Interview with Noel McCalla in Fulda (2000)

Although Smallcreep’s Day, Mike Rutherford’s solo debut, is one of the most popular albums by Genesis & Co., very few Genesis fans are likely to be familiar with the outstanding singer on this release, Noel McCalla. We met the friendly Englishman, who visually one would rather place in the reggae category, on August 18, 2000, in Fulda (Germany) before a concert by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, of which Noel has been a singer for quite some time, and asked him all the things that had been burning in our minds for years… and a few more.

GNC: Could you give us a brief overview of your musical career?
Noel: Well, I started my career when I was 16 with a band called Moon, which signed a contract with Epic Records and recorded two albums with them. I then made a solo album with the same record company. Shortly afterwards, I was invited to work with a band called Sniff’n The Tears, which was successful in Europe. After that, I met Alphonso Johnson, who also worked with Phil Collins, and I think Mike Rutherford was acquainted with Alphonso, which is how Mike and I got in touch. I was involved in various musical projects in different parts of Europe — in changing musical forms and styles: from jazz to blues to soul.

GNC: What is your family background?
Noel: My parents are West Indian. I was born in London and have lived there all my life. I have a large family: four boys and four girls, and I am the second youngest. While the older ones grew up in Jamaica, my brother and I were born in England. I have four children and live in London, north of the Thames.

GNC: When is your birthday?
Noel: I’m a Scorpio: November 4, 1956.

GNC: How did you get in touch with Mike Rutherford?
Noel: That came through Alphonso Johnson while I was touring America with Sniff’n The Tears — we were the opening act for Kansas, Kenny Loggins, and a few other bands. Alphonso called me and invited me to come from New Orleans to Los Angeles to audition because he had a few songs he wanted to finish. That’s when I found out that he and Mike knew each other, and that’s how it all started.

GNC: We heard that Genesis considered you as a replacement for Peter Gabriel after he left.
Noel: I don’t know much about that myself – except that it’s a rumor, because no one has actually contacted me about it. Maybe you can find out more from the band members themselves. Let me know if you do!

GNC: What can you tell us about the recording of Smallcreep’s Day?
Noel: It was the first time I had ever made a concept album. I had to work in sections, which was really new for me. David [Hentschel, editor’s note] sat at the mixing desk and had a plan with all the different harmony markings written down, and he said, let’s try this and that, and if it was OK, we moved on to the next section of the song. No song was ever recorded as a whole, but always in small sections, and sometimes I didn’t even know where I was in the song.

So it was pretty bizarre, but the atmosphere was very relaxed. It’s a great album. There are fans of the Earth Band and Genesis who come up to me and say it’s their favorite album. Even our tour manager says so. I was overwhelmed when I heard the finished album: the range I had to sing in — from songs like Between The Tick And The Tock, although that’s not so low, to Cats And Rats: [croaks high]. Cats and rats in this neighborhood… Sometimes I wonder if it was really me singing there? But it was really relaxed there in the studio.

You could sit outside and walk around, chat with the men in the workshop, and the whole team was very friendly. There was no stress. When I felt tired or my voice was fading, we would call it a day and continue working the next day. You could also stay overnight there.

GNC: Were the recordings done together with the other musicians involved in this album, such as Anthony Phillips, Morris Pert, and Simon Phillips — as a band, so to speak?
Noel: No, I recorded the vocals separately. That’s always how it is. Sometimes, as a singer, you come in at a very early stage and only have a very rough, unfinished backing track. In other cases, things are already more complete and it’s just a matter of adding the finishing touches. It was quite different here, too. But I didn’t see any other band members. That was good because the studio was never crowded and you could work with great concentration.

There was just Mike and the producer and another technician. So there were never too many distractions, and that contributed to the quality of the whole thing. The phone wasn’t ringing all the time, which can happen, so we worked hard — five or six hours a day or more.

GNC: So you enjoyed it?
Noel: Yes, very much so. This section-by-section approach was a new experience for me. Over time, I was able to hear some of the tracks mixed together, but I still couldn’t get a picture of how the album would sound as a whole because they were just individual “passages.”

GNC: So you were surprised by the album when it was released…
Noel: Absolutely, yes, also because the production was so good. Sometimes you think all the hard work could end up for nothing. That’s how it is sometimes: you work really hard on backing vocals, for example, and then they’re only very, very quiet on the album. But here, everything was there. It was great, and the hard work had paid off.

GNC: Was there ever any thought of touring with the album?
Noel: No.

GNC: What comes to mind when you think of Acting Very Strange? It was a completely different album, especially since Mike sang himself…
Noel: …yes, he sang himself, and I was surprised by that decision. I think when someone has been in a band for as long as he was in Genesis, you want to do your own thing the way you want to do it. And he just wanted to sing himself. But for me it was a bit sad, because I would have liked to continue what we had started. Well, I took on a lot of backing vocals, but I couldn’t tell him to let me sing this or that song. It would have been nice if I had sung a few songs and Mike had sung a few, so that the whole thing would have been a bit more mixed. That would have been more appropriate.

I don’t think it’s as popular as Smallcreep’s Day, and maybe the concept or the material isn’t as clear-cut. But that’s how it is with debut albums; the first album can be fantastic, but then you either don’t have the time or the energy to put something of equal quality together again. You’ve been working towards that first album for years. For many bands, it’s not easy to maintain that level afterwards.

GNC: Which albums featuring you as a singer would you recommend to those who like Smallcreep’s Day?
Noel: The Earth Band albums [laughs]. Well, Manfred Mann’s upcoming project album would be a good tip. It’s currently in the recording process. It has something fresh about it — no title yet, only about five tracks so far. Otherwise, the Earth Band’s live albums. I can’t really say, just all of them…

GNC: Have you worked with Mike or anyone else from Genesis since then?
Noel: No, but I definitely want to contact Hit & Run, their company, and send them some of my own material. I’m probably like Mike: I’ve been collecting my material over the years and I have a burning desire to record it. And I think Mike still remembers me and I can contact him.

