Folkmaster - Who's been your greatest musical influence and why?

I suppose it would be a mish mash of different people. I loved English traditional music when I was a teenager and didn't realise how much stuff I was listening to from the work of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan that actually had British roots. When I was about fifteen I went to Sidmouth and saw Martin Carthy who is here this weekend, and it bought it all back home to me. I developed this love for songs that tell stories and when I started writing songs I wanted to get involved in that story telling idea.

I was sort of side tracked in the 80's until '87 as I was playing rock and roll in London. When Phil and I got together we tried to get this idea of playing narrative songs, with acoustic instruments that had an almost rock-like energy in the way that we played. So, if you take that as an influence, then anybody that plays good rock and roll is there as a reference point like Peter Gabriel, Sting, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and David Bowie. People who can construct songs like Bruce Spingsteen, who is able to draw upon his American roots which forms the way that he plays rock and roll, even when he's playing acoustically you still get this sense of history there. For English musicians I think it’s harder to get a sense of where you’re from because our musical tradition isn't as alive as it is for the Americans, the Irish and the Scots.

To sum up your question, its narrative songs, rock musicians of various sorts and acoustic traditional music, mix them all up and hopefully that’s what we do.

Folkmaster - What I love about your music is that you bring in different instruments and inspirations from different nationalities and you force them into a traditional song from your part of the world.

Yes and hopefully we are not singing in American accents if we play slide guitar or South American Accents when we play the cuatro. We try and retain a sense that we are from the West of England.

Phil and I started off playing our music together in 1982/83 in this particular part of the country. The Gosport and Portsmouth area was crucial to our whole formative years. We tried to put all these influences together when we brought this approach to playing the pubs here at that time. When you are trying to play original songs in these environments and not the usual standard covers you have to have a bit of directness about you. That was where some of the songs that we will be playing tonight found their energy. For example, if you can't go down well at the Park Hotel or at Oliver's Bar in Gosport, to a free admission audience of bikers and sailors and general dogs bodies then you are going to have a bit of a problem but if you can go down well there then you know that your material will work.

Folkmaster - If you could be one person in history who would you be and why?

With the capacity to change things, gosh there are all the very worthy names like Nelson Mandela and people like that who are obviously forces for good.

Folkmaster - really close to your heart - first answer.

First answer would be Napoleon.

Folkmaster - I'm afraid you are going to have to explain that one now.

I will tell you why Napoleon is in the back of my mind. I had very much received the accepted English textbook version of Napoleon. The idea that you had the demons of history like Starling and Hitler through to Kaiser Bill and back to Napoleon. It wasn't until I read a recent biography that I realised how much humane law he was actually responsible for. Like the rights for women, the rights for slaves and trying to separate and get religion out of politics, which was the code of law that the rest of Europe basically adopted. I do accept that Napoleon had a lot of instability and megalomania in his character but at the same time had the most extraordinary amount of energy so I think his heart was in the right place.

Folkmaster - Where do you think the future of the Music Industry lies?

Its funny you should ask that, because we have spent the last few days agonising where we should take our particular brand of music.

Every sixteen-year-old kid with a guitar knows the ground rules. You learn to play, you write a song, it gets on the radio, you sell lots of records and you make a fortune. In a sense that is actually it. Now the ways that you do this are manifold, mysterious and many and full of disasters and pitfalls. Our problem is that we can't get radio and therefore the distribution through the high street shops. So out of that holy triangle of record company, radio and retail we cannot get the one that’s essential- Radio. We can only really spread our music to those people who come and see us live or to those people who bring their friends along to see us live, until the Internet.

It suddenly occurred to me that in the corner of most bedrooms, or sitting rooms people have access to our shop window. In that shop window they can read reviews, they can see pictures, they can sample our music and they can buy the stuff at a good 25% cheaper than they can in the high street.

So let's free our minds from this cosy little triangle of record companies, radio and shop and lets just say forget it all! Lets channel the same amount of publicity and advertising through that shop window and get the material we need. I think that when this way of marketing and selling music catches on, the existing structure of record companies, radio and retail shop is going to be blown apart, and long may it be so.

Folkmaster - What is your favourite movie and why?

