Few artists have this much noise to get off their chest but Aaron Buchanan, after five years with Heaven’s Basement, quit the band in order to follow his own creative muse. The resulting album, the man with stars on his knees, has been reissued by French Label Listenable (more commonly associated with death metal), who hope to bring the already-successful (and critically acclaimed) album to a far wider audience. Their faith is justified (as the 9/10 review found elsewhere on these pages attests) and we were lucky to catch up with Aaron to discuss the genesis of the album and his future plans…
Hi is that Aaron?
It is yes.
It’s Phil from SonicAbuse, thanks for agreeing to talk to me.
It’s all good mate, it’s what we’re here to do isn’t it!
So, to kick off, I’ve looked at various interviews that you’ve done, and this band pulled together almost immediately after you left heaven’s Basement, is that right?
Yes, that’s correct. I quit basement in October (or maybe September) and I was in the studio, putting the album together in November, so yeah, it was pretty damn quick.
And you had some luck in the fact that you were able to bring your sister into the band because I think you said she developed into a “riff monster” over the years?
Yeah, when she was younger, she was an acoustic guitarist and she developed a lot of strength in her fret hand – a lot of speed and dexterity in her picking hand. She’s left handed, but she played a right-handed guitar as well, which is really cool. She’s really unique and she’s a big fan of bands like Coheed and Cambria, so the music that she brings to the table is so different to anything that I do.
I don’t do riffs, I do chords and things like that, but she spices it up and she’s a great attribute to the Cult Classics.
The music itself is kinda cutting against the grain at the moment. Where a lot of bands are pushing in a classic rock direction, there seems to be a strong alt-rock vibe there – bits of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden as influences – would you agree?
Yeah, absolutely, Layne Staley and Chris Cornell were big influences on this record.
And you’re right, I said it all the way through the heaven’s basement days and now I’m saying it through this: I’ve got the chance to spread my wings a bit. I don’t want to be known for being in a fucking classic rock band. I’m 28 years old! Classic rock, to me, is men who are in their fifties and the bands associated with that scene, generally their audience is old people. What we managed to achieve with Heaven’s basement was to have the young guys at the front, the older guys and the middle and the people who appreciated our music would stand around the edges. That’s generally the way it would go and that’s what I want to achieve with this band.
I do want a cross-section of ages in the audience, but there have to be younger people there to keep it exciting, because you know, having 250 people that are twice your age in the audience. It’s nice to know that people like your music, but you really want to be impressing people your own age.
In some ways it’s quite challenging to be in an alt-rock band in the current environment. There’s a lot of classic rock out there and a lot of metal, but alt-rock (with the exception of the 90s, when it reached a peak), it seems to fall through the cracks a bit. You’ve got the heavy riffs, but then the melodic vocals. Have you found that it’s challenging to find the right line ups to appear with?
I never really struggle with line up – there are always musicians that want to play for us, and I think that’s fantastic.
In fact, there were more people that wanted to play for this band than I could deal with and I had the opportunity to pick from the cream of the crop, because of my reputation (if that’s the right word) with Heaven’s basement… maybe it was more my success with Heaven’s basement.
So, yeah… I think that trying to get tours – the right tours to generate the right audience is more of a challenge. But it doesn’t fuss me too much. The only thing I give a fuck about is to create music that I like, first; that the band like, second; and thirdly the audience. I’m not producing music specifically to sell out. If that happens, it’s a wonderful thing and I’ll appreciate the pay-check! But this music, especially ‘the man with stars on his knees’ has a lot of integrity and it tells a story – the story of the five years I was on the road with Heaven’s basement. It was a beautifully horrific experience to some degree. I think if I’d been a little bit older or a little bit smarter, I could have been a lot better off in my mind. And financially, you know. So, yeah, it’s a funny one.
It’s an interesting title for the record – which I think comes from Russian Prisoners who had stars on their knees as a symbol of respect, is that right?
Yeah, that’s correct. The man with the stars on his knees, in Russian prison tattoo history is a man that bows to no authority. Basically, when I left Heaven’s basement, I terminated my contract with the record label, fired the manager and quit the band all in the same week. I think the best title from that was to do with a man who bowed to no authority!
Finally, I had my own ability to say that this is the music that I want to put out and no one can stop me. Before… every song that I wrote for ‘the man with stars on his knees’, I submitted to Heaven’s basement for what would have been the second HB record and, if it wasn’t rejected by the record label, it was rejected by the band and didn’t even get to the record label! It didn’t even get to A&R. So, yeah, the man with the stars on his knees is the man who bows to no authority.
The album itself was done, I think, through a Pledge campaign which, now, is struggling… but back then it was a great way to step out from the umbrella of labels wasn’t it?
I disagree, I’m going to correct you here. We didn’t do the album through Pledge. We did it on our own, and the Pledge campaign was just to fund the physical release of the album. But we didn’t do most of the things… we got like half the amount of money we were supposed to get from Pledge. It’s a terrible company and we’d never ever do another campaign with them. I think we were one of the first bands their bullshit effected – they’re just trash, I wouldn’t use them again, they’re really bad and they’re just a trash company. They were awful.
In terms of stepping away from a label and A&R seems to be the most important thing – to be outside of that pressure to write or produce songs in a particular way…
Oh yeah, absolutely. I wrote over 250 songs with Heaven’s basement and the first thing you’re taught is that you need to be in the chorus in 30 seconds unless you’ve got some amazing riff or something.
