Questions & Answers

Oliver - Thank you very much for answering my questions about your work with Troy Donockley and with Rachel. Here's an idea that quite appeals to my fannish sensibilities.

Perhaps you could work on updating the Anam Cara material with Troy Plus I was thrilled to hear him work with Rachel Jones (ex-Karnataka) on Dave Bainbridge's exceptional solo album -- my favorite CD of 2004 -- and she might be just what the songs need. Just a few thoughts.... Raymond H. Riethmeier

I would love to work with Troy again. He's a great guy, I would like to involve him on the Anam Cara material if I can. I did re-write the album to make it fully vocal and would really like to do something with it in the near future but as usual it comes down to time and money!

I did nearly work with Rachel some time back but nothing ever happened (I think the project got cancelled) but maybe in the future our paths will cross!

Is there any sheet music available for any of the Albums? - Trevor

Unfortunately there is no sheet music available for any of my albums and I am not aware of the publishers intentions to release any.

I still plan at some point to record a piano album and I may indulge myself with a sheet music book for that but it's all possibles at the moment.

Can you give me Oliver Wakeman's E-mail, or just request to him to make another album featuring Steve Howe. The 3 Ages of Magick was great and everyone would like a similar styled album.

I'm really pleased that you enjoyed the 3 Ages album so much. It really was a special album for me and I do have ideas about a follow up. I don't know whether Steve would be involved again as I know he's always pretty busy with Yes and Asia but I will ask him if I do decide to do the follow up.

In fact, when people ask me about a particular album, it always fires me up to start thinking about it and so maybe I'll look into it a bit further, although I must be honest I've got about 3 other albums on the go at the moment so it wouldn't be an immediate release!

I have 2 questions.

Will the Classic Rock Society performance, where Troy Donockley sat in with you, ever be released on CD?

I am a great admirer of both you and Troy and I want to hear the two of you together and the ProgAID single is not nearly enough!

[Oliver] - Dear Ray

The show was originally recorded for the possible release as the Classic Rock Society Acoustic Sessions 2 CD but that as yet is unreleased and as far as I am aware there are no immediate plans for it's release.

However, I'm sure that if the release doesn't happen then I will be able to get hold of the recordings and make use of them somehow!

As to recording or performing with Troy, it is something I would love to do ­ we'll just have to wait for a suitable project to rear it head (maybe the follow up to 3 ages which I'm threatening to write at some point!)

Will the project with Rachel be completed someday? - Raymond H. Riethmeier

I would hope so, there was an original full album called 'Anam Cara' that was recorded and nearly had a release but the deal was cancelled at the last minute when we realised that the deal was no way near as attractive as we were lead to believe. Following that I took the opportunity to re-write some of the material (also with the introduction of Dave Wagstaffe, Dave Pearce and Tim Buchannan) was subsequently re-recorded and released as the'The View From Here' single. I then went on to write more material for the album which is waiting to be recorded but Rachels musical path seems to have taken different route from mine over the last couple of years but I am hopeful that one day it will get recorded the way it is meant to be!

Congratulations on your assisting credit for Steve Howe acoustic recording of Australia as found on the 3-disc version of ULTIMATE YES.
Can you provide some further information about your role in that recording? - Raymond H. Riethmeier

[Oliver] - Dear Ray

Thanks for the question! I haven't seen a copy yet so well spotted!

As you may well know, Steve and I are great friends and up until a week ago only lived 30 miles or so apart in Devon. We meet up on a regular basis and listen to each others stuff that we're working on and have a good old chat.

Anyway, Steve phoned me up one evening asking if I could help him with some editing on an acoustic track called 'Australia' he was working on.

Basically he had 2 acoustic versions of the songs and liked certain parts of one more than the other so my involvement was getting the versions into Pro-Tools (music studio waveform editing software) and making the necessary edits and cross fades then adding a little reverb and sending it off the the mastering suite in LA.

Not a major amount of work but great fun and I was chuffed to bits when Steve told me I'd be getting a credit on the album. Hopefully it might let a few Yes fans know that I'm out there and they might in turn give my work a try! Here's hoping!

There's nothing like a real mellotron or is there? It wasn't easy keeping my melli functional on tour etc. Sadly it is no more. What do you consider is the best alternative board/module/kit that comes closest to imitating the evocative string & choral ensemble sounds that I sorely miss? - Rob Wilsher of Multi Story

[Oliver] - A tricky question to answer this one as the majority of Mellotron experience I have had is using the real thing up at 'Thin Ice Studios'. I intend to make use of it on the next album!

