Rick Wakeman is a classically trained pianist and Royal College of Music dropout - seduced by the world of rock 'n' roll. He was once a member of the Strawbs and a leading light in prog rock outfit Yes, with whom he will be touring later this year. More immediately he is touring with his band the New English Rock Ensemble and playing four dates in our region. His plan is to bring a little rock theatrics back into the smaller venues.
Rick's latest solo album is called Out There, inspired by space and dedicated to the seven astronauts who flew and perished in Columbia's final mission. He's intrigued by the unknown and speculates that music is another of the senses and may originate from a source in outer space. Sounds a little nuts when you see it written down and he's certainly been accused of being somewhere between an English eccentric and unhinged before, but the results are fairly intriguing.
"I like things that nobody can prove either one way or the other," he explains. "I love myths and legends and it occurred to me wherever you are there a loads of radio signals all flying about your room which you can't actually see and you can't touch them, but you turn your radio on and you pick one of them up.
"I was sort of working on the principle that if music was another sense, certainly for composers, we are sort of like the receivers and can tune in.
"It's a sort of semi-fun concept for the whole album, Out There, that started years ago. I did and album in 1976 called No Earthly Connection and everyone thought I'd lost the plot and gone out to live with the fairies. They all thought I'd had it because I was talking about things out in space.
"I've got lots of friends at Nasa, astronaut friends and it's intriguing to talk to them about what it's like to be out in space and the things that happen."
Rick made first contact with Nasa about 15 years ago. Former astronaut, now Nasa payload specialist, Scott Vangen attended one of Rick's concerts and introduced himself. He knew Rick was into space, had the No Earthly Connection album in his record collection and told Rick that they fired his music out into space. Rick's reaction; "I fell on the floor and said, 'Really?'. We just became really close friends and at a lot of concerts he brings fellow astronauts along and it's fantastic to sit and talk to these people. Their perception now of the world is totally different from ours. They come back incredibly peace-loving people.
"I sort of get the impression that they look back down at the Earth and within our own system it's the only known planet with life on. And they all seem to come back questioning why are we destroying it in so many ways? I think they realise what we've got when they're away from it and look down on it as a whole. It's fascinating to sit and talk with them, they're remarkable people."
Rick became a 'space cadet' at an early age. "I've got a picture of me somewhere aged seven or eight wearing a space suit that I got for Christmas," he reveals. "I've always been fascinated with space, with something that doesn't give any answers. It's just great fun to try to fantasise about what's up there.
What about the possibility of alien life forms? "My friends at Nasa think anyone must be incredibly naive to think that we are the only species of living creature in all of the universe....
Incidentally, I hasten to add my children are 100 per cent convinced that there is life out there and it will be arriving on Earth very shortly. The simple reason being that they want to get away from my music that's being fired out up there. My eldest boy, who's 31 now, said, 'I know what'll happen, all the little green men will arrive and go 'Oh, bloody hell, his music's here as well.'"
There has, for a long time, been a link between space and music - from Holst's Planets Suite through the soundracks of numerous sci-fi movies. On that link, Rick says, "Especially throughout the '70s most musicians were so spaced out they thought they were there anyway. There is a connection. Music is a strange thing, it's not something you can hold in your hand, it doesn't have a chicken or egg situation, it actually starts from nothing. Where does it come from? There are only 12 notes. Yes, there's a multitude of sounds, but there are only 12 notes to play with. It's pretty fantastic that as the years, decades, centuries go by, there's always new music coming along. It's pretty fascinating when you actually try to analyse it."
Mr Wakeman has a reputation for creating epic music and his latest album is no exception with the first track, albeit broken into six sections, lasting over 13 minutes. "I can't help it, it's terrible. I never say this is gonna be a two-minute piece, eight-minute piece, six-minute piece. I start the piece of music and the only time I know how long it is is when it's finished.
"Many years ago back in the '70s I was sitting talking to Elton John and Elton was saying to me, 'Oh, I'd love to write a big concept album' and I said, 'I'd love to write a three-minute single.' We've both agreed we do what we do. I don't ever sit down and think this is going to be a long piece. Maybe it's cause I enjoy myself once I get going I don't want to stop. It's always been like that. I can't help it."
It's not only the music that Rick makes a big production out of, he felt that to tour with the material from this album a big production set was required. He elaborates, "In the theatres back in the '70s everybody used to bring in production tours. You'd bring in your own decent PA, your own decent lights, you'd bring in your own special effects production stuff. That at all stopped over the last 15/20 years almost and the only production tours would go into the huge places like the NEC. The reason for that was financial more than anything else. And I always thought that it would be nice to bring back at least some of the production values back into theatres."
To do this with a chance of making it break even, Rick signed up to play 45 gigs in as many days. A gruelling enough schedule for a young rocker and certainly no mean feat for a man of 54 next month. Rick admits that it's suicide, but something that he really wants to do. Musically audiences can expect a mix of old and new stuff with a few surprises thrown in and the man himself promises a good stage show. Definitely a spectacle to catch.
The Out There Tour: Rick Wakeman + the New English Rock Ensemble are playing the Anvil, Basingstoke on Thursday. Performance: 7.45pm. Tickets: £15. Box office: 01256 844244
Also playing: Portsmouth Guildhall (Tuesday, May 6), City Hall, Salisbury (Sunday, May 11) and Pavilion theatre, Bournemouth (Tuesday, May 13).
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