Prog4you.com - Artist Interview - with Martin Orford of IQ and Jadis

An an exclusive interview with IQ's Martin Orford
By: Josh Turner

IQ Interview:

JT - Hello.

MO - Hello, is that Josh?

JT - Yeah, this is Josh.

MO - Hello. It’s Martin Orford here.

JT - Hi.

MO - How are you doing?

JT - Doing pretty good.

MO - Good. You ready for an interview?

JT - Oh, sure.

MO - Great stuff.

JT - Ok. Actually, I recently saw you at the Rites of Spring music festival.

MO - Oh yeah, that was absolutely a blast.

JT - Yeah.

MO - Great fun.

JT - How did that go for you and your band?

MO - Um, we had a fantastic weekend. Um, and yes it went incredibly well. It was the first time Jadis has been to the USA and it was a very successful trip. Got treated ever so well. We had some fantastic Philadelphia cheese steaks on the way home and yeah, we had a blast.

JT - Okay.

MO - Superb.

JT - Do you have any other tours planned at this time?

MO - Um, at the moment, I mean, we have just come to the end of a nine month period where I pretty much had no spare time, so I’m gonna take the summer off and we’ve got some gigs coming up with IQ in Britain and Europe.

JT - Okay.

MO - Just a few Saturdays throughout the Autumn just leading up to Christmas.

JT - Sure.

MO - So, not a tour and such, just a few selected days.

JT - I’m interested in the fact you are with both IQ and Jadis. I was wondering how you met your band mates and how did you wind up in both of these different bands?

MO - Okay, well, the history of both bands is inextricably linked over a very long period of time. Originally, I was in a band called The Lens, which formed inside Hampton, which is my hometown. I met the other guys, because they advertised for a keyboard player in the local paper. So, I met up with Mike Combs by that. We, um, we got The Lens together and from The Lens came IQ, and at that time there were a lot of young guys going to our gigs and to another little band called Saramon Grass. And, the guys from Saramon Grass had a guitarist who very often didn’t turn up, so they would ask Mike, our guitarist in Lens, and later in IQ, to kind of help them in second guitar. And, Saramon Grass after awhile became Jadis. And, Mike kind of stopped playing with them. They were getting demo tapes together, they didn’t have a keyboard player. So, they asked me to do that and, um, the whole thing sort of shared members for upwards of twenty years. And, they are very closely linked and to this day myself and John Jowitt play in both bands.

JT - The one thing about IQ and Jadis is that they have a very unique sound. I’m wondering who are your actual influences?

MO - Um, well, I mean in terms of bands as a whole the influences are very diverse. It turns out my influences aren’t so they are particularly anything to do with rock music at all.

JT - Hmm.

MO - Uh, my influences are sixties pop like The Beatles and The Byrds and, um, classical music. I completely missed the whole seventies prog rock thing, so, you know, whereas until about two years after it had happened.

JT - Oh, really?

MO - So, um, I’d love to be able to say I saw Genesis and Yes and Pink Floyd and all that in the heyday, but unfortunately I never did.

JT - Can you explain your songwriting process, how you put the music together, who actually writes your lyrics?

MO - Yeah. We get into a room and we all have a big fight. {I laugh} That’s about it. That’s as scientific as it gets. It’s just an enormous argument, um, because in IQ we’ve got five incredibly opinionated people.

JT - Hmm.

MO - Each one has massively different life, massively different lifestyle to everybody else in the band. We’re all, we hardly any of us share anything much in common. Uh, each member of the band is very opinionated, preferably capable of making good albums on their own, so of course you get that combination of people into a rehearsal room. It’s an absolute nightmare.

IQ - FROM LEFT TO RIGHT PAUL COOK, MICHAEL HOLMES, PETER NICHOLLS, JOHN JOWITT, MARTIN ORFORD

JT - Okay.

MO - But, we come out with good albums at the end of it, but it’s not pretty to watch. {I laugh} But, that’s it, it’s a lot of people with very strong opinions, putting their ideas in, and complaining bitterly when they are not used, trying to get rid of other people’s ideas that they don’t like, and it is very bitchy, very unpleasant, but it brings a great result.

JT - The album Fanatic, that’s an album I like quite a bit. That’s quite a bit of a grower. I was actually listening to it this morning, but I’m not quite sure what it is actually about. Is this something that, can you explain to me what this album is actually about?

MO - I can. First of all, I have to say that the writing situation that I just explained is peculiar to IQ. Jadis has got completely different structure in that most the music is written by Gary and Steve and I kind of put my influence on it at a much later stage. But, it turns out that what Fanatic is all about, um, well it is really quite controversial. It’s an anti-religion album.

JT - Hmm.

