Yantra – although Ramon puts it down to them shrinking to a three-piece. “Finally, Sun Dial was being allowed to grow into the guitar band that we always threatened to become with no outside interference,” he explains. “The seeds were there from the beginning, even from early tracks like ‘Exploding In Your Mind’, ‘Slow Motion’ and ‘Fireball’. Initially, we approached Steve Albini but it didn’t happen. It became our most successful album to date and people now talk about it as being one of the first stoner rock albums. That genre didn’t even exist in ’94. For me, Acid Yantra captures our early sound best.”


While the mainstream music press fawned over the darlings of Britpop, Sun Dial were quietly carving their own niche. But it wouldn’t last. Gary sighs: “I thought we were approaching a new peak of creativity and interest in the band couldn’t have been higher, but on the eve of a North American tour, our bassist Jake Honeywill quit and we couldn’t find a replacement in time. Shortly after, we were dropped by our label and suddenly left high and dry – all in a matter of weeks. We couldn’t tour to promote the


album so Sun Dial became a studio band for several years.” Frustrated, Gary returned to recording. “We found a studio space virtually under the Thames at London Bridge previously occupied by The Stranglers,” he reveals. “Before that, it was Samurai Studios which was originally owned by Iron Maiden, located in an old Victorian debtors’ prison. We installed all our equipment from Third Eye and our management told us to come up with some new recordings.” Heavier even than Acid Yantra, these sessions took shape as Kohoutek – but when Gary suffered the further ignominy of the album’s rejection by the band’s management, Sun Dial was promptly shelved.


By this point, Gary occasionally worked with Russell, who had been kicking his heels after the demise of Chapterhouse following the release of their second album Blood Music in ’93. “We just fizzled out,” Russ adds. “I first met Gary through a mutual friend around 1990. He recorded a track for The Bikinis, ‘Let’s Dance On’ by The Monkees.” Russ was staggered to hear that Kohoutek was to be stillborn: “It was shaping up as a killer. The


studio was bloody eerie and we were both slightly unhinged. I was living on someone’s floor at the time, half delirious. Gary was tearing it up with the guitar in the dark shadows with a new-found fury. Maybe this album was too dangerous!”


Ramon felt disillusioned, to say the least: “After the disaster of the shelved album and leaving the label, we had an empty studio, so I came up with this idea of a series of limited edition vinyl albums, recorded by bands at our studios. And the Prescription label was born. I invited friends to come along. We did about eight albums, most of which I play on in some capacity or the other. Since about ’93, I’d recorded a series of instrumental tracks and decided to release an album of it. Quad was the result. The Prescription series also included the likes of Coil, Attack Wave Pestrepeller (with Edwin Pouncey), Leitkegel (Anthony Clough, ex-Sun Dial solo project), Ohr Musik and Azalia Snail.


By this time, Ramon and Barrett had struck up a friendship. “After Gary’s bad experiences, we were both in the same boat, at a crossroads,” explains Russ. “We were like the odd couple: Gary was a quiet, wise character and I’d been hanging out with Blur and enjoying the Britpop years. Now the party was over.” Eventually, a new vision for Sun Dial emerged, due in part to belated curiosity in the band. “Strangely enough, our absence seemed to create more of a demand,” admits Gary, “which surprised me as I was sure they’d be no more Sun Dial by that point. But we started getting emails asking about if/when there could be a new album and interest was on a high.”


The result was the 2002 comeback, Zen For Sale, characterised by a lighter, more atmospheric, keyboard-driven feel with that obvious penchant for late ’60s British psychedelia. Musically, it felt closer to the lighter psych-rock vibe of Other Way Out. Press photos suggested a contented, well- rounded band but the truth was anything but.


“This album for me was a strange time,” reveals Ramon. “My personal life was in ruins. I’m not sure how that album was even made. I was probably on auto-pilot throughout and


42


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92