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www.totalmusicmagazine.com Interview with Robert John Godfrey

Fans of The Enid, often referred to as The Enidi, are a tenacious and devoted bunch, and will need no introduction to a band that has boasted twenty plus members and endured numerous highs and lows over their thirty five year career, remaining steadfastly committed to, perhaps the most underrated of the progressive rock outfits to emerge in the mid seventies. Not that the only constant in the bands long career, Robert John Godfrey, will thank us for calling them a progressive act (more of which later), but as we believe the term can reasonably be accorded to any act that considers innovation to be a major motivational force (which could mean anyone from Magma to the Aphex Twin), we‟re going to stick with it regardless. We began, as always, by asking about his earliest musical memories and discovered, rather fantastically that Vera Lynn sang for his father and three other wounded soldiers in an officers ward of an Army Hospital at Kohima on the border between Burma and India in early 1943 and that his first musical experiences were actually in church

RJG: “I sang in the choir as a boy from about the age of seven. I loved the sound of the organ and the wonderful mechanics of this king of instruments. We had a windup gramophone when I was still a toddler. I got given all sorts of classical records by relatives and friends of the family.”

TotalMusic: Although he didn't take up the piano until twelve he nonetheless attended both the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music, and from 1968 to 1971 Godfrey became the orchestral musical director with Barclay James Harvest making contributions to early recordings and helping establish their orchestral style. The relationship sadly did not end amicably

RJG: “The times I remember most are the one's involving Woolly (Stuart „Woolly‟ Wolstenholme) whose tragic suicide was announced just recently. He was the one with whom I had most in common both intellectually and emotionally. But I suppose my obvious memory has got be the first concerts with the orchestra. Writing the music for and conducting a hundred piece orchestra in The Royal Albert Hall at the tender age of 22 was a pretty big moment. I remember a lot of other more negative stuff which it would be in poor taste to mention now that a number of the dramatis personae have died (Drummer Mel Pritchard died of a heart attack in 2004).”

TotalMusic: The Enid began in the mid seventies at the height of punk, how did the band come about, it must have been difficult being so out of step with the prevailing trends of that period?

RJG: “We weren‟t as out of step as might be believed, hence our surprising popularity at the time. Although musically sophisticated, The Enid were radically different from any progressive band who had come before us. We were young, unassuming, vulnerable to derision but completely in tune with the politics of our time. Furthermore, the unique musical style we had inadvertently developed was romantic, powerful and sexy: Like the music of Stars Wars, it was easy to love. The Enid‟s appeal was in our ability to offer a safe haven for girls and boys who didn‟t like punk because of its total lack of musicality but nevertheless wanted something other than what had gone before. John Peel referred to The Enid pejoratively as „A Level rock‟ after having had to preside over three unbelievable encores at Reading Festival. But he was actually right. The Enid‟s success lay in our appeal to the sons and daughters of nice people living in nice houses doing A levels or doing a serious subject like physics and at university. People didn‟t want to put a safety pin through their nose our go out on the town wearing a bin liner. People who wanted something a bit more challenging musically and intellectually than „2-4-6-8 Motorway‟* At least. That is how it started – the 1980‟s was different.”

TotalMusic: You‟ve been quoted as saying that you don‟t like the band being referred to as „progressive‟, what is your issue with this label?

RJG: “For me, the great progressive bands/people of the „progressive era‟ and beyond are King Crimson/Robert Fripp , Peter Gabriel , Yes (with Wakeman), Pink Floyd, Queen and Tears For Fears. There are many worthy others, (even The Enid) who have made their contributions but these are to my mind the greatest innovators of sophisticated new music of their time. I wish I could avoid sounding pompous or conceited. I am neither of these things. Yet it appears that I am now regarded by many as one of the founding fathers of the progressive movement of the late sixties/early seventies. I was one of the first to work seriously with an orchestra/band combination. I was „apprentice‟ to Norman Smith the then producer of Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things and Barclay James Harvest. I went on to develop a unique musical style with my band's music. It is for this reason that I find myself at odds so much “new” music which calls itself progressive when it simple isn‟t the slightest bit progressive. Instead, much of it is meaningless unstructured drivel; a shallow parody of days gone by carried out by people of limited ability and even less imagination. It is for this reason, if no other, that progressive music has such a low profile amongst the wider audience. There are however, exceptions – in particular I could never include IQ in the general condemnation of the mediocre. These are men who for the most part are deeply creative and very accomplished musicians; a rare combination.”

TotalMusic: There has been a long list of Enid members over the years, do you prefer to work with people who can successfully interpret your ideas or are you looking for collaborators?

RJG: “There have been a large number of peripheral players with The Enid who hopped on and off the boat. But there has been a much smaller number of core creative participants in a vision. I am best as a collaborator.”

TotalMusic: You have a pretty unique relationship with your fan-base (The Enidi), how did that come about?

RJG: “The day we realised that our fans are not „punters‟ or „consumers‟ but patrons, friends and contributors without whom The Enid could not exist and would have no reason to exist. It is the fans who make the music happen!”

