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Lighthouse Family
April
1996 Interview | November 1996 Interview | Discography
On November the 11th -96, Paul
Tucker and Tunde Baiyewu returned to the Swedish shores, this
time to perform at Gino, a club in Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden. The Lighthouse
Family's album "Ocean Drive" has now sold double platinum
(750.000 copies) in the U.K. and just keeps on selling. Their single, "Lifted",
has topped several European charts, including the Russian (!), things which most likely
would affect about anybody's ego. Tormented by a toothache -after having pulled out a
wisdom tooth the day before- Paul may not have been as talkative as the first time I
interviewed him, but he was every bit as affable and down-to-earth. My first question to
Paul was naturally what he and Tunde had been up to, since we last spoke in April.
-Well, we've toured three
times since then. We toured the U.K. in May and again in June with M-People, which was a
stadium tour. We've put out "Ocean Drive" and "Goodbye Heartbreak" in
the U.K. What else have we done? It's been bonkers this year, it's been mental! We just
finished the tour of Germany last week, so we've been on tour for the last two months. We
have about four or five dates left on this tour, because we're just playing capitol
cities, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Madrid, you know? Next week I have to go to America, but
after that I have a week off. That'll be my first week off since July and I really look
forward to it.
You talked about
"building the foundations properly in the U. K. and Europe" before going to the
States.
-Yeah, the thing about America is, we're just setting up the promotional side of it and
we've got a very strong springboard in the U.K. now, I guess. The record's now gone double
platinum and that gives us a lot of cards in our hands for America, really. You can't
expect anything, though. It's something you have to do a lot of work on. You can't just
put a record out in the States and expect it to walk. We're starting on that now.
Has the album been
released in the U.S., yet?
-No, we're not gonna put it out there until next year. Obviously, you can get
"Ocean Drive" on import, same way you can get American imports over here, but
the singles were out in America and they've done well in the clubs in Miami, Los Angeles
and New York. And all of the feedback is good. It's a question of time, but as I said, you
have to have a plot for the whole place. When you're talking about fifty something states,
you know? It's a big place.
So what are you up
to after finishing this tour?
 - Well, I've got a little bit of recording
to do in December. I'm gonna be in the studio for a couple of weeks, tightening up some of
the song writing for the next album. After Christmas we're gonna record the next album,
until March. After that we're gonna be playing live and touring again and I think we're
probably gonna spend a lot of time in America. That's the way it's looking at the moment.
I can't see any daylight until 1998! (laughs).
The next question
is rather silly, but I'd like to know if life has changed for you since you became
successful?
-Mmmm.. I'm an awful lot busier. The answer is yes. I can afford to get the
equipment I need, you know, for what I wanna do, musically. I don't have to fight anymore.
Obviously, you have to maintain the standard, but I don't have to struggle to get things
through. When you have success, people pay a lot more attention to you, what you're saying
and what you wanna do. But as far as the whole "rock'n'roll circus" and the
money thing is concerned, we didn't want that to change, anyway. We were quite happy as we
were. We're essentially the same people as we were before we got successful, except a few
of the details has changed. And it's funny, after what I just told you, one of the things
that I've always thought that success would buy you was loads of time. Well, it doesn't,
it's completely the opposite. You don't have time for a lot of the things you wanna do.
But you will have, in due course. I don't worry about it that much.
Well, I don't
think it seems like fame and fortune has changed you.
-Aww, bless you. I think that's part of the spirit of Lighthouse Family, really.
I mean, Lighthouse Family is about many things, but one of the main things is really
trying to get the best out of life, independently of your situation. Both me and Tunde
have both been in situations where we've haven't been that well off and we've been happy.
For different reasons and at different times, we've had no money, but we've had a
brilliant time. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but I guess if you can remember that,
you'll be able to think that money and happiness doesn't necessarily relate. I think
that's a large part of it and that's what Lighthouse Family is supposed to be about. Live
life to the full and to sort of, people first. The people around you first, money second.
