CELT IN A TWIST  INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Bob Hallett  from Great  Big Sea -

'Something Beautiful' (Warner)

  "I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful."
Oscar Wilde (1856 - 1900) Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist
The Value of Art in Modern Life, 1884.

Celt In A Twist: Great Big Sea have turned years of pretty pop and catchy Celtic making know how into Something Beautiful. Bob Hallett joins us by phone to talk about the album and the new tour.  Bob, how are you?

Bob Hallett: I’m excellent. Glad to be here today.

CIAT:  So do you have your kilt in a twist? What’s on your mind these days?  Anything you want to rant about?

Bob Hallett:You know, things are pretty calm here.  I’ve been out of the country for the most part and missed all the stories.  And you know you come back to St. John’s here we’ve just had six days of hurricane weather, but now it’s bright and clear.  I mean, I’ve got nothing to complain about.

CIAT:  You guys spend a lot of time on the road but you always manage to make it home to St. John’s.  Home has quite a pull for you doesn’t it?

Bob Hallett: Everything we play or do is all rooted in the traditional music of Newfoundland.  You know, yeah, we make pop music, but I mean we’re coming from a different direction you know.  We’re not basing it on blues or jazz or country.  It’s built around Newfoundland music.  So I mean it just doesn’t work if we don’t keep that connection here.

CIAT:  Alan once said that St. John’s is closer to Paris than Victoria, which emphasizes how huge Canada is.  And you’ve got fans from coast to coast.  Why do you think you’ve struck such a chord with Canadians?

Bob Hallett: You know, I just think that maybe Canadians want to hear music about their own country, but the industry doesn’t necessarily present it to them.  You know there’s definitely a nationalistic bent to what we do and the fact that we are singing an honest and sincere form of music.  I think that’s what the difference.  Plus it’s a good show, you know.  I mean entertainment’s entertainment, and if people are going to be boring to watch and irrelevant,  then it’s not going to be interesting and bands that can get out there and deliver every night are eventually going to see a crowd.

CIAT:  That’s you guys.  How’s it going around the rest of the world?

Bob Hallett: It’s been going really well, man.  We spent a lot of time in the U.S. this year, which is what it is. But this year the first time in a long time we made a foray over to Europe at the end of the summer which I must say was a lot of fun.  It’s one of the reasons you get into this thing in the first place, you know?

CIAT:  Right.  There never seems to be any kind of a struggle between the pop and the Celtic feels in your music.  Does each song just kind of naturally find its own groove?

Bob Hallett: Well, certainly at the beginning, I wouldn’t say it was a struggle, but we really worried about trying to walk down that tightrope between “It’s gotta be this” and “It’s gotta be that” and we were very worried about how the two would go together.  But particularly on the last couple of records we thought “You know we’re big enough and mature enough.  It needn’t be this complicated.” And let’s do the kind of songs we want to record and let them sit in whatever world they want to.  The sort of sounds and the rhythms of traditional music, they’re in there now.  We don’t have to worry about making them happen.

CIAT:  We just heard Helmet Head from Something Beautiful.  Anybody we should know?

Bob Hallett: Ah, you know it’s based on a lot characters but that song kind of came out of …over the years we’ve met a lot of hockey players who sort of toil in the bowels of the professional leagues. And we’ve discovered, hanging around with these dudes, that their stories are very similar to the stories of travelling musicians who hang around the bowels of the music industry.  When you put the two together, that’s where the aegis for that song came from.

CIAT:  And it reminds me of that movie, Slapshot.

Bob Hallett: The thing that I find about these sort of semi-pro hockey players is like, man, you’re out killing yourself on a bus going around the country for thirty grand. And they absolutely love it!  They love it, they’re like fifteen year old boys who can’t wait to get on the ice every night.  It’s like there are musicians, you know you meet guys who are sixty who are as eager to play the gig as when they were sixteen.

CIAT:  Just as eager to get on that bus, right?

Bob Hallett: You got it, man.

CIAT:  We’re talking with Bob Hallett. You’ve got your Celt in a Twist, Bob’s from Great Big Sea and we’re talking about Something Beautiful.  This is a good question for you because you’re the multi-instrumentalist in the band.  You’ve recorded with Paddy Moloney and the Chieftains.  Penelope, a great track from the last album, had this sweet mariachi signature.  There’s a bag pipe solo from “When I am King”.  Are there any other global sounds or feels that you’d like to explore.

Bob Hallett: You know, we’ve only scratched the surface on the whole bag pipe idea.  You know there’s always new things.  And every so often you think you’ve heard everything and you’re walking down the street and you hear this sound on a record or coming from a club, and it puts it all back in perspective again.  We’ve never looked at our music or anyone else’s music as saying there’s some rules here that’s we have to follow.  One of the beauties of the Newfoundland traditions is that it’s not orthodox. What’s important is getting out and doing it, not how you do it or how close you are to this guy or that guy.  And you know we don’t worry about it.  If we found a sound that’s attractive and makes us happy, we figure it’ll probably make someone else happy, too. 

CIAT:  And I guess if it fits the mood of the song, or the theme of the song, right?

Bob Hallett: We’re not trying to sort of squeeze exotic sounds over the stuff, like putting icing over a bowl of spaghetti, but at the same point of time that can make this, bring this one to life.  It’s like the trumpet in “Penelope” over all the accordions. Even though it came out of left field, for some reason or other it works.

CIAT:  I really like that bag pipe solo in “When I Am King” and I have to ask you why did you leave it out of the video mix?

Bob Hallett: You know, that’s one of those record company things. The mix used for the video is the FM rock radio mix. And in that case, the bag pipe solo isn’t….Although it’s kind of ironic because the guitar player just imitated my bag pipes.  What’ll you do, man? (Laughs) It’s a tough world.

CIAT:  Big Country did that years ago, right?

Bob Hallett: Yeah, you know, the thing about bag pipes is there’s no middle ground with bag pipes, man.  There’s no “yeah, I kind of like bag pipes” or “no, I don’t dislike bag pipes.”  It’s “Love bag pipes”. “Hate bag pipes”.  There’s no in-between at all.

CIAT:  We love bag pipes here on Celt in a Twist. 

Bob Hallett: Hey, man, I’m there!

CIAT: If it’s not Penelope, it’s Sally Ann, another classic piece of pure pop from the band.  And what’s her story, Bob?

Bob Hallett: Sally Ann.  To tell the truth, it’s about a girl, but it’s about a very young girl, you know?  And it’s definitely giving away the joke of the song.  Alan, last year, for a variety of reasons, one of his nieces ended up living with him for a year.  And I think he spent a lot of time crawling around on the floor playing blocks with her, and it stuck in his head.  You know it’s funny, that song originally had a third verse, and we jammed it a few times and somehow the third verse just didn’t ring as well and as a result it’s the shortest song Great Big Sea.

CIAT: I love it.  It’s a great piece of pure pop and something you guys do so well along with the Celtic.

Bob Hallett: Listen for the concertina solo towards the end. 

CIAT:Will do.  Please pass along my congratulations and respect to the rest of Great Big Sea.  We love you guys as does the rest of the country.  Continued success with your music.

Bob Hallett: Thanks, very much Cal.  We’re going coast to coast with this tour and there’s no better place to start it.  Cheers.

Bob Hallett was interviewed by Celt In A Twist producer, Cal Koat, September 21st, 2004