Interview: Troy Redfern

 

Photo credit: Adam Kennedy 

Ahead of the late-September release of Singer / songwriter and slide guitarist Troy Redfern’s latest album The Wings of Salvation, Rock Chic caught up with the man himself, exploring the influences on his approach to his latest venture.

 

Interview by Adrian Ball

 

Troy, I’ve been lucky enough to hear the new album which is out on 23rd September and think it's a stunner. Was there anything that influenced or inspired you for this piece of work?

 

From the last album, I felt I wanted this new one to be a bit more open, something that was a bit cleaner in the mix.  So when I approached Dave Marks about producing it, one of the first things I said I wanted was this to sound a bit different and we started talking about other bands, like  AC/DC - not the style but the presentation, quite a clean mix.  I mentioned Neil Young’s guitar tone too.  Dave had approaches I wouldn’t have thought of so it was great to get that flow going.

 

Did you find working with Dave pushed you in another direction?

 

Definitely good to work with someone with a different approach, it pushed me hard.  We started this album literally from scratch, we built the demo’s up, I knocked out numerous ideas, went through those and Dave got where we were going stylistically.  It was like having another band member in that kind of way. Ideas for songs moved quickly too.

 

The songs on the album seem to tell various stories, almost like a southern / country rock - was that an influence?

 

The hardest thing was writing lyrics in a short space of time.  This was quite an intense process and I’d lie in bed and keep leaning over to write down ideas for the songs and had to capture the ideas.  The storytelling is present in Dark Religion about someone leaving this country for a new life in America and Navajo when they were forced off their land, and I was also thinking about how some freedoms have been eroded. I wanted some narrative; it’ll seem like one story on the surface but also have another meaning too.

 

What else influenced you?

 

When I was starting off in the early days it was bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen and that “good time “ American rock ‘n’ roll, but also some of the blues artists. And Jimi Hendrix too.

 

With your guitar playing you're likely to be an influence too. How does this feel?

 

I hope the people just love playing the guitar more than the pressure to do something with it.  Same as an artist, do something you love that’s the core of it.  It's a great thing to do socially too.

 

You're out on tour later in the year with Dare, is that going to be solo?

 

That's a duo, drums and guitar.  It works really well. We did a couple with the Quireboys like that.  I enjoy that, having that beat. The drummer I’ll be touring with is Finn McAuley, he's a monster drummer. He has great energy and is so visual.  He’s fearless!

 

Are you doing a headline tour to promote the new album?

 

We are going out to Europe on 10^th Nov until 10^th Dec and then next year is being sorted as we speak, around May 2023.  Then we also play Winter's End festival in Feb 2023.  We’ve built up with various support slots and I think that's the right way to do it.