Interview with Pete Trevawas (bassist)
 
 JT: Hello
 
 Hello, is that Josh Turner?
 
 JT: Yeah, this is Josh.
 
 Hi, it’s Pete Trevawas from Kino.
 
 JT: Hi, it’s great to hear from you.
 
 I know, I’m sorry we’re a bit late. I’ve just done come up from another interview.
 
 JT: Oh, that’s fine.
 
 So, um, I’m a bit behind. I apologize for that.
 
 JT: Oh no, that’s definitely fine. I have enough to keep me busy right now. I wanted to start by telling you that Transatlantic is my absolute favorite band of all-time and I’ve gotten a chance to speak to Roine and Neal and this is quite a treat to get a chance to speak to you as well.
 
 Well, it’s my pleasure.
 
 JT: You are involved in a number of groups between Kino and Marillion and Transatlantic. Are you planning any upcoming tours, concerts, or festivals with any of your groups?
 
 Not in the US certainly, but we are doing some shows with Spock’s Beard interestingly enough, and Kino, we’ve been invited up to there. They’re doing a European tour and we’ve been invited up to that as special guests, which is very nice of them. I’ve met them before obviously through Neal’s connections and Transatlantic and they’re super guys. They’re really helping us out. They’re letting us sleep on their bus, lending us equipment and stuff, so, you know, it’s going to be fun and I’m looking forward to it and we’re doing, we’re doing about, I don’t know, about ten dates with ‘em and starting 13th of May I believe it is. No March, what am I saying, 13th of March.
 
 JT: The styles are sort of diverse between the groups you’re involved in. Kino kind of has, it’s progressive, but it’s kind of got a mainstream feel to it. Transatlantic is definitely retro. Marillion is sort of like newer age progressive. Can you explain your songwriting process, how you come up with these ideas, how you form the music, and just how it might differ between the different groups you’re in?
 
That’s a hard one. It just happens I guess. I don’t really overanalyze it too much. I mean, the music in Marillion gets analyzed a lot. Actually we don’t overanalyze, but we do think about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, and what we’re trying to portray with it a lot with Transatlantic and with Kino, being side projects as it were, there’s less of that process partly because there isn’t the time for that process to evolve and partly because it is kind of more fun just to go in and play, with Transatlantic it was working on my natural ability really and working to the maximum of my limits. I mean, working with Mike and with Neal and they’re pretty fast and furious people and I had to brush up on my licks a bit and keep my head focused on the music, because it was a very quick thing. I mean, I was up to it,  but the speed, the speed that we worked at was phenomenal with Transatlantic. Again with Kino, it was more inspirational then it was with Marillion in so much that I just go along and play. I’m not really worried about what I was playing and whether it was right for the song. I just went on feel and, you know, you’re right, it’s got more of a mainstream edge to it. There is kind of a slight new, new wavy punk edge to it that John Mitchell brings with his guitar playing, which I like actually. I like that.  I’m hoping it can crossover a bit and have a bit more, be accessible to more people than just the progressive audience. I think it has that ability, but I guess it’s really like the four guys in the band are with progressive music.
 
 JT: Yeah, I’m going to jump between these bands a little bit, because I hold each one of these bands in high regard. So, I kind of want to spread it out a bit. {he laughs} Just talking about Transatlantic and the songwriting process, I heard a rumor that the second album, you were a lot more involved in the songwriting process.
 
 I was.
 
 JT: How were you involved more?
 
 Well, what happened with the second album, well, the first album I’ve never really written any stuff for anybody and so I just went along and I more or less played on Neal and Roine’s songs, and I brought a few things with me that I had in the back of my mind, but I hadn’t sat down and written songs for it whereas with the second album I sat down and purposely wrote passages of music that I thought would be good and I could imagine Neal playing some of the keyboard parts and I could imagine Roine with a couple of guitar melodies that I had in the back of my mind, so I sat down and thought a lot about it and I wanted to have music, not as much as Neal or Roine, because I’m not as prolific as them and I was learning cause with Marillion it’s a different process completely, but with Transatlantic I sat down and wrote the music for the second album.
 
 JT: Just to let you know, the second album is my favorite album of all-time.
 
 Yeah.
 
 JT: So, whatever you were doing on that, continue to do it.
 
 Oh, cool.
 
