To most of you Mark Gemini Thwaite will be known as the guitarist of The Mission, having joined them in 1992. However, Mark also pursues his own projects, one being BlueMax, which involves All About Eve members. Prior to a Mission gig at Germany's Bochum on November 30th 2000, Frank had a talk with a busy Mark to find out more about his interesting projects...

When did BlueMax start ?

BlueMax was formed in 1996, after The Mission split up. It was me, Andy Cousin, a guy called Darren Scullion [ex-Mermaids], and a drummer from a band called Earthling, Tony Peart. I've written the songs and all the music, and Darren wrote most of the vocals. We did have a bassist before Andy, a guy called Matt. He didn't work out and Andy was very impressed with the material, so he offered to get involved. We did some gigs and recordings as BlueMax, and it all went really well. Julianne was really impressed and she wanted to sing on it, so she ended up singing on 3 songs. She saw us live, heard the recordings and offered to do some backing vocals. The original idea was her to sing on The Carpenter's song 'Superstar', and she also chose a song called 'She's so...', and 'Suicide Ballad'. When she had her own band Mice, and was having difficulties with the band line up, she got me and Andy to play live at the Phoenix Festival in '96, and at a warm up gig in London at The Garage.

Did you enjoy playing with Mice ? It was on short notice I guess ?

Yes, and it was pretty short notice. We also did some All About Eve stuff ['Freeze' and 'Every Angel'], it was good.

Would you maybe have liked to continue playing with Mice ?

Yeah, I guess I would have done. I was talking to Julianne about writing stuff, and I played guitar on some solo material that never got released, it was 2 or 3 Julianne songs. That was probably about 2 years ago.

How does BlueMax sound ?

BlueMax was a whole bunch of material that I had written, a lot of it while I was in The Mission. It was stuff that wasn't suitable for The Mission. Just as The Mission decided to call it a day, I wanted an outlook for my music, and I got together with Darren, the singer. I advertized in a magazine for a singer, and he replied. It was just me and him initially, with my 4 track demos, and Darren would put a vocal on it. On the musical style, there wasn't any agenda, but a lot of people compared it to Manic Street Preachers, Jane's Addiction sort of style. But Darren's vocal style was very English, very sort of Suede, Blur, Pulp, indie-pop vocal, made it sound less rock. The music is kind of alternative rock, but his voice made it sound a little bit more like Oasis. It's definitely a mishmash of styles.

The album we recorded is basically 16 track demos. Andy has got a recording studio, Rik Carter [ex-Mission keyboard player, played on 'electric' AAE gigs in '99/2000] as well, so I got both involved doing overdubs. Rik mixed some keyboards in months later on some of the tracks. Then I got asked to join Tricky, and I was already experiencing difficulties with Darren's commitment, and concentrated on doing Tricky. Andy was doing The Lucy Nation then. We never broke up, it kind of fizzled out. I still believe in the BlueMax material, it still sounds fresh, and I haven't used it for any other band. It never really got the push it deserved.

On to All About Eve, were you involved with any recordings from them ?

Andy and Julianne got me down to play guitar on an unreleased All About Eve song that never got included on Ultraviolet, an outtake track that never got completed. The idea was to submit that to the 'Goth: Music Of The Shadows' compilation , and it came out so good they didn't want to give it to that. So they wrote another song, 'Let Me Entertain You'. I just stepped in and did a bit of guitar for them, because Marty was away with The Church. That was in summer '99.

I said : "Look, you should do some stuff as All About Eve again !", that was a couple of years ago. When The Mission were touring last year, I said "Why don't we get them to support us in England ?". That's how that came about. I suggested it to Wayne, and one of us spoke to Andy, and he got back to us and said: "Yeah, we'll support you !"

Was the Mission reunion your idea as well ?