But you can see on this record with songs like ‘All the things you’ve said and done’ and ‘dancin’ down below’… They stick to the single formula and I wrote those songs specifically because I was told by Heaven’s basement that I was not good enough and that I couldn’t write singles… and the fucking hilarious thing is that those songs that I wrote specifically for radio, ended up being on the radio in A lists and on the B lists and all across the UK and Europe.
But, again, that’s not what this album is about. Those songs were written kind of tongue in cheek in a way. Most of this album, as you said, is about not being under A&R and writing a little bit differently. However, that being said, I have to accept that to further this band… I ‘m well aware that at some point I’m going to have a talk with an A&R guy and ask if this is the correct thing for us to put out. There’s a balance. You want creative integrity, but if you want commercial success, you need to work with people, because if they don’t believe in you, you’ve got nothing.
There’s a strong sense of belief, because this album is being reissued through Listenable – a large label with a big reputation and following. Did they approach you to do this?
So, the old agent that used to book Heaven’s Basement – Dan Devita – he put me in contact with Laurent and we had a meeting at Stone Free festival. We just met up and chatted and I laid out what I was looking to achieve and my vision for this band. He liked the sound of it and he loved the album, and, within six months, he had a deal together and we were signed up. There were other offers on the table, but I didn’t like the deals and the Listenable really, I honestly believe that Laurent and Listenable – he’s the right guy for the job. It’s a big success.
When it came to adding the bonus tracks, were they left-overs from the original recording or did you go back in and cut those separately?
So, ‘fire in the field’ was secretly released, but a lot of people didn’t know about it. I like to do little things like that with this band. So, probably only a few hundred people heard it. It went out on the internet but not many people would know what it is, even though it’s in the live show. So, that’s been out for about a year. ‘Undertow’ was literally recorded, I think, in October or November last year and it is only out with the reissue. So, they’re new songs to most people.
It’s a nice thing – one of the things I miss from the days of physical singles being a thing is the exclusive b sides. That seems to have gone by the wayside a little bit.
Yeah, the thing is with B sides was that it allowed bands to use the music they wanted to go out and it would get heard because of the single. So, it allowed you to be a bit more creative and that’s definitely what ‘fire in the fields’ and ‘Undertow’ do. That being said, with the success those songs have had – they’re on all the radio stations, it’s hilarious – maybe I’ll write some more songs like that.
With this album coming back out, are you already thinking about album 2 – you said earlier that you had hundreds of songs stacked up. Are you thinking in terms of a new record?
Yeah, I am. Those hundreds of songs were written in the days of Heaven’s basement. I won’t go back. They’re lost in the world of the internet somewhere. But there will be a lot of new material coming out. It’ll be a minimum ten track album. I just need to work with the record label for when we’re going to aim for it to be out nest year. It will be 2020 if we’re running the campaign through 2019. Yeah, I’ve been actively thinking about a new album for about a year now but I just haven’t pushed for it because I knew that this record was being put together, so I figured if they were going to reissue it, there was no point in spending loads of money on material that might be used as b sides when the label snapped their fingers. It was better to do it all in one block and put the next record out as opposed to having tracks lost to b sides.
In terms of recording, the record has a great sound – it has a raw crunch, but it also sounds polished enough – how did you approach recording it?
Well, the band didn’t exist when I wrote the album or when I record the album. The only person in the band who is on the record is Laurie. The album was produced by five people -James Curtis-Thomas – my friend of fifteen years. Ryan Woods, who’s been a good friend of ours for five or six years. Laurie, obviously – my sister – and the silent partner, who doesn’t get much recognition and who’s a really cool guy – Robin Martin. We’ve all been friends for decades. So, the band was founded, people-wise, about eight or nine months after the album was produced. So, that’s the way it was.
Again, looking at your biography, it looks like it was very much a labour of love – a small studio, no hot water, no central heating…. How long were you there?
A few months! Quite a long time!
That sounds quite a long time – were you very hands-on with the mixing and mastering?
Oh yeah – C-T and I are best, best friends. He is the first person I smoked a joint with when we were thirteen, so we go a long way back and I trust him absolutely. I’d say to him to give me a base mix, so I could hear what his ears hear before I put my mind to it and then we’d just alter things. I’d ask for a certain frequency to come up in the snare drum sound or whatever, but yeah, it was a collective production, so to speak. We all put our blood, sweat and tears into it and we all wanted to work together for a lot of years. We just had this fucking beautiful opportunity to do it and yeah, the album sounds the way it does!
When it comes to writing lyrics – do you draw predominantly on personal experience?
It really depends. Sometimes I’ll write a set of lyrics and they’ll mean fuck all. There’s a song by Heaven’s Basement called… oh shit! What’s it called? Anyhow, it was a really good B side. Anyway, you’ll sometimes come across lyrics that mean nothing but sound cool. Other times, you’ll write songs specifically for a story or to get something off your chest and the man with stars on his knees is predominantly all about the five years of being on the road with Heaven’s Basement. It does tell a story and I wanted to get that stuff off my chest, it’s really important to me. It’s not the world’s most emotional record, but there’s some anger – a pissed-off mid-20s guy’s reality – if that’s your thing, this is the album for you!
So, last question, what are the plans for 2019?
Yeah, we’ve got big festivals down. We’re heading off to France a couple of times. We’ve got Download festival. Some of these things aren’t on our socials yet – they haven’t been fully tied down yet, but there’s a lot going on and there will be a couple of tours this year. So, we’ll be going in and out of the UK and Europe and it’s going to be a great run – there’ll be some more music – all sorts of band stuff going on. It’s just at the moment, with the record label, we’re trying to work on this reissue so that it can get out there and people can hear it.
