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NUCLEUS
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Nucleus Roots are a fixture on the Reggae scene in Manchester, England, with three CDs to their credit. During the Summer of 2003 singer Jono aka Dub Dadda left to join Reggae/dance/dub outfit Zion Train permanently, so in November it was time to catch up with the Nucleus and find out what was happening: P. Lush -
guitar, bass, live mix = PL PL: "Nucleus Roots is a studio resource for local artists - people like Simon Dan who moved up from London, Country Culture, Kuntri Ranking, Stix Dan and Dan Hartley who featured on the album. In the early years Nucleus Roots was a ten-piece Reggae outfit, but obviously running a ten-piece Reggae outfit, it doesn't work too well - fine on paper! So we work as a live sound system format alongside Dub Dadda, for the last four or five years. Jono left this Summer so we're kind of in the third phase, the third stage of Nucleus Roots. I'm getting back more into the production side and mixing it live. Also we've started working with people like Ossie Gad of the Naturalites. Ossie has been performing with us over the Summer which has been really good. We have an arrangement where he voices Nucleus Roots tracks and I rebuild his back catalogue, it's really sounding very nice. That's it really as regards Nucleus Roots, it's a resource where artists can come and have tunes built for them. A lot of Jamaican artists do gravitate to Nucleus Roots because we do produce a style that is kind of UK but has got a Jamaican feel to it, which is mentioned quite a lot in the studio. We're quite learned musicians, I've been listening to Jamaican music for so many years now, I pick up on the styles like the Gladiators and stuff like that, and also the mixing styles of Tubbys and Channel One, Studio One and stuff like that. All these kind of ideas and influences come together in the studio and create a sound. I wouldn't call it plagiarising but there are influences there that create the unique sound, which is Nucleus Roots. We are a sound that people look to and say, 'That's an individual sound'. That comes out of that amalgamation of working with Jamaican artists because they also bring that influence into the studio as well. We do tend to go for a more orthodox Reggae style, which might not be the flavour of the month sometimes but I think it is the true root where it all comes from." ND: Can you say a little bit about the three CDs as well? (Nucleus Roots, Nucleus Roots In Dub, Universal Love) PL: "Well, the albums, it's funny really, they just kind of come together. No set plans. We tend to bring out one album a year, we record things quite sporadically over the year and at the end of the year we get the best of what we've got and then we just put them out a compilation album. The way Nucleus Roots albums come out, some of the first albums I ever got were the Frontline albums, Jamaican albums, and I used to love those albums because you get quite an array of artists with varying sounds on there, like Delroy Washington, the Gladiators etc. There's something in there for everybody. We're just working on our fourth album now for release in the New Year and that will probably be the same kind of thing, but I think there's a bit more plan in this one, we've got certain tunes from Simon Dan, we've got some new tunes from Moses, new tunes from Country Culture, and also we'll be featuring a couple of tunes from Ossie Gad in association with Nucleus Roots." ND: Tell me a little about Ossie Gad... PL: "I first met Ossie Gad when we featured on the same billing in France. He heard our sound for the first time and something sparked him off. He thought, "Right, these are the guys I need to get to produce my next album because this is the sound that I've been looking for". He brought me round a CD of what he did in the studio, he was obviously going to re-do his 'Picture On The Wall' and 'Lion Inna Jungle' and most of his back catalogue. People who have heard the fresh cuts have been really excited. It is not like we have remixed it or made it any different, we have just brought it into 2003. It has more of a digital punch to it, it is a lot more in tune to the mode of sound systems today. You can't forget yesterday's cuts because they are what influences the music we do today. I only ever used to know 'Picture On The Wall' because I worked as soundman at Band On The Wall for so long - it was the signature tune, every Friday! He'd come over at the weekends and I would get him to lay down the main vocals. Over the Summer he's been working a lot more with Moses and Simon doing his backing for him. We can both help each other out. Nucleus Roots has got a fan base now. He's gigged over the Summer with us and it's gone down really well. ND: OK. Simon Dan, you've been very patient. Can you tell us something of your background? SD: "Well, I've been working with the Nucleus about two and a half years, on and off. I had a bit of a break in the middle of it. Originally, as Paul said earlier, I'm from London and I came up to Manchester in '99 and I met the guys, started doing some studio work. I am a member of the Twelve Tribes Of Israel, I joined about twenty years ago in London. So that was obviously where my interest in Reggae, particularly Roots Reggae - came from. Really, when I came up to Manchester I was looking to try and do something, because I knew quite a few musicians through the Twelve Tribes, but I've found it more convenient to work with Nucleus. It's a very good platform, a very good fan base. We've toured quite a lot in the two years that I've been working with Nucleus, both in the UK and Europe. I have also been doing my own stuff independently. I went down to Jamaica a couple of years ago and worked with people like Dean Fraser and Nambo Robinson, two reggae veterans, who've played horns with countless acts. So that's basically how it came about. I've worked with a number of artists and musicians up and down the UK and the sound that I get from Nucleus as an artist, it's got that real bona fide edge within the traditional sense and yet it's got that fresh 2003 feel. The first stuff I ever put out with Nucleus was on the last album 'Universal Love'. I've got two tracks on there, 'Fuss & Fight' and 'Jah Rule', which were my first commercially recorded tracks. I've recorded stuff for Twelve Tribes which were released internally within the organisation but on a commercial basis they were the first two, and they were received really well. 'Jah Rule' seems to have gone down very well in France particularly, and we've given a lot of thought to the vinyl side of things, hence the latest project, which will be released at the end of November or beginning of December, a ten inch with me and Moses on it. Yeah, I give a lot of thanks to the guys, it is a good atmosphere to work in. They're good musicians and have years of experience. Music to me - I can honestly say I'm not looking for fame or fortune out of it. I'd like to eat - as all of us have to - but predominantly it's the message that's contained within it. Having been a member of Twelve Tribes for twenty-odd years, I find that Roots music is very conducive to putting over that message. It's regal, it's authoritative. It translates very well and in fact 'Jah Rule' actually is Psalms 25, not the hook line but the words to the tune to the bridge. So it's that good vehicle to me, to get what I consider my work over."
