Eugene Coyne

COUNTERSTRIKE

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CD ONLY

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Photo: Jonny Martin

COUNTERSTRIKE

My last album, CASTLE COYNE, was acoustic, a pastoral getting-your-head-together-in-the-country (well, South Norwood…) kind of thing with no electric guitars. COUNTERSTRIKE is aggressive, electric, warlike… it has its roots in a lucky find. Out walking my dog, I found an electric guitar and a small amp next to

a skip. Where I live, a lot of the houses have garages, and the new owners of one of these houses were busy gutting it - along with the garage, which used to be some kind of a rehearsal space. They were throwing away some interesting things.

It was starting to rain, so I picked up the guitar and amp and went home.

It was my first electric guitar since my teens, and after a little repair work (adding a pickup, sorting out the neck) I started to get into playing it.

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I quickly discovered that it was a lot easier to play electric than my

usual acoustic. I bought more guitars and some effects pedals, and

I started to experiment. After a while I settled on the whoosh guitar sound

that characterises COUNTERSTRIKE. I wanted to make something hard-edged, and the songs I began to write reflected that. I dug deep, rummaging through my head. Kiss’s DRESSED TO KILL, the prophecies of Nostradamus and Iggy and the Stooges RAW POWER (in particular James Williamson’s leap-out-of-the-mix guitar playing) were big influences, along with all the other weapons I like to deploy

- synthesisers, whispered vocals, repetition, etc. I drew on my surroundings, passing conversations and the dogs in Grangewood Park opposite my house - a big influence on my last album, too. I tried to work out what I was thinking and feeling. I believe in chance, and the subconscious. I tried not to correct myself too much. When I had the songs written, and I thought I understood them,

I went into the studio.

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Recording an album is an odd mix of organisation, hard graft, inspiration and good fortune. The proportions are variable. Recording COUNTERSTRIKE took a lot out of me, but then again, it didn’t. I was very fortunate, but I’d also left room for good fortune and chance to enter. There are a handful of things that really changed the way this album sounds, and I am thankful that fate intervened. It took longer than I’d anticipated, but really, it wasn’t that long at all - I just had to manage my money, wait for studio time to come free, and be patient.

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I’m very happy with COUNTERSTRIKE. I achieved what I intended. If you’re listening, please play it as loud as you can. It should be listened to from beginning to end - it tells a story. But if you don’t want to do that, it’s OK. The songs will stand on their own two feet. I should add that the cover is all part of it too. An etching of a favourite sculpture that I used to enjoy on school lunchbreaks at the Tate. Wrestling a serpent seems appropriate.

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Finally… It was my good fortune to record with Jon Clayton at OneCat Studio in Brixton, London. Jon has recorded all my albums, and he knows how I like to work. I never demo anything, so there can be dead ends and sudden breakthroughs. He’s very patient. Jon also played bass and synthesiser on COUNTERSTRIKE, as he has on my previous albums, and as usual brought plenty of great ideas and musicianship. Another big stroke of luck was recording with Dan Meier on drums. Dan is a fantastic musical companion - we play live as a duo, and it sounds great (I play solo, too). He did an amazing job on this album. We recorded all the basic tracks (guitar and drums) apart from Battle Ready in one short session, and he really rose to the occasion. Lovely percussion and sleigh bells too. Finally, I was very fortunate to have Hugo Martin play lead and some rhythm guitar on a few songs. He is such a great guitarist. I played with him in a band called Mean Vincent, but

I think I’d forgotten just how good a guitarist he was. He soon reminded me.

You can hear him all over COUNTERSTRIKE, making the songs sound better.

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Eugene Coyne