To the casual fan, Nazareth will always be known for songs like “Hair of the Dog” and “Love Hurts”, but classic rock fans know this band has a 50+ year history of great rock & roll. They are about to release their 25th studio record called Surviving The Law and founding bassist Pete Agnew recently took some time to talk about it.
Please press the PLAY icon below to listen to the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Pete Agnew –
On whether it “feels” like Nazareth without Dan McCafferty – Well, I think it may mean more to the fans. Nazareth has always been Nazareth to me, even with the different lineups we’ve had because I’ve been there when we started the band. If you wanna take it further back, I started the Shadettes in 1961 or 62, this is what this band came out of that band. They’ve all been my lineups. It’s always going to feel strange for me when Dan’s not there because Dan wasn’t just the singer, Dan’s my best friend. We went to school the first day, about five years old, we sat next to each other in the class in the very first lesson if you could call it a lesson on the first day and we’ve been best buddies since. You’re looking at about 70 years now. I’ll never go on stage without thinking about Dan. 1:09
On keeping Nazareth’s sound modern and fresh on this record – The approach has been quite energetic. I think that the producer we have, Yann (Rouiller), for the last five albums now was only 25 when we started using him. He’s a very hard-working producer, he brings a fresh mind to the albums all the time. I think, to do with the sound we get, he’s got what to do with that as well. I don’t know, I think that the tails are still up when we’re going into the studio like we were at the beginning. Even this thing, this last couple of albums just seemed like a beginning again. With having a new singer it feels like the most different band of all the Nazareth’s we’ve had before. You always change a guitarist or a drummer, or a bass player, or something but when you change a singer it’s a really big deal. Having Carl (Sentance) come to the band has had a lot to do with the approach of the records as well, the energy level it has taken to the records. 2:41
On working with Roger Glover early in their career – Well, at the time, we’ve done a couple of albums and we were still kind of feeling our way, what we were gonna be, we weren’t really very sure when it came to recording. The time we were writing songs and doing stuff for Razamanaz, we knew it was gonna be a proper rock band. We actually thought at one point for the producer (asking) Jimmy Page we were thinking about Pete Townsend because, at the time, these guys were hot at the time. Roger, of course, was the guy that wanted to do it. He actually approached us rather than the other way around. When we were on tour, he heard us play in America and other places. When we came back, we did a big British tour and we were actually already playing songs from Razamanaz live before we even recorded it. We were actually playing them on stage, so he heard us every night. Roger just said, “I wouldn’t mind having a go at producing you guys”, and we went, “Well, yeah, that’s great”. We got a lot of respect for him. So it was the best move we ever made. As far as I’m concerned, Roger was the guy that really got us to use the studio properly and how to record properly, because we had no idea up until then. Of course, Razamanaz, Loud & Proud, and Rampant were all big hit albums. Everybody in America thinks of Hair of the Dog being the album and things, well, it was in America, but not in the rest of the world. Razamanaz, Loud & Proud, and Rampant got us platinum records for them up in Canada. America was the place we couldn’t get any radio play at all. Hair of the Dog was the breakthrough for that, but the three that Roger did were very, very successful everywhere else. He was a great guy to work with. We learned a lot of things from Roger. He was very good at arranging, I think he does a lot of that with Deep Purple as well. He was one of the main guys that arranged their recordings. It worked out great for us, we’re still friends with Roger. 4:20
On switching producers and the history of Hair of the Dog – We were putting it together ourselves, that’s what it felt like. When we did the three albums with Roger, we figured we’d gone as far as we could with him. (Guitarist) Manny (Charlton) had always wanted to produce the records, so we said, “Yeah, why not, let’s have a go?” In the studio, it was very, very elusive. What we were doing is using the knowledge that we got from Roger to put it together. When we did the album, obviously, I had no idea. You never have any idea what an album’s going to do. We didn’t think necessarily that would be the breakthrough in America. In fact, at that time we never thought we’d record in America because the hits we had everywhere else were really good records, and it just never happened. They never got played in America. Then when we did Hair of the Dog, I mean, that was a fluke as well, because on Hair of the Dog, you’ve got “Love Hurts” in America, but that’s the only place in the world where “Love Hurts” is on the album. Every place else, it’s “Guilty”, the Randy Newman song as the track. What happened was Jerry Moss from A&M Records, when he heard the album and he heard “Love Hurts”, which we’ve recorded just as a B-side for the next single, he said, “I want that one on the record. That’s great, I want that one”. Thank God for that, the most wonderful thing that ever happened to us. When that was released and it became a big hit in the states, that’s when people discovered Hair of the Dog. That one would never have got played because of “son of a bitch”, that was then that’s what I was supposed to be called. We weren’t allowed to do that in those days, which is laughable when you see what it said now. That was considered risque and in fact, it was considered no way could you do that. We were going to call the album that A&M said, “No, no, you can’t do that, Sears won’t sell it”. We had to change the name of the album. We were gonna call it Heir of the Dog, which was the same thing, and then it became Hair of the Dog because of the hard-drinking Scotsman thing. So that record, which became the anthem, what happened was when the album came out and people got to hear it, at that time, you had all the college radio stations and they could play whatever they like pretty much. As soon as they heard “Hair the Dog” with “son of a bitch”, they never played “Love Hurts”. The whole thing was kind of a big accident but it was a beautiful accident. 7:19