MO - It’s Gary basically saying that he completely disapproves of religious fanaticism in all descriptions. As such, it is an album that is very much in favor of the war in Iraq.

JT - Oh… interesting.

MO - So, that’s a shocker for people.

JT - Yeah.

MO - Um, there is quite a right wing philosophy to that album without being particularly racist or fascist. There’s pretty much a let’s make the world atheist. That’s the message of that album.

JT - Interesting.

MO - Don’t expect politics like that from a prog rock band.

JT - Oh, no

JT - I’m hearing you came out with another album. I haven’t had a chance to check it out. Is that something that you can tell me what that’s about?

MO - The new IQ album, Dark Matter.

JT - Yeah, the new IQ album.

MO - Well, the IQ album is much, uh, much more I suppose ambiguous if you like in terms of lyrics and I would have to say the vast majority of IQ lyrics I couldn’t honestly tell you what they are about. {I laugh} Um, normally, our guy in IQ Pete, and people will come up to him and say what is this song about and he’ll turn it back onto them and say what do you think it’s about. Give us an explanation. You’ll generally nod and say you’re absolutely right. {he laughs} So, you’re never going to get a straight answer out of Pete on that one. He deliberately writes ambiguous lyrics so that different people get different things out of it. It’s not as straight forward as Jadis's approach, which is all the cards on the table.

JT - Hmm.

MO - So, you’ve got two different approaches from two different bands.

JT- One thing I’m very interested in is that you’ve got very unique names for your bands too. How did you come up with the names for these bands?

MO - Okay, well, that’s quite an easy one. Um, IQ, we got because Mike Combs the guitarist was studying psychology at the time and we couldn’t find a name, so we’re going to have to pin the name of the band down to something. So, we looked through a psychology book, we came up with a list of words, and we chose the one we liked best, which was IQ. As well as the guy who interviewed me today said, it is a good job you didn’t call yourself the Freudian Slips. {we both laugh} And, if we thought of it, we probably would have then. Jadis, that comes from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

JT - Okay.

MO - Jadis being the witch.

JT - Hmm. I did not know that. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen that book.

MO - There is another meaning of Jadis as well. In France and in certain parts of Switzerland, it’s used at the start of children’s stories to mean once upon a time.

JT - Oh, that’s cool.

MO - Yeah.

JT - A lot of people who get into music, choose the guitar, thinking that’s a cool instrument. Everybody seems to want to play the guitar. How did you choose your instrument and how did that all begin?

MO - I was lazy at the guitar basically. {we both laugh} I tried it. I thought it was great fronting a band with a guitar, but I was just not good.

JT - Hmm.

MO - I switched to keyboards and thought that was easier.

JT - It was easier?

MO - Yeah.

JT - From what I hear from most people, that is one of the harder instruments to learn.

MO - Oh no, keyboards is easy. I mean, you can play keyboards when you’re drunk. {I laugh quite a bit} The low notes are one end and the high notes the other end.

JT - That’s funny.

MO - You don’t use the ones at either end anyway. It’s just the ones in the middle that you need to worry about. Yeah, keyboards is easy. Anyone, any fool, ought to be able to play the keyboards.

JT - Ok, maybe I should give it a try.

JT - What point in your life did you start to play the keyboards? How did that all begin?

MO - I started learning piano when I was about eight years old, but not to any great sort of academic level.

JT - Okay.

MO - You hear about all these guys like Rick Wakeman that went to college and, uh, all these big music schools. I mean, I never did any of that.

JT - Huh.

MO - Um, I just learned the piano with the old lady that played the church organ in our village and that was pretty much the sum total of my musical education.

JT - Ok, how did you decide you actually wanted to form a band and get into rock music?

MO - Um, that was really accidental. Um, it came from, I mean, I spent the seventies pretty much in orchestras and we started to have some competition in the school. Um, that was when I was about fifteen, sixteen, years old and, um, somebody said to me one day you ought to have a go at this songwriting thing, you know, there is a prize for the best song and you need to get a little band together. I sort of looked into it and thought well, you know, rock music can’t be all that difficult. You know, I’ll get a little band together and give it a go, and I did, and I didn’t win the competition, but it gave me a taste for, well, you know, let’s write some music in a slightly different style. Let’s try to play something that is classed as rock, that’s got a really, sort of, classical base to it.

JT - Sure.

MO - It was at that point that people started saying oh, you are writing progressive rock, you must be influenced by all these bands.

JT - Hmm.

MO - Sort of like, well, if you say so, you know. {he laughs}

JT - Yeah.

MO - And that’s really how it came about. I mean, I was completely oblivious, um, all the popular music trends of the seventies. I didn’t really take any of it in at all, so I came to it from sort of a fresh viewpoint in a way.