Well, the one that’s in my mind at the moment is American Beauty, which seems to have this incredible unity of entertainment, plot and intelligence. It deals with so many issues. It's funny, it's dark, and it covers so many areas. The performances are fantastic. I think the script is almost flawless as is the Cinema-photography and the whole way it's constructed. I think it is American culture at its finest. I know it was a British director but if anything represents the art of movie making I would say that, it is this particular film because it touches you in so many ways.

Folkmaster - Can you tell me about the new Album?

The new Album is called Covers. Over the last ten years when Phil and I have played together, there's always been a handful of songs that we've done at sound checks or at those random gigs where anything seems to happen. We decided that we would put all of these songs onto the one Album. So you have music from artists like Jethro Tull, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan through to people like Nick Jones, John Richards and Ralph McTell. For example, we will go from a Radiohead song into a traditional Irish folk tune and think nothing more of it. Our message is that these "covers" are all songs of tradition in some way or other - Waterloo sunset as a folk song! You know, why not! We feel that it's a classic piece of Anglicana.

We have also decided to record not live but straight onto DAT so what people see when they come and see us play live is exactly the sound that they take home. Nothing's changed. Same reverb settings, same instrumentation, no over dubs or backing vocals and the feedback that we've been getting from our mailing list is, that's what our fans like.

Folkmaster - Show of Hands have built up a loyal following through word of mouth and I know that a lot of fans bring their friends along with them to your concerts.

I would also say that the recent concert at Port Isaac in Cornwall, which was mid-April, was a fantastic night. We played in a converted Wesleyan Chapel to an audience of people predominately involved with the local lifeboat rescue service.

It suddenly felt that all these things that we were talking about, like West Country music and being rooted came home. We do a song called "Cousin Jack", about the Cornish, and to play it in Cornwall to a Cornish audience was very moving. People are moved by these ideas. Songs like Tall ships are almost theoretical when you are talking about them in interviews but when you actually play them live and people connect with it you feel that you are doing something right after all.

Folkmaster - If you could use one of your songs to promote something, which one would you choose and why?

There was a song I wrote called The Shout, which is about volunteers. I made some friends amongst the Fire Service in West Dorset and with the chaps down in Port Isaac's as I mentioned earlier. These volunteers put themselves on the line everyday. They are recognised in various awards and culturally I think we are well aware that Fire service and the Lifeboat Men do a fantastic job.

I have heard many stories over the years about just how close that things get to tragedy in places like Port Isaac. For example, last year a boat was washed into a cave. The guys on board were clinging to the side of the boat and the tide was rising. All of their friends and relatives were on the cliff above and had no idea until the tide went out whether they would be alive or not. When these guys were explaining the story to me, it was like another day at the office for them and it makes me feel quite humble to think that they have come along to one of our shows and recognised something of value in our music.

Folkmaster - Was that the main content for The Shout then?

Yes it was. The second verse "There's a village that lies to the west, that went to the aid of some in distress". But the final verse of the Shout is about the disaster in Lime Bay when a school trip of teenage canoeists went terribly wrong. Without naming names and pointing a finger we wanted to say that this is what can happen if people don't take care and are not concerned about the outcome.

Folkmaster - When you are not involved with the band what do you spend your time doing?

I dither about and I have spent my time since Christmas getting to know my new iMac. I wasn't Internet and computer friendly until that point and have to say that they are wonderful machines.

I am also a bit of an excessive rugby union fan. I will go and watch a game anywhere, especially if Exeter is playing. I often will go to a local pub or even further afield to see them play. I am really into sports, surprisingly a lot of musicians aren’t. So I generally dither around on the Internet or try and write new material and music.

Folkmaster - Any venues that you haven't played that you would like to play?

We would love to do the triplet. We have done the Royal Albert Hall. It would be great then to also do the Sidney Opera House and Madison Square Gardens and maybe La Scala in Milan but I doubt they would book a couple of folkies.

Folkmaster - If you could sit to anyone famous at a Dinner party who would it be and what would you ask them?

I would quite like to sit next to Sting and ask him why he isn't more thorough with his grammatical construction. Some of the tenses in his songs are all over the place and as an ex-teacher I would like to ask him why he didn't get someone to just read the lyrics first. In fact I have done the same thing myself in Columbus "It would have been much better if the earth was flat". Someone told me today that's bad construction. "It would have been much better had the earth been flat".

