Twelfth Night - Original new-prog

I love Twelfth Night's "Fact And Fiction" more than any other progressive rock album, a genre I've followed passionately my whole life. But the Reading band's musical syncretism gives me something no one else does: the feeling of music made with no genre constraints whatsoever, with no expectation of any kind of mainstream success. Of course, that's just one interpretation among many, but not giving a record like "Fact And Fiction" a chance is a crime. Today we can finally have it in a deluxe edition: three CDs and thorough liner notes that satisfy every curiosity about a work far too overlooked by both the prog audience and beyond. Brian Devoil, drummer and deus ex machina of Twelfth Night's affairs, has plenty to tell us…

Brian, we're finally getting the long-awaited reissue of "Fact And Fiction". Let's talk about this fantastic triple CD: the first disc contains the original album plus a few bonus tracks, right?

Correct! Basically those are tracks recorded in the studio back then, in 1982, when we recorded the original album. We recorded a couple of other tracks that came out as singles, our cover of "Eleanor Rigby" and a track called "East Of Eden", since we eventually decided there wasn't room for them on the album. So they came out as a single, but now they're brought together with the other songs. On top of that, when we went into the studio the idea was to sequence the tracks in a way that could change the running order of the songs. We included the original recording of "Human Being", titled "Being Human", which is quite different and faster. There's also a little "bridge" between it and "East Of Eden", as it was meant to be originally. So all the tracks on this disc are recordings made at Revolution Studio in 1982.

What can you tell us about the live songs on disc number two?

What I had in mind, since my idea was to focus on the songs from "Fact And Fiction", was to concentrate on those songs for the definitive edition rather than anything else the band was doing at the time, like other live tracks we were playing. We did the same with the other definitive editions and I wanted to focus on the heart of it, the eight songs from the original album. What we did was find live versions of those tracks and put them in the same order as the album, with a couple of bonus tracks. I wanted to show how different line-ups, and especially different singers, interpreted Geoff's lyrics, so apart from Geoff singing on two or three tracks, we've got a couple of songs sung by Andy Sears and a couple with our current singer, Mark Spencer. Naturally it ranges from the early 1983 shows with Geoff all the way to the 2012 shows with Mark, so we managed to cover all the main line-up variations, including a 2010 song where Roy Keyworth stood in for Andy Revell. Then there's the second version of "Fact And Fiction", because the way we played it live was very different from the original album version. The four of us — sorry, the five of us — played it like this: vocals, drums, and three people playing keyboards, with no guitar at all, so we'd sound like the Depeche Mode, who were popular at the time. The version we play now is different again and guitar-based, and both are on the CD. On top of that, there's some material from the original demos, part of which eventually became part of "Fact And Fiction" and part of which didn't. Basically they're interesting demos, and there's also a version of "Creepshow" — one of our most famous songs — with a rather significant spoken piece that was part of one of the alternate versions Geoff had in mind: a spoken-word section titled "After The Bomb Drops", tied to his lyrics for "Fact And Fiction" and linked to the nuclear war that was indeed a real possibility back in 1982…

Finally, we get to hear fantastic interpretations of your music by artists like Pendragon, Galahad, Clive Nolan and many others…

After having the idea for the original album and how we played it live, I thought it would actually be great to focus on those songs even further by showing how various artists have covered them. There are covers, interpretations by Pendragon, by Geoff's band — Eh! Geoff Mann Band — who did "Love Song", for instance, which was covered back in the day by Alan Reed on the album "Mannerism" with Clive Nolan: this time instead it's with Kim Seviour, for something very beautiful and different. We also had a lot of other material available, and Mark Spencer, who plays every instrument, spent years working on his own version of the "Fact And Fiction" album. Years ago he played me some tracks and I thought they were really good, and at first I thought the third CD could contain his version of the album, because at that time, as he was developing it, it sounded really good and I felt it deserved a release of its own, on its own terms. So I told him we needed a couple of tracks and he gave us "We Are Sane" and a version of "Poet" for which he asked Lee Abraham, who plays with Galahad, to take part. While putting everything together I realized there were only a couple of tracks I didn't have any version of, and Stuart Nicholson of Galahad was thrilled to record "Fact And Fiction", because early on he used to sing Twelfth Night songs! I don't know if you know this, but when he formed Galahad with Roy Keyworth, the band Roy played in was called Sequences, just like the Twelfth Night song — they were fans of ours! It's a notable fact now, but that's just how it was back then: they were very familiar with Twelfth Night's songs.