 JT: To talk about Marillion a little bit, I’ve always wondered how you came up with the name Marillion. I suspect that this might come from Lord of the Rings.
 
 Yes it did. It comes from Tolkien, Silmarillion was a book by J. R. R. Tolkien and obviously he penned Lord of the Rings, which was a bigger and more successful and a more interesting book as far as I can remember. Anyone who has ever read Silmarillion probably didn’t get to finish it {ironically, this is one of the few books I started and never finished}. {I laugh} I think it wasn’t his most popular, but it was an interesting name and it was chosen before, the name Silmarillion has been around since about 19, let me get this right, 1978, ‘77, was when the beginnings of the band started to form and it was formed by Mick Pointer and a bass player called Doug Irvin, who interestingly enough was a roadie for me in another band I was in and, I was in a progressive band back in 1975 and he was a roadie for it. Anyway, as the band formed into being a proper band and Fish joined the band from Scotland, the Sil got knocked off and it just became Marillion and then Mark joined in ‘81. I joined in ‘82. Fish joined in ‘79, late ‘79 or something and we signed a record deal in ‘82, so I was only in five minutes before we were living it, loading it up in luxury, I was quite lucky really. They’d all done the hard work of slugging around in a van. I just turned up and signed it; {he chuckles} signed the paperwork.
 
 JT: You just came out with a brand-new album with Kino, but right before that you came out with an album with Marillion called Marbles, which is a pretty big release.
 
 Yeah.
 
 JT: I was listening to it and it’s a very interesting album. Is Marbles actually a concept album?
 
 Well loosely, yeah, I guess it is a bit loosely.
 
 JT: What’s the concept about?
 
 Well… {he laughs}
 
 JT: What’s the theme?
 
 There’s a few things that are just interwoven I guess, just the madness of the world really is one thing and the craziness of what was happening in the Middle East really and the consequences that it would have worldwide, how that affects humans and how, on a personal level, it affects people on a personal level, that kind of thing, the way that a lot of societies are becoming more violent and why a lot of people are feeling less secure in their homes particularly in Europe. I don’t know whether that’s the same in America, but people are feeling unsure about what’s going on and how safe they are in their homes and in their cars and that, that causes kind of an adverse behavior patterns with, within people and there’s a lot of chaos it seems that, that happens as a consequence really of our world leaders not sitting down, and I think it’s a scary world out there and I guess all of that is kind of around the songs on Marbles.
 
 JT: Is there any plans right now for another album from Marillion?
 
 There’s plans for recording sessions. I mean, the Marillion album, we spent about three, three or four years on that album and we sat down at the beginning of it. We came off tour from an album called Anoraknophobia and we decided that we couldn’t really afford to take any time off and we should get straight into the studios and start writing the next album and that was a bit of a mistake  and it caused a lot of anxiety and a lot of problems actually within the band and unrest, but eventually we started writing good music as opposed to just coming in and, and nothing happening everyday and over the process we came up with some amazing music, in fact, we wrote far more music than we really needed because we, we gradually learned how to enjoy ourselves together again and, and what had become a painful process ended up being a very enjoyable one, but because of it and because of the length it had taken and what we’ve been through, we decided that after that, we should maybe not put ourselves through that barrier of having to just write a whole album at one time, so what we’ve done for this year and possibly early next year is to schedule small amounts of recording time for ourselves and just write a few songs and record a few songs at a time as opposed to sit down and alright we’re going to write an album now, because that’s pretty tough.
 
 JT: Speaking of Anoraknophobia, you’ve got a song on there, This is the 21st Century.
 
 Yeah.
 
 JT: I really like that song. I think the words that you choose on that song are just perfect and it really hits a nerve.
 
 It does, doesn’t it? Some of the songs on Anoraknophobia are starting to point in the direction of Marbles, but Marbles is a much more melody-driven album I think and I think it hits a nerve.
 
 JT: The words are kind of poetic and it’s kind of hard to figure out what you guys are talking about. Can you explain that song to me? What are you really singing about?
 
 What The 21st Century?
 
 JT: Yeah.
 
 {he pauses, I chuckle} It’s about how people have evolved so much that they forget about feelings. They forget about, you know, everything is broken down into science these days, isn’t it?
 
 JT: Yeah.
 