TotalMusic: We understand that legal reasons may prevent you from discussing fully the problems you are having with Inner Sanctum - Robert started an action in the high court against Inner Sanctum‟s Gerald Palmer to have an agreement he made in August 2008 concerning the Enid‟s back catalogue declared void - but, if possible, can you tell us what happened and how things now stand?

RJG: “I would love to tell you all about it but best not just now. What I can say is as follows: „This is a weird and potentially terrifying story of a struggle going on behind the scenes which a year ago could have destroyed The Enid. Yet the band is stronger today than a year ago and we will continue from strength to strength. I am supremely confident that all will end well for us eventually. I am a great believer in Karma and in the power of generosity. Something or someone will intercede on our behalf, of that I have no doubt. There are many victims of their own greed; doomed-men-walking whose hubris prevents them from seeing the noose into which they place their neck. All we have to do is keep faith and do our best. Some piece of catastrophic bad luck usually visits itself upon the wicked.‟”

TotalMusic: There have been reports of the entire Enid back catalogue being made available for free download on high-quality MP3's, is this still on the cards (it would certainly be a way of wresting back control of your back catalogue)?

RJG: “Members of The Enidi can do this now.”

TotalMusic: Your problems with diabetes and depression are well documented, How do you feel your fight with depression affects your creativity, and has how you control it, if indeed you need or want to control it, changed over the years?

RJG: “Winston Churchill called this his Black Dog and I know what he meant. He is always there: Sometimes asleep, sometimes lying quietly in front of the fire: At other time he is up with the Hunter‟s Moon – on the rampage. I can only control it. I have to accept it as part of who I am and to seek an accommodation. For as things have panned out, for all that depression can limit creative output at the time, it somehow is also responsible for the well of creativity which springs forth on sunnier days.”

TotalMusic: Some fans of the band have been saying that new album Journey‟s End is a return in style to the early '80s recordings like Something Wicked This Way Comes would you agree with this?

RJG: “Not really. Journey’s End is as much about Jason Ducker and Max Read than me… What may be true is that Journey’s End is brimming with the same confidence as the 1980‟s but the music has moved on.”

TotalMusic: A song like „Terra Firma‟ is very specific in its message (as have been many of your lyric based tracks), is it important to you to „say‟ something in a song?

RJG: “Each song may have a prima facie message. „Terra Firma‟ must be taken together with „Terra Nova‟. The two pieces tell a story much like that of Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake. An allegory.”

Robert then goes on to address all of the tracks on the new album, and outline what they signify

 „Terra Firma‟: “Roots (of the tree) – Built On Solid Ground - Sure footed - Skeptical - Predictable - Dependable – Urbane. Archetype = Animus.”

 „Terra Nova‟: “Turning over „a new leaf‟ - The star which guides the mariner - Perfection and unobtainable ideals - A New World - Curiosity - Caprice - A Fresh Start - A New Chapter - An All New Adventure – Ephemeral. Archetype = Anima.”

 „Space Surfing‟: “Personal journeys (From bud to leaf to compost) – „How calmly does the orange branch observe the sky begin to blanch‟. - The Quest - Dark Star Movie and all other similar fantasy voyages - An individual life lived. - The Fool of the Tarot (Querent).”

 „Malacandr‟a: “No man‟s land – Hovering between the physical the metaphysical – The gap between life and afterlife (death) – The moment of separation as the leaf detaches from the branch - The flash-by life-memory of the drowning man - Consciousness unfrocked as the mystery of the link between the one and the many deepens – The tunnel and the light – (That Hideous Strength by C S Lewis).”

 „Shiva‟: “Karma – Shiva dancing in a ring of cosmic fire - Transformation – Destruction and rebirth – Life is the dream from which we eventually awaken to discover that „the one and the many‟ are the same thing and that all life is intimately interconnected through space and time. - Individuality (self) dies - is welcomed (back) into the cosmic „I am‟. (The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse).”

 „Journey‟s End‟ – “The Art Of Melody: The moving figure having writ moves on. – An individual life as a symphony. – Before the first bar there was nothing. – After the last bar there is just a silence. As the last star goes out, the music of Beethoven‟s ninth symphony will still be „out there‟, living on forevermore – for what has been written cannot be unwritten. Eternity = Outside Time.”

 “A footnote: I find it hard to disagree with anything Richard Dawkins says. Yet all my instincts and experience tell me the conclusions he draws are fatally insufficient to account for the sentiments expressed above. Dawkins is wrong because he has failed to grasp the implications of Darwin on the cosmic scale. If this is God without religion - then so be it.”

TotalMusic: What projects do you have looming just over the horizon?

RJG: Invicta – The second part in the Journey’s End trilogy – The Spell Redux – A complete reconstruction of an album only half completed in 1984 – New music to be premiered at a Symphony Hall next October

At the time of writing Journey's End was still unavailable in online stores like Amazon, The Enid manager Ian Eardley told us ‘It has been delayed due to complications as part of the legal battles that the band are fighting. This part has now been resolved and Journey's End will be available digitally worldwide any day now’

*(NB: Tom Robinson actually also attended Finchden Manor in Tenterden where Robert was educated).

Andy Basire