On deciding to cover “Love Hurts” – It was another accident. The version we liked the best was on Grievous Angel, Graham Parsons and Emmylou (Harris). We love that one. We used to play it in the van when we were traveling around in the late ’60s. We always thought maybe we would do that as a B-side so decided to do it. What happened was we were recording in a little studio in England and outside of London in Kent and Dan and I went up to a wedding in Scotland. We flew up Friday night and went to this wedding on Saturday and flew back down on Sunday. While we were away, Manny and Darrell (Sweet) had done the backing track, guitar and drums. They said to us, “We’ve done a track for “Love Hurts””, we said, “That’s good”. I said, “Do you want me to stick a bass on that?” What they’ve done is they’ve done it in the same key as Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris which is all very sweet. Dan and I were gonna sing it together like them, the harmonies. So Dan went to sing it and it sounded like…well, it just wasn’t stretching his voice, it was far too low and it sounded like nothing. So we said, “We won’t bother doing it”, he said, “No, let me try singing it in another octave”, we thought well best of luck to you, pal, because when it get to the middle, what do you think? So anyway, he went in and he sung that unbelievable vocal, that’s probably one of the best rock ballad vocals that’s ever been recorded. I was there, I saw being done, he went on and he said, “Let me try another octave”, and he sung that we were just astounded and went, “Yep, that will do.”. It was very funny after it, because Darryl said, “Now you’re gonna put the harmony on that, Pete?” I said, “Are you kidding?” If we hadn’t been there when he recorded it, we would have listened to it and said, “No, this key is not working”, and we would have changed the key and that song never would have been done like the way it was done. I mean, that whole Hair of the Dog album, that thing starting off in the wrong key, other things getting put on the album, the college stations playing the “Hair of the Dog” track, you couldn’t make it up really. 11:05
On if he still keeps in touch with the surviving original members – Dan lives about five minutes from me. He lives in a village next door to my village in Scotland. I usually see him quite regularly, but because of the pandemic thing, Dan has COPD, so very bad, and you don’t want to risk giving him anything so I’ve been staying clear, but lately, things are cleaning up, so I went in to see him. I saw him the day before yesterday, I was with him and he’s okay, he’s not gonna get any better. It’s one of these things that’s a degenerative disease, so there’s not much you can do about it, but he’s okay. I never see Manny. Manny lives in Spain. He lived in America for a while, he lived in Texas for about 20 years. We never really saw much of him when he left the band. The last time I actually saw him, we were doing a gig, and I think it was the Cotton Bowl, it was Lynryd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent and us and Manny came. I think it was in Dallas, and that was a long time ago, 20 years or so. 14:05
On whether Frontiers Records was hands-on during the making of the record – They have a lot of heavy metal stuff. They came to us. We always think of them as what you’d call a “catalog company”, they’re one of these guys that are always getting these bands that have already had the main recording history and are needing a label to put something out on. It’s funny, there are so many bands that have got one of two albums with them. When they approached us, we basically had never heard of the label. We could’ve picked a couple of smaller levels, but they wouldn’t really do much, they don’t have much of a distribution. So when Frontiers came to us, it was a good idea to go with these guys. So I can only say we worked with them on Tattooed on My Brain, and everything was great, hunky-dory, everything seemed to be fine and with this one they seem to be doing a good job already. Prerelease there’s a lot of work done, talking to you guys like you. They’re very good with online stuff. I’ll tell you something, I’ve never actually met anyone from Frontiers, I’ve never actually met anyone. There’s a guy I deal with, he’s in the States, he’s their main man in the states and he does a lot of the stuff with the artists. They are actually in Naples, in Italy, I’ve never really seen them, but I’m quite happy with the job they’re doing and we’re due to do another album with them. 15:50
On touring behind the record – I should be in Russia right now, as we should have been in Russia, heading for Ukraine next week. Tonight will with traveling, going to St. Petersburg tomorrow now, which we’re not doing for obvious reasons. So that’s where we were going. Obviously, that all got canceled. We don’t have anything really happening until June, all because of the pandemic. Even last year, all the things were lined up last year, because everyone thought it would all be over by then, but of course, it wasn’t, so you to cancel all those things again. So then this year, I had all these dates all booked all the way through the year, and again, in January, we managed to do two shows, festivals, and then everything was canceled everywhere, and again with this other thing that came out, oh my God, Omicron Variant. So the next gig I got is a festival in Malta in the beginning of June, and then went back to normal, mainly Europe we’re playing, but coming to Canada for a month in August, and then I got a big European tour, a Sweden tour, a Norwegen tour, a lot of festivals up there, Czech Republic, we’re there quite a bit. So a lot of the places that we normally go to every year, we can’t go to Brazil. This thing has cleared up in America it really has, you guys have kinda got back to normal, but it’s not like that here yet. Different countries in Europe are still under different rules, hence we have Surviving The Law. 17:58
