Mother Nature Calls

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The reality of us getting signed and numerous recording sessions and tours and problems within the tours and issues within ourselves were starting to tell on our bearing. It's a weight upon your shoulders and somewhere within all that I started thinking, "Okay I've got these songs, and I may have to play my joker card and try and go and form something myself." Did you feel pressure after the success of All Change going in to record the second album Mother Nature Calls? I knew I had something there, and it turned out to be something special. It was a soaring song which became the standard-bearer that gave me a taste for it. It wasn’t confident because confidence means you think you can do it and you know you can do it. I had a will to want to do it, but it gave me a taste for it and to understand what it's like to write a song that you know is good and has got all the parts. It's a great pop song and it’s uplifting and it’s powerful in its own right. Fine Time is a vital record for what it says because it's always a fine time to make the right decisions. It’s never too late to make the right decisions and there's never a wrong time to make the right decisions although it might feel like you've missed it. The present is the time to make your life changes. I was in the La’s for such a long time, maybe five or six years, but in hindsight when you're young, that's quite a bit of your life. Lee Mavers was a fantastic partner in crime and mentor, and it was all very special. Still, I think it came to the point where everything was problematic. Simple things were becoming very complicated, and we lost sight of things through the industry and through ourselves and repetition of problems surfacing the same old way.

I thought somewhere along the line I needed to try something else for my own wellbeing. I had the idea for Cast by then, and every night in the show the last words to be sung were "The change is cast" from the La’s song 'Looking Glass'. I thought that was a sign. At that age, we were into the mysticism of the universe which the band was well connected to. I thought, "the change is cast" and it's telling me every night that that’s maybe what I'm going to have to do. With Fine Time I had the verse when I left the La’s, but I didn't have the chorus, and I didn't have the middle eight. A lot of this album was written walking around. I had left the La’s, and I still had a circle of friends, and I was staying at my ma’s or staying wherever, and I would get up out of bed in the morning and just walk across to my mates’. If no one was in, you would end up wandering around all day trying to catch the trail of your buddies or somewhere where you think people would generally hang out and meet midday. So there was a lot of mulling things over as I was just walking around and 'Fine Time' was one of those songs.I said to my mate, "That's me from the other night," and I could see from his face that he was startled. He was a mate of mine who knew his way around a record collection, and I appreciated his musical ear. Every time you are writing a song, especially at that age and that period in your life you are looking for little nuances and things that people say or do. Liverpool legends Cast celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their classic debut album ‘All Change’. Originally released on 16th October 1995 it became the highest-selling debut album in the history of the Polydor label.

You couldn't do it now because I’m older and things have moved on, and I've got different responsibilities. Still, in those days you could remember the song because you would go to sleep dreaming about keeping hold of the threads of the songs and then you would wake up. And once you had done that you would remember it; it would be in your head. I used to say to myself, "In the morning, if I don't remember it, it’s not good enough.”

The La’s is like a double-edged sword people had tried in a hindrance way to compare Cast and myself to when I was in the La’s. That was never what it was about the La’s are still a massive part of my life and how it's shaped me, and I still have a love for those songs and a love for Lee as a songwriter regardless. more memorable singles Live The Dream, I’m So Lonely and Guiding Star were further additions to the Power dartboard of hits, scoring 180 each time. Live The Dream is the floating bubble like song, sending the mind on a daydream vacation to days on a river bank in blazing sunshine, 99 with a flake in hand, glass of cloudy lemonade in the other, lying on a blanket, picnic hamper ready to be opened in the company of your favourite girl/boy. I’m So Lonely is of a similar blissful vibe, yet this time instead of visions of getting associated with the best things of life, the songs message appears to indicate to lonelier days, maybe wishing for those days as foreseen in Live The Dream, with delicate guitar work by Skin the heartstrings are tugged with dazzling results. Mankind has a slightly Hunky-Dory sort of vibe. Dare I say it? It’s Bowie-esque in a Cast version. It's another great song with a great melody and guitar riffs. We did some gigs in Liverpool last December where we played a different one of our albums each night, and we played All Change in full. One thing I realised when we played it was that it's a youthful album. I had to run hard to keep up with it. It's fast and it’s got energy. 'Mankind' is idealistic. A lot of the songs on the album are about your time, your place and your moment, And recognising that we as a generation have your chance to say something and shape things the way that you feel. 'Mankind' is just another chapter in that book. Sandstorm is very close to my heart. The third verse is the first one I wrote. I sang that, and I loved the melody and the punctuation of it all and the actual shape of it – I still do. It's a very special song that's dear to me and very close to my being. Of all the songs that I've written, I still find a familiarity when I sing it and play it. It's slightly childlike in its melody, and even my eight-year-old daughter sings it. She stood up in school and sang that on her own. She likes the tune, and I understand entirely why. Follow Me Down' actually could have gone on the album. Maybe I wanted to get rid of it because it was something I did with the La’s. I think in the very early days of Cast I was a little bit confused about where I was standing in my relationship with the La’s. Whereas now I can see things a lot clearer and my love for both bands and where I was. 'Follow Me Down' with the riff that Skin got and the Dr Who vibe going down on it on a waltz that could have easily been on the album. The B-sides where great, 'Better Man,' 'Hourglass' and 'Satellites' I had already written. 'Better Man' was one of the first completed songs that I had because I have memories of playing that outside the La’s practice place. I think it was the first song I played to a friend of mine Henry Epstein and he still reminds me about the first time I played it to him outside leaning on his car in the sun.