KTSM News – Wishbone Ash on tour in Las Cruces 50 years later

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Legendary 70s British rock band Wishbone Ash singer and guitarist Andy Powell talks life on tour and rock music ahead of Las Cruces concert on their “Live Dates Live” tour.

Best known for hits like The King Will Come and Persephone and their revolutionary twin lead guitar harmonies, the band will be in the city of crosses on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the Rio Grande Theatre.

Over the years, Wishbone Ash has been a musical influence on many other notable bands such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Van Halen and many others.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Andy Powell caught up with KTSM’s Karla Draksler ahead of their performance in the Borderland.

K: How’s the tour going so far. You are in Texas now, right?

A: Yeah, the show is going fine. I mean, our tours always go fine. We we’re one of the hardest working bands we tour all over the world. Like just for example, we just finished up a month-long tour of Great Britain and we were in there. We were in Portugal, and now we find ourselves traveling through the south. We don’t tend to come here as often as, say, the Northeast, but we were all over the world. In fact, Europe obviously has a stronger market, as they say, for a, we are a European a British band, but always happy to come, especially when the weather’s nice, you know.

K: You’re going to love it in Las Cruces then. Have you ever been to Las Cruces, El Paso area before?

A: Yes, but minimally, somebody informed me that, and this is embarrassing, and a bit sad, but the last time we played Las Cruces was 50 years ago with the original band, which is I mean, firstly, it’s bizarre to have a band that’s been a band for 50 years, but we are one of those classic rock bands from the early 70s. It’s slightly different lineup now. Obviously, I’m one of the original members, but yes, so actually bizarrely, it’s to the exact day. We looked it up in the archives and it’s 50 years to the day that we were in your wonderful city.

K: That’s amazing. And looking back right now, you guys are celebrating the 50th anniversary of your first live album as well. How does it feel just looking back and you’re still here, making music?

A: All the just the technology front, I wouldn’t be doing this talking to you right now on Zoom. You know, there were no cell phones, there was no Internet. And if you can imagine touring in those days, we used maps, so, yeah. Coming out in the sixties. The band was formed in 1969 and it was a big adventure. I mean, when I first started touring America, the distances would seem so far from where I was born in England that we didn’t even dare use the telephone because making a telephone call was so expensive.

So, we would send our loved ones with telegrams, and it was: “Everything’s fine. Stop. Be home in six. We still love you. Bye.” It was like that. But it was, it was all a big mystery. And when we first started touring the United States, there was no real infrastructure set up for bands.

There were a few clubs obviously. But you know, as far as doing the bigger shows, which we were doing in those days, the stadiums, the technology is nothing like it is now. And it was just a little PA system hanging from the center of the Houston Astrodome or something, you know, and you go on there, and you’ll be playing to a lot of people.

But the sound obviously wasn’t so great. And so, we actually contributed a lot to that because we, we brought over our own English equipment. And so, we were able to work with the American sound crews and produce better shows. And we certainly cut our teeth touring the United States because we had an American manager, American record label. So, it was important that we be here. And in point of fact, I actually ended up moving to the United States. So, I must love it. It must have something on offer for me. You know, as an Englishman.

K: You were mentioning changes in technology, looking back to the 70s for instance, what are some of the differences that you’re seeing right now in regard to rock music or maybe rock bands? What do you think has changed?

A: Well, in the seventies and eighties, rock was the musical culture. It was rock. And then a little bit of everything else on the perimeters. Now, rock is a niche market and there are, is still I mean, for example, heavy metal is a big market, but many other forms of music. I mean, the biggest thing going right now is Taylor Swift. Obviously. I mean, you know, you cannot ignore the phenomenon of women in music. That was not such a thing in the seventies. Hardly a thing. I think it was one band in the 1980s that had a female bassist. But I can’t remember. It was Talking Heads.

You know, so big changes in the way and I think it’s fantastic, you know, so it’s a multiracial, multi-sexual, multi everything and last fabulous for the creativity that is music, but rock, classic rock we find that we play it’s more of a niche market in this country.

When we first started touring the United States, there was FM radio and Internet. Radio was rock. So, you know, we had we had the best of it. We were very spoiled, and we just thought it would go on forever. But it did go on for a very many, many decades. And the fact that people still come to the shows, and they still love what a band like us can produce, which is quality music. I mean, our trademark is the twin lead guitars, you know, and these classic albums, you know. And so, there’s no shortage of possibilities to go and play. You just have to adapt with the times. And I’m really good at that.

So, you know, I’m happy to be here and happy that, I mean, I don’t see a problem that things change. I’m not one of those old, curmudgeonly people that goes, “Oh, well, it was better in my day.” No, no, no. It’s just different.

K: And what can people expect to hear in Las Cruces?

A: Well, currently, as you mentioned earlier, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of this well-known live album, Live Dates. So, we’ll be playing that album, which was a double album back in the day, recorded on the Rolling Stones mobile in 1973. So, we’ll be playing the album live on stage.

And, you know, we actually also produced a recording of the way that we would play it these days, and that’s called Live Dates Live. We’ll have that on the road with this so that that will be the basis of the show. This whole year is based around celebrating that release. And yeah, it’s almost as if I’m going back repeating my career again, which is really strange, but yeah, so that’s it.

It’ll be all the classic songs that the people know and love, because that album really crystallized a selection of music that was really three years in the making before that. And so, if you believe that people coming onto these shows that I actually haven’t seen you for several decades and I didn’t even know you were out there.

They get a big kick from that because they can recognize because we’ve done many albums since then, you know, something like 26 studio albums, some people that haven’t kept up to date, they would know those albums.

I mean, they’re all fine albums, but it encourages people to go back and do a deep dive into the catalog and realize, “Yeah, this is a really a very vibrant band and the band is still making numerous new music”. So, with this this tour we are celebrating now.

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