However I have heard very good things about the Cubase plug-ins that are available such as M-tron and Mellozone but having not used them yet I can't really comment. However, Dad did use the M-Tron on his latest album, 'Out there' so I imagine that it's pretty good!

Hello Wakeman. Do you prefer Arena or Spock's Beard?
Do a brief summury about your choice. Thanks - Damien

[Oliver] - Thanks for the question. In all honesty, I like both bands but I find that if I'm in a relaxing mood or I'm working on something not music based I'd put on a Spock's Beard album whereas I tend to listen to Arena when I want to hear something a bit heavier.

Spock's Beard I feel are a very talented bunch of guys who play some great music, although I prefer their pre-Snow stuff - Kindness of Strangers etc - although I haven't heard their latest yet.

Arena. A tricky one this as I work with Clive so much! I really like the stuff they do but I do have a certain fondness for the 'Song's from the Lions Cage' album. It was released when I first met Clive and remember going to a fair few gigs with the band so I have some great memories of those times.

I know I haven't given a direct answer (do I ever!) but they are both great bands and I wish them all the success they deserve.

Could we see you touring Australia at any stage even if it was a family tour with Rick and Adam - Rod Jackson

[Oliver] - I would love to play in Australia as I would many other countries in the world. I really can't see a family tour taking place in the foreseeable future, what with Adam touring with Annie Lennox, Dad with Yes and myself working on 2/3 albums at the moment.

I'm not sure if a tour with Dad and Adam is what I want to do. I much prefer being a little more independent about my music career but as I have mentioned before I would never say never!!

Towards the end of 2003 I intend to get out and do a couple of performances in the UK with maybe a couple in Europe in early 2004. To be honest a lot of whether I will tour or not will be dependant on how the next 'band' album, "Mother's Ruin", is received.

If it is well liked and sells well then it would be really exciting to play with the band further afield. I guess we'll just have to wait on that one but fingers crossed that one day soon it will happen.

Is there any chance of a Nolan & Wakeman tour or even a one-time concert featuring any of the guest-musicians who have appeared on their collaborative albums? - Raymond H. Riethmeier

[Oliver] - An interesting question - one I would like to know the answer to myself! In all honesty, I don't know if there will ever be a big concert with all (or any) of the guests for mainly financial reasons.

Clive is very busy with 'Arena' and I don't think Verglas would support a Nolan/Wakeman tour unless there was a huge demand for one.

I think the best I can hope for at the moment is that when I go out on tour in the UK (later in the year) with my band that I can encourage Clive and maybe a few of the other musicians to guest at a show or two.

We currently play quite a substancial portion of the 'Hound' and 'Jabberwocky' albums live and will hopefully be performing material for my new solo album which if all goes well will be out towards the latter end of the year!

Having said that, if anyone reading this would like to put up the money for such a show I'm sure we would be more than happy to oblige!

Sorry that this isn't a more positive answer. I would like to think that maybe one day it would happen but I can't see it happening in the immediate future. I do get asked a lot about this and was one of the reasons I put together my band so that at least some of the songs would be heard live.

Can you let me know who played which guitar solos on the "Hound of the Baskervilles" and "Jabberwocky" albums? - Various

[Oliver] - Ahh, this question has been asked of me so many times! I will still keep the keyboard solo bits secret for the time being but here are the answers to which guitarist played what!

On "Jabberwocky", Peter Banks did all the guitar solos with Ian Salmon being responsible for the majority of the rhythm guitar parts.

"Hound" is a slightly harder one to work out but the solos were as follows:-

Shadows of Fate & Seldon - Arjen Lucassen

Run for your Life & Chasing the Hound - Karl Groom

By Your Side & Second Light (sound effects) - Peter Banks

There was a justified reason for not mentioning it on the album sleeve, I personally hate it when it says so & so guitar on track 3 and middle bit on track 8 and as I put the cover together I took the decision not to get into too many details about who did what.

I think it tends to make covers look messy, also we were pushed for room just to get the lyrics & photos on the 16 pages. Hopefully this at least explains why they wern't mentioned at the time.

Hi, I was wondering if Oliver going to do any U.S. Gigs in the future? Will he be doing any with his dad Rick? - Diane Swible

[Oliver] - I have just started rehearsing a new band in order to start playing live and promoting the music I write. I would love to play in the US and hope that it will happen at some point, although I think it may well bit a little way ahead at the moment!

I don't think you will see me performing with Dad as I tend to follow a more independent route and quite like the father/son relationship we have without bringing work into the equation! This said though I would never say never but there are no plans at the moment.