Tim Bowness, who is a great artist, sent me an email out of the blue a few years back, because he has a distribution outlet called Burning Shade for selling the music he makes; he told me that if we ever recorded a version of "This City" he'd love to sing it. So I kept that in mind, got back in touch with him, and it was a real pleasure for him to do that track. The other version that's really fantastic is by a band called Coburg, fronted by a girl named Anastasia Coburg, who has a beautiful voice as well as being a talented guitarist and keyboard player. She and Dean (Baker, ed.) worked on a version of "This City", and the great thing is that she recorded it without ever having heard the original. So her phrasing of the melodies and so on is different, and that's really refreshing, hearing someone interpret the words... Well, obviously the structure stayed the same, put together by Dean, but the vocal melodies are hers, whereas many other interpretations stick closer to the original.

Finally, the only thing I was missing was "World Without End", so I spoke to Clive Nolan, a very close friend I see regularly since he works at the same studio (Thin Ice, ed.) where Karl Groom (Threshold guitarist, ed.) worked on our mastering... last week I spoke to Clive on my way back from Detroit, still jet-lagged (laughs, ed.)! I asked him if he wanted to do a version of "World Without End", and not only did he do it, he created a magnificent, Sibelius-esque piece of work! The great thing is that all these people made fantastic versions and feel a genuine friendship and respect towards us, and I couldn't be more grateful. For me, having played the first record and its live versions for so many years, hearing the third record and all these interpretations put together is really exciting. And I think a lot of people who've heard the album will appreciate it, because it adds a new dimension to the original record.

What do you miss most about Geoff Mann as a man and as an artist?

It's been a long time since we played with Geoff, and it's 25 years since he passed away - of course he left the band back in 1983, although we stayed friends for the following ten years. What I miss, from my own point of view, is that he was a very funny person, he'd entertain you... From an artistic standpoint, I miss the range of activities and the range of talents he had: he taught himself to play guitar simply by drawing inspiration from what Andy played, he was a recognized painter, he wrote plays... I think his lyrics have no equal in rock music. I mean, I've never seen anyone else write lyrics like his, to me they're pure poetry. The challenge was that Geoff and I were at opposite ends of the musical spectrum, in the sense that he was a true artist while I was the one trying to turn everything into something that could be promoted commercially. For Geoff it was simply art, which is absolutely fine, but the band needed me to turn it all into reality, and I think that's one of the reasons we're still able to put out things like "Fact And Fiction". We've handled things pretty well, as I said recently in an interview: for the Barbican show, the original music was created with love and performed with care, and I'm very happy about that.

And what are your fondest memories of the post-Geoff era?

Oh, let me think... I think the early days with Andy Sears, when he joined the band, were very exciting, because it was a positive move for us. We'd been hurt when Geoff decided to leave, and from a career standpoint it gave us the chance to get back on track, so the early days with Andy were thrilling, along with some shows we did, for instance, in Germany. I think that in terms of the reunion, in 2007-2008, virtually every show was a big event: I remember Tiana in Spain, Lorelei in Germany - fantastic - Andy and I brought a version of the band to America for NearFest and had a great time, the Barbican show which we're about to release on DVD and CD... those were the high points.

I was discussing this very issue with Mike Holmes of IQ, and I want to ask you the same question: do you think it's fair to talk about a new progressive rock scene in Britain in the Eighties?

Yes, I don't think there's any issue with that. The thing is, I was musically active back in the early Seventies - for a while I even played in a punk band, because a friend of mine was a manager and needed a drummer, so I joined for a bit and got to see first-hand what was going on in that scene, basically the pubs and clubs in 1976. Then bands like ours formed, and of course Marillion, and Pallas too in Scotland: we were all playing similar music because we were influenced, I think, by people from the previous generation. Bands like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd were huge influences on all of us... I think it was obvious what set some of us apart from the rest: certainly, the fact that the singer also wore costumes had little to do with the punk scene and a lot to do with what came before. I have no problem being associated with certain bands or with a scene from a particular period, it all culminated at the Marquee in London... So no problem at all.

Any final words and greetings for the Italian fans of Twelfth Night?

I'm really sorry that we've never managed to play in Italy so far! I know how passionate the fans are in Italy, I know how important they were early in the careers of bands like Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator, two of the acts that influenced Twelfth Night the most. In particular, Andy Revell, Geoff and I were fans of those groups. All I want to say is that I hope our music has given you pleasure over the years, we're truly very grateful for the support you've given us, and I hope we'll keep it up.

Ride the wave of great music

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