The Making of:
Carnival of Light

Recently Andy spoke out about the real reasons that shaped the bands third album:

So... we finished touring late 92. We rehearsed for months, until we had about 30 songs demo-ed in Oxford. At this stage Mark wanted to get a sound somewhere between the Jayhawks and Black Crowes (We’d been affected by all that American touring), and we asked George Drakoulias to help. He helped us work out the songs, and helped us demo them one more time.

By the time we went into the studio for real, (late 93),the direction had changed, and I think we were aiming to do an album more like Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’. There were suites of songs that went together, for instance ‘At the End Of the Universe’. We had John Leckie as a producer (he’d worked with Pink Floyd among others), and we went to Cornwall to record, with a bunch of psychedelics.

We came back down south with our Floyd album in the new year of 94, and decided that it wasn’t worth releasing. So we spent some time at the Manor, trying to remake the songs in more of a guitar-pop direction. The label people started coming down, and they were confused. We started to realise we’d spent a ton of money, and started panicking, doing any old stupid idea to bring the songs to life (example: boys choir- need I say more).

Then during the mix at Abbey road, I decided everything had to be mixed ‘like soul music’, with no reverb or effects (just an idea I’d got into my head at the time). John Leckie was trying to mix it the way he always did, but things became very awkward between us, and Mark would always defend him. Then me and Mark had a terrible falling out over all that, amongst other things, and I threatened to take all my songs off the album. (I was a grade ‘A’ loon at the time, it has to be said.)

We ended up having this row about the song order, and I wouldnt have our songs together on a side of the record (even though it was a CD, with only one side... anyway...) and we’d totally forgotten about a bunch of songs when we decided the track list (‘At the End of the Universe’ was supposed to be the central song, etc etc) It was chaos. It’s hilarious looking back- the mad 23 year olds at the controls, spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on an album which is quite obviously disappearing up it’s own b-side.

Then the US label rejected it and suggested we get back with George Drakoulias, that’s why we went over and did one song with him, as a compromise to get the album out. He was great though- it would have been good to do a whole album with him.

In the end, the album sounded like what it was- a hotch potch. The track listing is stupid and I think we were all extremely confused by the experience. But I think every band should be allowed to do at least one of those ‘grand folly’ kind of albums, the stories you get from them are great. But it had a pretty big hangover.

(By the way, last time I played it I loved it, especially Marks songs)

Article courtesy of www.rideox4.com

produced and mixed by John Leckie
except "How Does It Feel To Feel ?" produced and mixed by George Drakoulias
and "Crown Of Creation " produced by John Leckie and mixed by Andy Bell
recorded at Sawmills, The Manor, RAK, Abbey Road, Sound City, Ocean Way and Sunset Sound
mastered at Precision Mastering by Stephen Marcussen
engineered by John Cornfield, Julie Gardener, Nigel Godrich, Chris Brown, Jim Scott and Tom Nellen
hammond organ on track 1 by Jon Lord
cover photo by Gered Mankowitz
design by Ride and Mark Bown