I've read on the homepage that Oliver has released an album called Chakra, which is impossible to find in Germany. Is it possible to order them directly from you? - Jürgen Meurer

All Oliver's albums are now available from Mike Holden who runs the RWCC website shop. You can now get to the site by clicking the 'Shop' icon above!

I have a question about 'Jabberwocky' - how can I discover who´s soloing in each song,Oliver or Clive? - Tatiana

[Oliver] Clive and I worked very hard to create an album of music that we hoped would appeal to many types of listeners and there is so much work involved in making such an album that it is difficult to split apart who did what. As to soloing - I will have to keep that a mystery for a while as it really was a joint project - some of the songs are all mine - some are all Clive's but we both worked on the arrangements for both 'Jabberwocky' and the forthcoming 'Hound of the Baskervilles' together so it really does come down to a real partnership to create one album.

I know that this skirts around the question a little for which I apologise but I'm sure at some point I'll let people know -just not yet!!! However - people who have listened to my latest album - '3 Ages of Magick' have started to pick up on my style and are making educated guesses as to which are my solo's on Jabberwocky.

I wanna know why Oliver hasn´t played live with Rick yet...? - Tatiana

[Oliver] - I am very proud of what Dad has achieved in his career and like you am a great fan of his music (for the record my favourite is 'No Earthly Connection"). However, I have always been adamant that I would try and make my mark in this industry on my own. I know that the Wakeman name will help people notice my albums but hopefully, when people listen to them they'll like them because of the music I've written. I do however like to create music that will fit into a Wakeman fan's collection quite comfortably.

I am a big fan of good artwork and album sleeves and for my own albums have quite a lot of control over the look of them. I am also a fan of Adam's work as well - I think he writes some excellent songs and has a good understanding of modern production techniques which I admire him for. I am also pleased that we don't play similar types of music as it allows us to help each others careers along without us getting competitive. At the end of the day we are all a family and I prefer to keep it that way!

Will 'The 3 Ages of Magick' be released in the United States, and if so, when, and who by?

It was originally released in the States via distributor DNA, on the 18th September 2001. It has since been re-issued in the US by Navarre Distribution and should now be widely available!

Oliver, what keyboards did you (and Clive Nolan) use <in Jabberwocky>, what do you normally use in other projects, and which is (or are!) your favorites? Also what is your favorite keyboard or synth sound? - Matt Smith.

[Oliver] When we were recording Jabberwocky we had a stable core set of keyboards that controlled a lot of what was going on and we had a few keyboards that came and went for the odd section. It was recorded in 1998 so I may not recall all the keyboards we used but I'll give it my best shot:
Roland 760 sampler x2
Korg O1/W x2
Mellotron
MiniMoog
Yamaha P150 Electric Piano
Korg Sampling Grand Electric Piano
Roland D50
Korg Wavestation
Korg NS5R
Roland JV1080
Roland JV2080
Roland YK7 (brilliant organ)
Roland JD800
Roland JP8000
There were a few others but for the life of me I can't remember them. For my new project and other related work I am using a core set-up of:
Korg 01/W
Yamaha P150 electric Piano
Korg NS5R
Korg T1
Roland D50
Roland XP-30
Yamaha CS-1 (old single oscillator Yamaha analog keyboard)
Yamaha V-50
My favourite synth sound would have to be a sound called 'Paris' which Mike my keyboard tech programmed into my V-50. It can be heard on the Heaven's Isle album title track and the track 'Diving'. If I had to chose another I would say obviously the moog-type leads but I do like the sound 'Reso' on the NS5R - it was used for the solo on 'Coming to Town'.

I would like to know now if there is any available sheet music for the Jabberwocky album in their merchandise, or maybe you could give me a hint on where I could get it. I know this is probably something very hard to find, but I'm trying anyways, because this would really mean a lot to me! Hope their new project comes up as fantastic as Jabberwocky is. I'm anxiously waiting for its release! - Karin Deuber Carvalho

At present, the publishers have not released any Jabberwocky sheet music, but we hope they will at some point! If we hear of this happening, we will let you know.

I'm interested in purchasing Heaven's Isle, but I'm anticipating a difficult time - I live in Canada, and I imagine it's not an easy album to come by. If you can help to connect me with the right person through which to order it, I'd be most grateful... Thanks for your time! - Chris Mahoney

"Heaven's Isle" is fully listed in the international CD directories under 'Oliver Wakeman', so you should be able to order it without problems, but it is also stocked by Mike Holden who runs the RWCC website shop.