Talking to Nine Below Zero frontman Dennis Greaves about his new project.
We began by bemoaning the downfall of Western civilisation, and how it started with Margaret Thatcher and those bands that came about around the end of the seventies. That’s the root cause of all the problems in the world.
“Oh, yes. Nine Below Zero, those sort of people.”
But you’re making up for it with the new album DenMark. I understand it was 25 years in the making?
“Yeah. During the pandemic I went up in my loft and I found two inch tapes, quarter inch tapes, Betamax on cassette. What I did is I accumulated everything I had and put it onto a hard drive. The producer Wayne Proctor said why nor remix and re-record all this old material. Mark Feltham and I were going out as a duo and people were asking where we could buy it. So we collected all the acoustic stuff, wrote some new stuff and it’s been a thoroughly joyous project.”
It’s certainly an eclectic collection. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer next to Amazing Grace sounds strange but they’re quite similar sounds – gospel and blues.
“And it’s really Mark, you’ve got those two, What’s Going On and Stone Fox Chase. It shows Mark’s versatility, he’s one of the finest harmonica players the country’s produced and he can really express himself on this album.”
The two of you have been playing together a long time. You must have some sort of telepathy.
“Since 1997. It’s strange, when I make a mistake on stage he follows me. We’ve been together a long time now.”
The acoustic duo are playing different venues than you do with a full-on band,
“Anything over 150, 200 people I can’t stand playing acoustic. My favourite place was when we came up to Birmingham and did Pizza Express, and we did the one at Holborn in London. Those sort of venues are so intimate and people will sit and listen. The cutlery might be a bit noisy sometimes but they sit and listen. Anything bigger is a bit difficult and I don’t think we can command more than 200 anyway, certainly not at this stage.”
It’s about finding a balance. When I saw Jools Holland recently at Symphony Hall that was the ideal venue for him because any bigger and you lose the connection with the audience as well as with the musicians. He’s a raconteur and while he’s telling stories you can see the delight on his face, which would be lost somewhere like the NEC.
“Totally. We did Symphony Hall with Squeeze a couple of years ago and I couldn’t agree more. I played big places with the Who, we played the NEC and it just rattles around. I was lucky – I saw Muddy Waters in a small venue then I saw Led Zeppelin at Earls Court and it was horrible. I like them but John Bonham’s drums just rattling around there was awful. When I was a kid we’d go to Hammersmith Odeon, or the Rainbow was my favourite. I saw Queen at Hammersmith and I would have hated to see them in a bigger environment. Seeing them there was fantastic.”
Back them it was like football – you’d spend a couple of quid, the change in your pocket on getting in. Now you see the price of tickets, all the service charges on top and then it costs a fortune for parking. You wonder how people can afford it regularly but then the grounds are bigger, the venues are bigger, the audiences. Someone must be able to afford it in this cost of living crisis.
“We’re just old-fashioned. The world’s moving on. I do worry about the grassroots venues, though. That is worrying about how corporate music is going and where that leaves the grassroots. We all cut out teeth in places like pubs in front of our parents and our mates then we started to build a crowd. Those venues are really important and even that’s changed. Now it’s about how many hits you get on TikTok.”
Do bands still do the circuit before they make it now or is it a case that it they haven’t done it on Instagram or whatever they think that’s it, they give up and move on? Is there that grassroots circuit anymore and do new bands want to play there?
“I suppose we just focus on what we’re doing but I started in the Thomas A’Beckett, a record company would send out their A&R people to scout the pubs and we signed to A&M records. We had an A&R department, they nurtured us. I’m not sure that’s in place now and if you put something out there on TikTok and it gets a million hits the record company might get interested but then you don’t need record companies anymore. The whole business has changed but I don’t like corporate side of it. When Elton John had sixty VIPs on stage roped off with security I just thought no, what’s that? But that’s just me.”
Once you’ve got Denmark and the tour out of the way are Nine below Zero going back out again?
“Yes, we’re off out with Dr Feelgood at the end of next year. That works really well, plus we’ve got Ballyshannon, tho Rory Gallagher festival in the summer, festivals and we’re going to France and Spain in April.”
You could do a new anniversary album tour every year, but is there any new material?
“In 2025 we’ll probably have another self-penned album out. The last one was Avalanche in 2019. I’m always writing away and getting ideas. There’s always something to write about the way the world is and as we get older and develop, still trying to learn how to play guitar after all these years. Finding old blues footage is great, things pop up and you study them. It’s like a university, always studying, reading and learning something. YouTube has been great for that. You’re finding stuff with all the old blokes on beaten up old guitars and that expression of feeling. I still love it.”
Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham from Nine Below Zero will be on an acoustic tour of the UK in March performing as Denmark. The duo will be releasing their album Denmark – The definitive Nine Below Zero collection on 19th February. Tickets and more information can be found at ninebelowzero.com.