Of course we need to be successful to be able to continue doing what we do, but we're not
in this for the money or the glamour, we're in it because we love it.
 Another thing we talked about last time was Linslee Campbell, the guy who
remixed "Ocean Drive", "Lifted" and the new "Goodbye
Heartbreak" single. I still can't get over how different his street-orientated, funky
and vocoder-laden remixes of the songs are, compared to the album versions. Doesn't it
confuse a person who may hear the Linslee remix on the radio and then buys the entire
album, thinking that it sounds like the remixes, all the way through?
-(Laughs). The thing is yeah, OK, Linslee's mixes has got a street sound, but the album's
really got a soul sound. It's funny that you should say that, because I was talking to
some people at Kiss FM in London, which is a black station, and a few of them said that
they got into the album via the Linslee mixes, which is exactly what they're for. I've
heard this from other people as well and it's really a good thing. It's kinda like taking
the music into a territory, where it might not have got otherwise, just letting people
know about it. And there's another remix. We're just about to release "Loving Every
Minute" in December in the U.K. and C&J, Cutfather and Joe, did the mix and it's
absolutely superb, really great. But the thing about the C&J remix is that it's more
in the middle, sort of a cross between the Linslee radio-street type sound and the
Lighthouse Family sound.
 So,
does this mean you won't be working with Linslee again?
- Well, we thought that we've done three tracks with Linslee and we don't wanna be looked
to, kinda, churning out the same thing, you know? It's not that we don't wanna work with
Linslee again, it's just that, at that point, we thought it was time for a bit of a
change. We'll probably do some more work with Linslee on our next album.
Speaking of which,
I understand that you're nearly finished with the pre-production of the next album and
that you're looking for producers? You mentioned Arabella Rodriguez in April, is that
still on?
- Last time I spoke to you, we had just done some tracks with her and we've done some more
tracks with Arabella since. We've got about ten tracks together for the next album and
we're gonna do about another four or five. We won't use all of those, we'll probably end
up with another ten track album. But the other tracks will probably end up as extra
tracks. We've worked with Bella a lot and what we're gonna do is just put the best team
together for the album, at the time, and take it from there. So if it's Bella, it's Bella,
if it isn't, it isn't, you know? I'm good friends with Arabella, so she's gonna be cool
one way or the other, I think.
Are you talking to
anyone in particular?
- Yes, but I'm not going to tell you,.though (laughs). Not because I don't want
to, but I don't wanna spoil the surprise and there's always the possibility that these
things don't happen, so... I'm always like that. My mother used to say to me "don't
break the spell". When we got offered a record deal, for instance, I never told
anybody until we signed it. That way you don't end up with egg on your face. So until it's
cast in stone, I'm gonna keep my hat on it.
 What will the next album sound like?
-What everyone that's heard the stuff has said so far is that you can tell straight away
that it's the Lighthouse Family. And that you can tell it's the second album as well, that
things have moved on from the first and that's what we wanted. It's the same Lighthouse
Family hallmark, but we wanna make a better record, if possible. I really like the first
album, I'm proud of it and there's nothing on it that I would change, but we wanna make a
better record and move on. I'm excited about it, there's a lot of stuff on it that I love.
How do you cope
with the pressure of trying to come up with a platinum seller like "Ocean
Drive"?
-I don't worry myself too much with things like that. I think that might rock the
boat a little bit. I'm more interested in just making a record that I love myself. If I do
that, then I'll be all right, you know? It worked for us the first time and we haven't
changed from the way we were then. And we've tried to avoid that whole "rock'n'roll
circus" thing, I don't think that's very inspiring. But it's easy to get wrapped up
and forget what you're there for, but we've tried to just protect our lives, as normal
persons. It's all about enjoying the benefits, but remembering who you are, I suppose.
The Lighhouse Family's second album
"Postcards From Heaven" was issued in October '97. The ten tracks were all
produced by Mike Peden. |