Folkmaster - What was the first single you ever bought?

It was wishing well by Free. I was at Sixth Form College in Exeter. I had always loved Paul Rodgers voice and I think it was at the time that Paul Kossoff had left the band. Then I went back and bought the Album, it was the one that had My Brother Jake on.

The amazing thing is I have just introduced Free to a friend of mine who's about 14 years younger than me. I was trying to explain to her that there was a time when your boy bands not only looked great (Andy Fraser was 16, when he started playing the base) they played like men. They wrote fantastic songs, which weren't the computer queue up outside constructed pap that you get now. Free were genuine musicians that had done 3 years hard rock and roll on the road before their first single (like the small faces). The boy bands then not only looked good, they could genuinely do it and I think that’s an era that's probably gone forever.

My friend bought the Best of Free and the Travis albums and she thought that they were one of the same thing, the same continuum of fantastic music, except that in the case of Free they had written some of those tracks before they were Eighteen.

Folkmaster - What luxury would you take with you to a Desert Island?

I would take a David Olly Cello Mandolin and a case of Cloudy Bay, NZ Sauvignon Blanc and the ability to chill it so I could strum away on David's instruments and get thoroughly rat arsed and console myself.

Folkmaster - What's your favourite Pot Noodle?

I can't really answer that, I was in Thailand up to 2 weeks ago and we were getting the real thing on the beach. I haven't eaten Pot Noodle since I worked at a Car Garage in Crouch End in 1983. My job was to de wax cars before they went onto the showroom floor. The only thing I could eat at that time was Pot Noodles and those awful things called Dodo's, that acted as wake up pills. Pot Noodles and Dodos very much summed up my manic rock and rolls days.

Folkmaster - What's your favourite track or Album that you have written?

I am still very proud of Dark Fields especially our version of "Hi Germany" that goes into Molly Oxford with Kate Rusby, Chris Wood and Andy Cutting.

I would like to think that someday, somebody would describe it as "English Traditional Music captured at a certain moment". There is a point in the song where Chris comes in with the beginning of Molly Oxford, which makes my hair stand on end even now.

Folkmaster - If you could be remembered for one thing what would it be?

It would be nice to think that you leave a song behind that becomes part of funicular culture. As you know, we have done a lot of pub work in our early years and we know that you can play "Street of London", "American Pie" and "The Band play Waltzing Matilda" to an audience of working people and they will instantly recognise the song and get into it. It would be nice if you could leave one or two of those songs behind that became part of that tradition. Who knows what English music will be like in the many generations to come?

We know that in a public bar in Gosport they don't really want to hear the "Banks of Sweet Primroses" or "Hi Germany". However if you can actually get a song (the Beatles have done it) and feed it back into the tradition of the next generation then that would be an achievement. It won't be very lucrative but it would be an achievement.

Folkmaster - Do you feel you have got that song?

Maybe, Yes. Maybe, it's possible that "Tall Ships" and "Cousin Jack" will be contenders. If enough people keep singing then and playing them you know, but it’s a generations work, doesn't happen in 10 years.

Folkmaster - What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you on stage?

I went back and did a benefit concert at the School where I used to teach. Let me paint the picture, there were lots of kids, lots of parents and it was a very nice summers evening in Dorset. In the interval a woman came up to me and said "I am a Show of Hands Virgin and I think you are great". I know what she meant and I said "thank you very much". For some reason in the second half I said to the audience "Its great because this young lady came up to me in the interval and said "I am a Show of Hands Virgin" and I then said to the audience "I didn't know where to put myself". I then noticed that Phil was looking over at me as I continued to say "What I mean is she said that she was a Show of Hands virgin and I didn't know where to look, no I don't mean that". The more I said the deeper the hole got. Meanwhile Phil of course couldn't continue because he was laughing so much. So that was easily the most embarrassing thing that's happened to me on stage so far.

Folkmaster - What is the most outrageous thing you have ever done?

It's not particularly outrageous but I was driving through the back streets of Brighton with a friend of mind Bob Carter back in the Eighties. We were in this little road at the back of the Metropole in the car and I saw this Chef in his big Chef Hat put a huge roast turkey on the window to chill. I said to Bob "Stop the Car I am going to have that turkey".