It’s been over 10 years since their last studio album but Tyketto have finally released their latest album Closer To The Sun. Mick Burgess called up Danny Vaughn to talk about the making of the album and their forthcoming UK tour.
You have a brand new album, Closer To The Sun which has just been released. How do you feel about it?
I haven’t been this excited about an album release since Don’t Come Easy. There’s just a number of things that have fallen into place that we could never have predicted.
It’s been 10 years since your last album Reach. Why is the time right now for a new Tyketto album?
We had Covid and we were supposed to release an album around 2020 so that knocked everything off kilter for two years. Then post Covid, I had two key band members retire. So I had to decide whether to continue or not and if I did, I had to figure out how I’d do that and how I’d replace drummer, Michael Arbeeny, who’d been there from the start and guitarist, Chris Green. So I needed to find those guys but I thought the worst thing you could do was jump straight into the studio. I just said that we’d tour for a few years and get to know each other. I thought we’d continue like that until people started to tell us to stop messing about and to give them an album. We did like we did with Reach – we ran straight into the studio at the end of a tour so everyone was all fired up.
Who has been your main writing partner?
There’s a lot of co-writes on this album with Chris Childs and Harry both contributing music to this. “Starts With A Feeling” was co-written with Jim Peterik from Survivor. There’s also a co-writer called Ruben Demello who has written with me in the past. He’s involved in two of the best songs on the album, “Closer To The Sun” and “The Picture”. It’s a real mix. Plus it’s the first time we’ve recorded a cover on a Tyketto album.
What song have you covered?
It’s called “Harley’s and Indians” and it was originally a B-side by Roxette. I fell in love with it years ago. I played it to the guys and they loved it. I suggested recording it and using it as a B-side in Japan. It came out really well and I felt it just fit and went with the vibe of the album so we decided to put it on the album. Unfortunately it’s not on the vinyl as there wasn’t enough space for 11 songs.
How did you first hook up with Jim Peterik?
I first met Jim at the Frontiers show back in 2017 and we had a couple of nice conversations together. He said he’d recorded Tyketto’s whole set and he was kind enough to say that I could do justice to Jimi Jamison’s work in Survivor. He then asked me to do a song on one of his World Stage albums and we’ve stayed in touch since then. I kind of needed a kick start to this record and I had the phone number of one of the most published songwriters alive today so I thought I’d call him. Jim was up for it. You can tell that the song has that cinematic, larger than life vibe to it that he always brings to a song.
How does the way you work together differ from the way you wrote your first album way back in the early 1990s.
On the first one, you’re still trying to figure your craft out. We were all living together and playing hours and hours every day. Luckily we had good instinct as to what made a song work or not. Now, so much is done remotely. The good side to that is that we all have home studios so we can experiment more and we can iron out the bumps before we get to the studio.
Which song came first?
The last song on the record, “The Brave” and that was the hardest for us to write. I wrote a bunch of different songs and put a few of them out there and I thought some were more solo songs than Tyketto songs. Initially everyone thought “The Brave” sounded like a solo song so I though, OK. We put it to one side for a few weeks until Chris came along and said he’d listened to the demo again and thought it was a “bloody good song”. So we worked on it and it ended up as our first song.
What about lyrically. What sort of themes are you exploring on this new record?
Some of it is stepping back a bit. We never thought about making another Don’t Come Easy but what we did ask ourselves, is what was it about that record that keeps people coming back. They still want to hear those songs 35 years later. We wanted to capture that essence and distil it down and I think what it came down to was positivity. At a time when there’s so many negative things to write about, we thought we’d do an album that allowed people to escape from all of that.
There’s 11 new songs with 9 on the vinyl. Was that all of the songs you wrote during the writing sessions or is there some left to get a flying start for the next album?
No, what’s on the album is it. We decided that anything that wasn’t going to make the cut never got past the demo phase.
Where was the album recorded?
We started in Rockfield in Wales, where we did the drums and bass and a little bit of vocals there. We then went to Flip Flop in Wales and both of these studios have the benefit of having live in facilities so you get up in the morning, have breakfast and then go off to work in the studio. Then when you’re finished you come back and have dinner and watch some telly. I can’t imagine a better way to make a record where your focus is narrowed down to that.
Did you work with a producer?
It was produced by myself and Chris Childs.
This is the first album you’ve made with Johnny Dee on drums and guitarist Harry Scott Elliot. How was it working with them?
It was brilliant. Both in the studio and live they quickly locked into what Tyketto is all about. They understood how we feel about our fan base and how we treat people. Although it’s technically my band, everybody feels very much a part of it. They are all involved in decisions on everything from merchandise to where we play. They care and that brings a lot to the band.
It must have been strange making a record without Michael Clayton as every Tyketto record you’ve made has featured him on drums?
It was very strange. Johnny and Mike are very different players. When it came to Johnny learning the songs, he’d talk to Mike and speak drum. Mike would tell Johnny how to play and how certain things went. It was a really nice way of passing the torch.
Johnny Dee is a great replacement. Where did you first cross paths with Johnny?
That was 41 years ago. Johnny was Waysted’s drummer. We met in Rockfield studios in 1985.
What about Harry? Where did he first come to your attention?
I met Harry at one of the Hard Rock Hell festivals when he was part of Kane’d. They gave me a copy of their CD and we talked a lot. I really liked them and we got on well. They opened for Tyketto on the 25th Anniversary Tour of Don’t Come Easy. I watched their shows and I always make a note of musicians and I thought Harry was a great player. We did a DVD project called We Got Tomorrow We Got Tonight, where we stripped everything back. Kane’d were involved again as the sisters sang backup vocals. Harry and Chris got on like a house on fire and we found out he was a big Tyketto fan. When Chris retired I asked if he thought that Harry would be a good replacement. He said he was absolutely the right man and it only took a quick phone call and he was in the band. Harry has a remarkable ear. He’s such a natural. He knows a lot about music and gear. He’s not musically trained in theory but he has a natural ability to know what is right. He just gets it
You’ll be touring the UK next month. Are you looking forward to that?
I am very much looking forward to that. It’s going to be a great triple bill with Warrior Soul and Collateral. When we toured recently with Uriah Heep and April Wine in the UK we reached a lot of people who didn’t know who we were and we received a lot of positive comments. It’s great when you can play to your own fans but also to expand as well. That was such a fun, relaxed tour and I hope you can play with them again.
Have you any thoughts on the setlist?
We always wonder how many new songs to inject into the set. I’m going to be bold and say we’ll do four new songs but they won’t be the same four every night. We’ll rotate them and see how the audience reacts and take it from there. We’ll be doing a couple of deep cuts too. We’ll also be doing ‘Burning Down Inside’, which is one of the standards, that we didn’t do on the last tour and got a lot of shit for it so that’s back in. You can’t do them all but we’ll try to make sure we play a good mix so everyone is happy.
Where will you be heading after the UK tour is over?
We’re about to announce a co-headlining tour of Europe with another band that we’re very excited about. That will take us to a number of places we’ve never played before like in Eastern Europe. This will be the most shows in a year we’ve played in decades.
What about the rest of the year. What are your plans going forward?
We have two festivals in Sweden. We’re also playing the Steelhouse Festival in the UK. We’ll also be coming back to the UK at the end of the year to hit up some of our favourite spots just to see the year out.
Tyketto’s UK Tour starts in Cambridge on 13th April.
Closer To The Sun is out now.
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