So I’ll ask Hit & Run what they think of it, and then maybe I can persuade Mike to play guitar for me or give me his opinion on the material. That’s been on my mind for the last two or three years. And in the next year or two, something should come of it and we will record some material. But I haven’t had any contact since Acting Very Strange. It’s a shame, of course, but if I wanted to, I could get back in touch, I just never had a reason to.

GNC: Paul Young from Mike & The Mechanics sadly passed away recently. Since your voice is very similar to Paul’s and you’ve worked with Mike before, you might be a good replacement for Paul in the band. Could you imagine that?
Noel: Um, yes!… If Mike called, I would tell him about my situation. I’m trying to be a little more selfish. When you work with successful bands, you have less time for your own projects. Being the singer for the Mechanics would be a continuation of my current situation, but it’s an appealing thought. I liked Paul Young’s singing.

GNC: What style do your solo albums follow?
Noel: The McCalla albums [McCalla is Noel’s solo band, editor’s note] lean toward blues, jazz, and soul. A lot of original songs written with co-writers — not too soft. They were intended to get us live gigs. It wasn’t a big solo studio project. The band played together live first, and the audience then decided what was ultimately selected. That’s how we put the albums together. They’re good songs, but to make them competitive, you’d have to re-record them completely, and someone would have to spend a good amount of time in the studio to make something out of them. In fact, I’d like to go back to some of the better songs from the two albums and mix them with newer material.

GNC: What kind of material have you written over the last two or three years?
Noel: It’s all stuff I’ve written myself, but I don’t really see myself as a songwriter. It was more the work of a three-person team. Besides myself, there’s a guy named Brian Copsey, a fantastic lyricist who was never a member of the band, and then there’s Lou Salvoni, the producer of Sniff’n The Tears. Each of us had our own role, which we fulfilled as long as the band was together. In the meantime, I’ve also written my own stuff, but I’d like to come back to Brian as a lyricist because I don’t have as much confidence here.

You could call my material “retro,” whatever that means, or funk. It’s something of its own, something between Jackson Brown and James Brown. I’m not too heavily influenced, I’m not a big record buyer. I go to friends’ houses and listen to their albums.

GNC: McCalla albums seem to be hard to find.
Noel: Yes, because we never had a worldwide release. We did everything ourselves and handled distribution through a company called AWM. But that was about ten years ago, and a lot has happened since then. For a while, I sold my albums at Earth Band performances. That worked out pretty well because people were curious. They wanted to know what it sounded like, and they told me they liked it.

GNC: What are your plans for the next few months?
Noel: Uh… [coughs] I’m going to try to quit smoking, because I’m not sure if I can reach that high pitch again, it’s been quite a while [points to the Smallcreep’s Day CD]. Well, I want to record an album, take care of my family, guide them through life so that they can help me when I’m an old man… just be happy and enjoy making people happy. There are no big plans. My burning desire is just to get some of my own recordings out, with me as the so-called “boss,” and if it goes wrong, it’s my own fault. But it’s great that the Genesis fan club is talking to me today. It’s been so long, and so many people may have interest for Smallcreep’s Day. By the way, I’m having trouble getting the album on CD.

GNC: Acting Very Strange is harder to get because it was only available on CD in America. Smallcreep’s Day, however, should be relatively easy to find on CD.
Noel: Oh, I see. Well, I have the LP, but one of my kids made a huge scratch on the record. [He imitates the sound of a record skipping] tick, tick, tick and the t..tock …[laughs]. So I’ll have to try and get the CD …

Interview + Photos: Helmut Janisch
This interview was originally transcribed into German language. It was first published on our website in September 2000. We have re-translated this carefully into English. It is now available for the first time in English language as well!

Noel McCalla – Discography

Vocals on:
Moon – Too Close For Comfort (1976)
Moon – Turning The Tides (1977)
Noel McCalla – Night Time Emotions (1979)
Mike Rutherford – Smallcreep’s Day (1980)
John Mizzaroli – Message From The 5th Stone (1982)
Partners In Crime – Organised Crime(1985)
Morrisey Mullen – This Must Be The … (1985)
Mezzoforte – No Limits (1986)
Mike Carr’s Cargo – Cargo (1987)
Mike Carr’s Cargo – For Export Only (1990)
Manfred Mann – Plains Music (1991)
McCalla – Push & Pull (1993)
McCalla – Hot From The Smoke(1995)
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Soft Vengeance (1996)
Grandmother’s Funck – Heebie Jeebies Dance (1997)
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Mann Alive (1998)
Trevor Rabin – Wolf (2002)
Noel McCalla – Akustic (2004)
Manfred Mann ’06 – 2006 (2004)
Blade & Masquenda Family – Dove Scorrono Tranquissime Le Mie Polofonie (2009)
Manfred Mann – Lone Ranger (2014)
James Lascelles Quartet – Glasshouses (2017)

Guest Vocals on:
Andy Desmond – Andy Desmond (1978)
Sniff’n The Tears – Fickle Heart (1978)
Sniff’n The Tears – The Games Up (1980)
Paul Carrack – Nightbird (1980)
Trevor Rabin – Wolf (1980)
Mike Rutherford – Acting Very Strange (1982)
Betty Boo – Boomania (1990)
Sniff’n The Tears – No Damage Done(1992)
Arthur Louis – Black Cat(2009)
Heatwave – Current(2010)
Sniff’n The Tears – Downstream (2011)