 And you can try and explain everything including emotions and how people are born and, and how you can go to a sperm bank, you don’t have to have a relationship with anyone to actually survive in the 21st century, but that’s bothered me, because that’s what people desperately need and that’s kind of where The 21st Century is coming from.
 
 JT: I get a chill down my spine just thinking about that song. There’s just something about that song. It’s one of my favorites from Marillion. To switch gears here, you do have a fabulous new project called Kino. I want to talk about that a little bit. That is quite amazing.
 
 Thank you.
 
 JT: I first want to ask you, like where does the name Kino come from?
 
 Kino means cinema in German, which is where it comes from in fact, as our title, because one of the names that we thought up for the name of the band was Cinema and all though I thought it was quite a good name, because music is quite cinematic and I could kind of relate to where the name cinema was coming from. I felt it was a dated word and I didn’t want the band to sound dated cause we’re not, we’re not the youngest band around at the moment {I laugh} and I just wanted us to have a bit more edgy name, a bit more interesting name, so I simply changed Cinema to the German word for cinema, which is Kino.
 
 JT: Oh, okay.
 
 But, interestingly enough it’s got some cool meanings in other languages, for example, in Japanese it means yesterday, which I didn’t know, so that’s pretty cool, but it stops of us from sounding like some old prog band from England, really, {we laugh} which is what I didn’t want us to sound like.
 
 JT: The band does have a youthful modern sound to it.
 
 We try, yeah, I mean, we were trying to do that. We were trying to have an edge to it, an approach that would help.
 
 JT: We talked about this earlier. It’s like a slice of the mainstream and a chunk of the progressive. Was this actually the intention or did it just turn out this way?
 
 Nothing was forced, but it was always an intention to try not to be too overly progressive.  I mean, if you look at the names, you probably expect it to be progressive, but we wanted it to be commercially acceptable really, acceptable to people that weren’t necessarily into progressive music, because I think it would be nice if it had a wider appeal.
 
 JT: Sure, it definitely has that potential.
 
 Yeah, well, we’ll have to see how it does. It does have that potential.
 
 JT: I can’t help it, because Transatlantic is one of my favorite bands ever, but I have to ask, what was it like working with Mike, Neal, and Roine?
 
 {he starts laughing} It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun and a lot of headaches all at the same time actually. There was something. I knew when we started recording the first album. We were all sitting around the studio. We had only just said hello to each and that’s quite bizarre. As soon as we started playing together, it‘s like, yeah, there’s something going on here, and you couldn’t help but be excited about what we were doing. We sort of knew we were making history, really.
 
 JT: It definitely comes across in the music. You can tell you guys were having fun.
 
 Yeah, we were having fun, which is nice, it’s nice to do that and that was a very, very different process. With Kino, everything was recorded separately. I don’t think we recorded two things together.
 
 JT: Really? That’s kind of strange.
 
 Well, it started out with myself and John. Originally, I found out about it through Thomas Waber of InsideOut records in Germany and he phoned me up after Neal left Transatlantic and asked me what I was planning to do in the future and he said do you fancy doing anything else and I said, yeah, I do and he said, well, do you have anything in mind and I said, well, I’ve always thought about doing a solo album, but another thing I’d like to do is work with John Beck and he said that’s interesting, because I’ve got John Beck and John Mitchell working together on an album for me. Would you be interested in joining in? I said yeah and the upshot was that I went around to John Mitchell’s house. He lives about an hour from me and he’s got a studio and we went in there and he played me stuff that he had. I played him stuff I had and we started working and we’d meet up about once a week for ages as this was and we’d demo songs in amongst discussing when John Beck would be able to join us, whether John Beck actually existed. {he laughs} I mean I knew he did. I know John Beck from It Bites, because they used to support Marillion back in the eighties and he’s a phenomenal player and a great musician and we were just kicking our heels doing bits and pieces while waiting for him to join us really and then John got in, John Beck came off tour with Alan Parsons and got involved and helped us arrange some of the songs we had. We kicked some of the songs we had out and he brought some songs in and we’d record one bit at a time, never together and eventually we were in a stage where we got Chris Maitland in to play drums. I think that was the only time we were ever in the same room.
 
 JT: Wow.
 