JT - Ok, to get an idea of your musical tastes, what’s the last CD that you purchased?

MO - Oh God. I don’t think I bought a CD this year. {I laugh} Um, I don’t listen to much music. Um, I genuinely don’t. I mean, I watch tele and I, um, don’t really listen to music. I mean, it’s sort of work, you know.

JT - Yeah.

MO - Um, I’m not really a consumer.

JT - Interesting.

MO - It’s not that I don’t like music, I do like it, but it’s work. {he laughs} You know, it’s not something I do for recreation.

JT - Hmm, what’s the last concert you attended as a fan?

MO - Ooh, blimey. {he laughs} That is a tricky one. I suppose probably, I think the last concert I attended was Steve Hackett Inside Out, because I know Steve, I like the stuff he does and it was a really good gig.

JT - Ok, to delve more into your favorites, I’m wondering, what’s your favorite movie?

MO - Favorite movie? Um, okay, uh, I’m gonna give you several. I think the Lord of the Rings films are good.

JT - Okay.

MO - I also like the Harry Potter films.

JT - Hmm.

MO - Probably my all-time favorite movie would be, um, Peter Seller’s film Being There.

JT - Ok, and what would you say is your favorite book?

MO - Um, oooh, probably the fourth Harry Potter.

JT - Is there any particular one in the series that you like or all of them?

MO - Yeah, yeah, the fourth one, Goblets.

JT - Oh the fourth one. I haven’t had a chance to read any of those.

MO - Um, I really recommend them. Uh, I mean, I’m not a literature person at all. I haven’t read any literature since I was in school, because I did English literature exams and it made me really hate literature.

JT - Hmm.

MO - So I didn’t touch literature for thirty years and then somebody bought me a set of Harry Potter books and said read these and I kind of read the whole lot in two weeks.

JT - Oh really?

MO - Yeah, um, it kind of got me back in literature. It is the only thing I’ve read in thirty years. {he laughs}

JT - Wow! What would you say is your favorite album?

MO - Favorite album by IQ?

JT - Oh, just favorite album in general, if that’s an IQ album then that is great too.

MO - Um, that’s a really difficult one. I don’t know. It would have to be a classical one. It would have to Vladimir Raskanazi playing the piano concerto.

JT - As long as you brought it up, what is your favorite IQ one?

MO - The new one.

JT - Oh really?

MO - Yeah.

JT - And what would you say is your favorite Jadis album?

MO - Um, phew, oh that’s difficult, that changes. Um, I would say, probably my favorite at the moment is Across the Water, but it certainly wasn’t at the time. I really hated that album when we were recording it. I really quite like it now. That’s more of a movable thing with Jadis.

JT - What’s your favorite band?

MO - Favorite band? I don’t really have one.

JT - You don’t?

MO - No. I’m not really a fan. {I laugh} I never went through that sort of teenage fan thing. It never happened. I never sat in the front row of gigs and said wow I really idolize these people. I just never really did that. It’s not really in my personality, which probably makes me a weirdo. I don’t know.

JT - No, it probably makes you normal.

MO - Well, I don’t know.

JT - Now I have a difficult question here for you.

MO - Okay.

JT - Can you recall any Spinal Tap moments with any of the bands you were in?

MO - Oh, all of them. I’m sure I was in Spinal Tap. We’ve done the whole film many times over. Um, yeah, how many do you want? There are hundreds.

JT - If you have a good example…

MO - How about the hello Cleveland moment, um, where I couldn’t find the level of the building that had the stage on? What else? There are just too many to mention. Um, we actually did, just as a tribute to that, we actually did Stonehenge ones. We did make a little Stonehenge out of rubber, because it had to happen. We’ve all been in Spinal Tap most of our lives.

JT - Interesting. Ok, I ask this unique question just to have something different from everybody else.

MO - Yes, that was a good one.

JT - Yeah, I’m also wondering do you have any pets?

MO - Oh yeah, absolutely. We got a little Jack Russell terrier called Pip who is absolutely delightful.

JT - That’s what I got. I’ve got a terrier too.

MO - Oh have you?

JT - Yeah.

MO - They’re great, aren’t they?

JT - Oh yeah.

MO - You get a really good argument with a terrier.

JT - Exactly.

MO - Pip’s a real feisty little dog. You know, she’s got a lot of attitude about her, but she’s brilliant. You know, we wouldn’t be without her.

JT - Exactly.

MO - What’s your one called?

JT - Rexleigh.

MO - Alright, ok.

JT - And he is the king of this castle I guess. At least he thinks in his own mind he is.

MO - They all are. They are no inferiority complexes in terriers.

JT - Right. {we are both laughing}

MO - They don’t do that.

JT - Thank you for doing this interview for Prog4you.com

: : Visit the artist web site : :