It was a combination of things; I was touring America with Tricky, and backstage people came up to me and said : "What happened to The Mission UK ? You should tour !" Wayne came to see Tricky in LA, and I said to him we should do a tour. Not long after that Craig [Adams] spoke to Wayne.

[Wayne Hussey comes in and joins us for a moment]

When you recorded the 'Resurrection' album Wayne, didn't you have any plans to promote it live ?

"No, when I first started making the record, to me it was the end of The Mission, put the thing to bed. The two just coincided really, it was a happy accident." [Mark cont.] I'm not sure if the Eves would have reformed if it wasn't for us suggesting it. It might have given them a momentum. For a while Julianne was in denial about it, she wanted to move on and do something different, and her musical style changed with Mice. Doing the All About Eve / Mission shows again, I think she realized this is where she belonged. You could see she was happy on stage.

You also recorded the Metalmorphosis album, with classic 80's tracks "metallized", that had no guitar on originally. Is that an ongoing project ?

It's ongoing in the sense that I never said "That's it", technically it's ongoing. I have a completed album of 11 tracks. It wasn't done for money at all, it's not a commercial release. I did spend a lot of time on it, each track takes ages. I have no master tape, no midi sync tracks, I have to line up the drums by ear etc, it's a lot of work, but good fun. Saffron from Republica heard some of it and said : "Yeah, I want to do something like this !" We are talking about re-doing some other tracks, like 'Seconds' by Human League, and writing songs out of the vibe I created. I've done 'A Question Of Time' and 'It's No Good' from Depeche Mode, both sound like Deftones got hold of it, big heavy riffs. It's still David Gahan singing, that's what people like. It does sound like it's a remix, with guitars.

How is it done technically ?

I bring it in the computer as a .wav file. I started it as an experiment to learn to work with music software like Logic Audio. I can record in guitars, and put in drum loops. The Madonna track [Justify My Love] sounds like Nine Inch Nails got hold of it !

You also played guitar on the Lucy Nation album, is that right ?

I did, the album never got released. There's been problems at the record company, and they ended up parting ways with Maverick. It was all recorded, it was mixed, and we were on the "Austin Powers 2" soundtrack [with 'Alright']. They are currently talking to new labels. It does mean re-recording a new album, as Maverick own the rights to that album. We've recorded 3 or 4 Lucy Nation songs in the last 3 months which will be used on a new album, with a new label. Maverick don't own the songs, but they own the recordings. If Andy wants to use any of the last 12 songs we recorded, he'd have to re-record it again. I don't understand why a label can finance a whole album and then not bother releasing it. It's a very good album, it's like a hybrid of Massive Attack, Björk and PJ Harvey, very experimental.

Where did you record it ?

We recorded in LA and London, and in a big studio outside London. I spoke to Andy recently and he said it's all looking good. The new stuff we recorded sounds great, so I'm optimistic. I will probably be asked to go in the studio again when we record the new album.

What about the Lucy Nation line up ?

It's Andy and Anna Nyström, and I'm involved as a musician pretty much from the start of it, I'm like the secret third member. Rik Carter was also a bit involved, on one track I think. I played on most of the tracks. I write the guitar lines most of the time, but I'm not actually in the band. It's a bit like Eurythmics ! [laughs]

I heard a new Mission album will be recorded...?

We are going straight into the studio after this tour and we'll be working on it for the next few months. We are aiming for spring / summer. Wayne has a lot of songs, and I've got some. We know a lot of people will be looking forward to this album. We're gonna make sure it's good !

For more info on the multitude of Mark's activities and projects, check out his interesting homepage. You might also want to visit the official Mission site.

If you want to obtain the BlueMax and Metalmorphosis CDs (exclusively available by mail order from Keenlogic Records) or want further info on them, please contact keenlogic@aol.com.

• BlueMax "Superstar" 703K (Carpenters cover with Julianne.)
• BlueMax "Headroom" 821K.
• Metalmorphosis "Justify" 724K
• The Lucy Nation "Alright" 906K.