 We couldn’t record the drums and any other instruments at the same time, because of the constraints of John’s studio, but we recorded the drums to the demos that we had and then we replaced all of the parts separately after that, and I still never played with Chris Maitland yet in Kino, which is a shame, because I’d love to. He’s a great drummer, but there is a very different way of working with Kino. Again it was interesting and quite laid back. We did most of the recording after the drums were done. Most of the recording was done in John Mitchell’s living room. We had to watch about, he’s got a lovely parquet-wooden floor in his living room and we had to be very careful of not scratching it and we were lugging equipment in, flight cases and stuff, so it was a strange way to record an album, but a lot of fun.
 
 JT: We’ve talked about how you met the people in Kino and you kind of explained how you fit into Marillion, but how did you actually get involved in Transatlantic?
 
I got an email forward to me from Steve Hogarth cause years ago, Dream Theater did a concert at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London and what they did is they invited a lot of their influences on stage with them as a kind of like this is where we started kind of thing, to show the fans what they’ve been influenced in, and how it’s helped their music and they’ve got Steve and Steve up from Marillion cause I think they’ve all been quite influenced by Marillion and when they were talking about what songs would go on the album, blah, blah, blah, and whether they’d use a Marillion song, how it would all work out, it must have been one of the emails, he put by the way, I’m putting together a project, and I’d love to have Pete play bass and so Steve Hogarth forwarded it to me and everyone in Marillion agreed that it would be a really good thing for me to do, which is nice actually, because it took the pressure off of me actually going to say, hey look guys, you know, uh, would anybody mind, um, if I took a few months out to do some work with another band cause, you know, they’d never say no. We never say no to each other in Marillion, we’re just too nice, but I wouldn’t want to be put in a situation where they’d feel like I was just doing something that I shouldn’t really, so anyway, I said yes. I said, yeah, I’d love to and Mike sent me some details, he told me that Neal Morse was the keyboard player and originally it was going to be another guitarist who couldn’t do it apparently and Roine, Roine got involved and Roine had sent me some of his demos and Neal sent me some of his demos and I remember Neal played, on one of Neal’s demos, I can’t remember which one it was now, it might have been the song we didn’t use and there was a bass solo and he gave me a note that said sorry about the bass solo {I laugh}, please ignore it.
 
 JT: Yeah.
 
 But, I thought it was really, really good and I was thinking bloody hell, now I’m going to have to learn, I’m probably going to have to learn that and, um, so I phoned up Mike and I said Mike are you sure I’m the right person for this cause I’m not the kind of technically, I know what Mike’s like, he’s a furious musician, he is an unbelievable drummer and I just wasn’t sure if I was up to it really, Mike reassured me and said no, what I’m after is the, you know, the melodic. I really love what you do in Marillion and I just want you to bring that along and it worked really well, but I did brush up on my playing. I practiced a bit more, but it was good for me to be pushed in that way for a bit.
 
 JT: Definitely. I promise this is the last Transatlantic question, but how do you feel about having a Transatlantic reunion?
 
 How would I feel about it?
 
 JT: Yeah.
 
 I think there is a time and a place for it. I don’t think it’s soon, {I laugh} I mean, I’d love to. Personally, I’d love to. In my heart of hearts I’d like to think that there is a time that we can get back together, you know, there’s the four of us or maybe the four of us with other musicians, I don’t know, but I think the nucleus should be the four of us.  I was surprised when Neal left Spock’s Beard, but I wasn’t really surprised when he left Transatlantic cause it did get a bit tough in Transatlantic and although we had a lot of fun, there’s a lot of times when it wasn’t as much fun as it should have been and, I think it would be nice if we could work together in the future, but maybe leave it a few years.
 
 JT: Talking about your new album, I like all the songs on there and I’d like to find out what you’d say is your favorite song on the new album Kino Picture?
 
 Well, I’ve been asked this a lot actually and my favorite moment on the album I think is Picture, because it’s so simple and it’s perfect, it’s an art form doing that, and it’s something that John Beck brought to us and that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to work with John Beck, it shows off what his ability is, as a writer, arranger, and visionary of music really, but as a track, I guess Telling You, Telling Me to tell you is probably, I’m very proud of that one.
 
 JT: Okay.
 
 Although it is not mine. It’s a John Mitchell inspired song that one.  I like it on that album, it’s got a bit of a more commercial side to it I guess. I quite like that.
 
