good songs, recorded well, many many years ago.
5. Is there anyone amongst your influences that you think would surprise people and why?
It’s fairly subjective what someone’s going to find surprising. A mod DJ might be surprised by a different influence than a casual music fan who reads Mojo or whatnot. I don’t even know myself which of the things I’ve listened to over the years have influenced our music.
6. What are you most proud of?
I guess the fact that I think if I wasn’t in our band, and I came to see us, I would like it.
7. In the quest to get the music ‘out there’ have you ever done or agreed to anything you’ve later regretted?
Personally no, although some of the other band members seem to think we should have made more money from the first Boogaloo Investigators (our former name) 45 being featured in an advert.
8. What’s the most ridiculous request that’s been asked of you/the band?
For me personally, it would be when someone who manages a small venue and has no clue about music thinks we should fully utilise their expensive PA system (they always call it a .. ‘K RIG’) and arrange about 20 microphones about the stage when the size of the room is perfectly suited to just the vocals going through our own PA. On the other hand, on Tuesday when we were doing a local gig as The Bottleneckers a woman asked me how much we charge, and if we would do karaoke (i.e. get the band to back singers). Oh, and one time a guy said he didn’t like the band, but thought I could go places if I worked with him. Ignoramus.
9. What do you think is the secret to a good working relationship amongst musicians?
No idea! We have our ups and downs.
10. If you could have played on one song (that you don’t), what would it be and why?
I’m probably misunderstanding the gist of your question, but there’s a song I like called Quiet as It’s Kept by Chip Nelson that I would have liked to have recorded, as I think the production doesn’t quite do justice to what it sounds like the musicians were doing in the room. Always had a soft spot for Paul Butterfield’s Lovin’ Cup as well, except I think the guitar ‘fills’ are awful and overplayed.
11. How do you make the balance between music and personal responsibilities?
The band does take a degree of dedication. I try to miss as little work as possible due to the band, but outside of work the band comes first most of the time.
12. In light of the internet and downloading do you feel that fans are missing out on the record buying discovery/experience?
Downloading hasn’t affected my own record buying at all. Most of the other people I know who are interested enough in music to spend their money on it are DJ’s, so downloading isn’t much use to them either if they’re DJing 45’s, other than letting them hear more stuff to seek out, and that’s all second hand records anyway so doesn’t help ‘the industry’. I think the people who would benefit most from the new technology would be people who have a voracious apetite for hearing new things. As to formats, I’m only in it for the music, I have no allegiance to any particular medium other than the fact that my car has a CD player, and that’s where I get most time to listen to music. I don’t like to hear MP3 encoding artefacts any more than I like to hear ’scratchy’ vinyl. I wouldn’t care if all the major record labels (apart from reissue labels) collapsed today and gave things a fresh start.
13. Do you think that success is your motivation and do you have a preset gameplan for your music/the band?
Commercial success? That’s a dead duck. Our plan is to make ourselves happy, make something we like, and then if other people like it too, it’s a bonus.
14. DJ’s are now as famous as a lot of the bands they play, what are your views on this and do you think it’s deserved?
I have no interest in modern DJ culture, other than the kinds of DJ’s who play old fifties and sixties rhythm and blues records that I might want to dance to. I have no interest in modern bands either. Equally bad. Hey, I’m not even that sure if I think amplification of music was a good idea!
15. To date, what has been your most memorable gig (either as a performer or as a fan)?
We did a Bottleneckers gig a few weeks ago where I could hear myself, that was quite good. 
16. How do you overcome pre-gig nerves (if you get them)?
More likely to be falling asleep, as we often play in clubs where we don’t start playing until midnight, and you get kicked out of hotels at 11am or whatnot after only getting there at 5am half of the time. Adrenaline saves the day. But at what cost!
17. When did you last write something?
Probably last month. Haven’t had a proper rehearsal since then to get the new song into the live set. I’m not that prolific a writer, only started writing because we needed songs, but it’s kinda funny when you hear what you had in your head getting totally massacred by the band.
18. Have you ever reached a point where you’ve thought about throwing the towel in and walking away (and if so, what persuaded you otherwise)?
Somebody put hair gel all over my towel once, I left them a note.
19. What are your views on electronics muscling in and replacing live instuments during recording?
I think it depends on who’s controlling it, if they have any artistic depth or not. I mean, it’s of no consequence to me personally because I don’t listen to modern music. It’s just a tool though, a good musician with a crap tool will do a better job than a crap musician with a good tool, and most musicians these days haven’t got what I like to hear in a musician, which is swing, phrasing, taste, and the ability to play with other musicians to make a sum larger than the parts. I don’t think that’s a new development, nothing’s moved on in the last thirty odd years, but the things that matter to me have gradually eroded more and more. It’s such a deep subject, I probably just sound hopelessly jaded, but I imagine if I explained everything I thought about it, I’d sound even more jaded.
20. Lastly, thank you for your time. What made you agree to answer these questions?
Cheers. I have no idea.
R.
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