PL: "Simon Dan's set with Nucleus is quite faith-based, Bible based. It's a bit like Gospel music - what better way to have faith and give it to someone than good music? That's not to say that that's all Nucleus Roots is, as Simon said we do provide a platform. We do take on a lot of things that people want to do. It's like Moses has his faith, he writes songs which you've heard yourself on our first album, 'Still Here' and 'One Good Night' and like the last album, 'Universal Love' he had written a nice tune called 'Let There Be Light', it has a kind of 'Jah' overtone, for lack of a better description, in the chorus, and then the lyrics talk about things from his experience and what he sees." SD: "Levity lyrics...." PL: "Yeah. And then a brilliant track is 'Sunrise' from the first album. Moses is a writer who produces classic remunerable tune. (Country) Culture, he's a classic, just give him a rhythm track and you don't have to worry. Somebody like Culture who's worked on the sound system, he'll just bust a lyric or we'll hear something and go, "right, that's the hook line". Great Reggae tunes have a great hook line. Sammy Clark is another great prolific writer. He comes over maybe once every three months but I'll get maybe five tunes in a weekend out of him. He's got all this stuff going on in his head - just play him a rhythm track and he'll bust a lyric for you." SD: "He's quite an accomplished musician in his own right and he understands the structures of it." PL: "Yeah. He's another artist, when you hear 'My King', it's such a classic dancehall track, it mashes up the sound systems. Sammy, he's been writing since he was eighteen years old. I've got lots of rhythm tracks ready to bring out on Sammy Clark, Killers." ND: OK, Moses, can you give me a bit of your background... Mo: "Before I met up with Paul (P. Lush) and the rest of the guys in Nucleus, I was doing music beforehand but I was singing soul, funk and dance music. At the same time I was doing some backing vocals with another band called T-Dynamix and they came over to the studio to see the studio facilities. After that Paul asked me to voice some of his tracks. That was six or seven years we been writing together and we worked well together so... Paul and Pete (Technical) come up with some cracking tunes and I write the lyrics to them. We've worked together a while and we've toured and done a couple of albums now and like Paul was saying we're going to bring out this single by the end of December. My stand on how I write the stuff, it's not from the Twelve Tribes angle because I'm not a member of the Twelve Tribes but I still know right from wrong and have my own opinions on the social things, like one man having all the food and another man standing on the other side of the road looking at him, starving. He's there without any feeling, eating his food and then throws it away rather than giving it to him. He throws it in the bin and watches him go and pick it out of the bin. It's not right. That's where my songs in the Reggae genre tend to come from, social issue. In the New Year we will start recording the fourth album. I grew up on soul and R&B and intend to record some material in the near future using the studio to produce these other sounds which I am interested in. I really enjoy the stuff that I'm doing over here, reggae is second nature to me, it appeals to the people out there, they want more from us so that's what we do. Hopefully we'll keep that until we receive our pension cheques - long after that, maybe! We get on quite well and we get to have a laugh and a joke as well, which is good." SD: "Yeah, having been with a few outfits, out on the road, we do some fairly harum-scarum sorts of things; especially when we had the old Mercedes (Mo: the tour van), talk about van fever, in the back of that. You'd totally lose track of the outside world sometimes, especially on the European side of things. But I hope we always keep that level up, I mean, there are words said, obviously we're all human but on the whole we all seem to make those allowances and get on well with each other, which is vital for longevity within any group. OK it's not always 'Rastafari' in your face but at the same time we are preaching reality, we are preaching truths and rights so one would expect us to try and adhere to that. We're not a line of coke in the bathroom band. We go out there, we do our work, we enjoy what we're doing, I think that comes over. I think that's where the edge comes over. I think we're unique. I personally don't know any other band that functions like Nucleus. As an artist who's come into the outfit fairly recently, that's the thing I've really enjoyed about it the most, the camaraderie and the work ethic." PL: "About that live thing as well, Peter Technical brings a lot of that organic-ness to the sound. There's nobody that plays like Peter, I don't think, on the UK circuit. He just comes up with the most original brass lines and melodies. He's not essentially a reggae man as well. His influences are varied. He worked with T-Dynamix with Moses and he was and still is a sought-after keyboard player, but obviously his loyalties are with the studio now. He keeps that unity of sound. A lot of the classic things you hear in the arrangements in Nucleus Roots come from that icing, as it were. The way we build a track sometimes, just out of bass and drums and that basic rhythm chop, and then we'll bring the guys in there for the song, and then me and Peter will add all the icing around it - my guitar playing, Peter's synthesizer playing, we'll create that special something. I think that what's missing today in UK Roots is that musicianship." SD: "You've got to try and take things forward, whatever you're doing. Not necessarily the best, but better at what you're doing, and I think a lot of UK roots, it's too much looking back and only enhancing the good things of roots from the seventies. It's not then using the things that we have now to give it that fresh outlook. It's like the interview with Bob where the interviewer says about Bob using the fruits of Babylon to make his music and Bob says, "Well, Babylon don't have no fruits". It's all knowledge given to us and it depends on how you use it, for the good or for the bad. From my experience, Nucleus has that freshness, that edge to it, and it's a line from Paul that we often use, "Digital vibrations from old skool inspirations". That to me pretty much hits the nail on the head with us." PL: Well, Nucleus Roots is still here, still here after all these years! - Norman
Darwen
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