 JT: Who would you say are your musical influences?
 
 Paul McCartney is a huge influence on me. I learned to play guitar to The Beatles when I was about seven and I learned to play bass to stuff like Revolver and Sergeant Pepper and Rubber Soul even and it was later on when I discovered things like Fragile and Close to the Edge by Yes and a bit of Genesis and then, you know, that’s when I put a bit more work in on the bass lines then, but it was Paul McCartney and I still go back to that melodic start of bass playing most of the time actually.
 
 JT: Okay and how did you decide that you wanted to become a bassist?
 
 I wasn’t good enough to be a lead guitarist in my band. {we both laugh} At the tender age of 12, I decided that if I wanted to stay in the band, I should change instruments, so I changed to bass guitar.
 
 JT: Okay and I just wanted to ask you, can you think of any Spinal Tap moments that occurred in any of your bands?
 
 Oh god… {I laugh} loads, loads, loads… we had… what can I tell you?… with Marillion, first gig we did with Steve Hogarth, we arrived in Lyon Airport, flying from London, and the guy that was supposed to pick us up in a van crashed the van and then he, the van got kind of fixed, but he couldn’t find the way into the airport and it took him about two hours and then we got to the show. We were, we were rehearsing, supposed to have a rehearsal for the show, which was going to be the next day. So, we’d been traveling all day to this place and they closed down the catering. It was our catering that we paid for, but they, the caterers, had fed all of the crew, which had been sitting around all day waiting for us and then packed up and so there was no food there for us when we had got there and that’s a bit Spinal Tap isn’t it?
 
 JT: Yeah, definitely.
 
 And, uh, with Transatlantic, um, we got into a hotel room in Frankfurt at about 3 o’clock in the morning and when they finally managed to allocate this room, it was like middle of winter, and there was no heating on the floor that they’d given us, so we were freezing cold. It was the first hotel room we had on the tour. We’ve been on tour for five days on a bus and we were really, all really looking forward to having a room in a hotel and there was no heating.
 
 JT: Wow!
 
 I don’t even think there was any hot water either.
 
 JT: Huh!
 
 We all had to complain like hell and so there’s another Spinal Tap moment, um, …
 
 JT: These last questions….
 
 I don’t think we had one yet with Kino, but there’s time.
 
 JT: That’s probably just around the bend. These last couple questions we can go through really quick. They’re really fast ones and if you don’t know of anything off the top of your head just think of the first thing that comes to mind or if you can’t think of something, we’ll just move on, but what is the last CD that you purchased?
 
 Last CD I purchased , oh my god, can’t remember. See I don’t buy CD’s anymore and it wasn’t a very good one. {I laugh} You’d probably be ashamed. {I laugh again}
 
 JT: Okay, what is the last concert that you attended as a fan?
 
 You know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I haven’t been to a concert for years without me being involved in it.
 
 JT: Yeah, okay, I just have a list of favorites I’d like to ask you, but what would you say is your favorite album of all-time?
 
 Uh…
 
 JT: What’s the first album that pops into your head?
 
 Favorite album of all-time could well be The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis actually.
 
 JT: Okay, that’s a good choice.
 
 Amazing album. I’ve just rediscovered it on a Japanese import CD and it’s, it’s really stood the test of time well.
 
 JT: And, who would you say is your favorite band of all-time?
 
 That’s a hard one, isn’t it?
 
 JT: There’s so many good ones.
 
 Yeah. There are many good ones… Favorite band of all-time…
 
 JT: Just like what’s the one that you keep going back to? Who gets a lot of playtime?
 
 It’s a toss up between The Beatles and The Beach Boys actually.
 
 JT: Okay.
 
 One of each. I mean, that’s hard, because of all-time, you know.
 
 JT: You get a chance to hear that new one that was just released by Brian Wilson?
 
 No, I haven’t really gotten around to that yet. I’m still, I’m still plowing through the Led Zeppelin DVD, actually the four DVD set, Led Zeppelin, I’m still plowing through that.
  
 JT: Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans at this time?
 
 Just like to say thanks for taking the time to listen to us and if there is anything you’d like to know about Kino visit our web site KinoMusic.com.
 
 JT: Thanks for taking the time out to perform this interview. Hope I get a chance to talk to you again in the future.
 

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