ROBB WEIR GUITARIST TYGERS OF PAN TANG
INTERVIEWING musicians can be on one hand, a delightful experience, yet also a seemingly pointless task as all they talk about is themselves with the question setter gaining nothing financially, other than meeting their heroes. As one gets older, you simply loose a bit of interest as one’s time can be spent better on other stuff.
That said, noticing that my first real band Tygers Of Pan Tang are on the road again, with a new album called Electrifyed, and since I’ve not seen them for a few years, decided to make contact for the usual Press deal. To my surprise, I was asked directly by main Tygers Of Pan Tang guitarist Robb Weir if I’d like to do an interview. After a bit of pondering I thought, well, go on then.
For the uninitiated, the band formed in Whitley Bay near Newcastle, back in 1978. Apart from a few years break-up, they’ve been at it ever since, so I first asked Robb about the new album, Electrifyed. Yet again, like most of the albums they’ve released, and there’s been many since the 1980 debut Wild Cat, all front covers have terrific artwork featuring Tigers. Along with the band’s main logo, it all gives an eye-catching introduction to the band. This for me gives it an Iron Maiden’s Eddie mascot type feel. As no band members are featured in the first video single from the new offering, title track Electrifyed, already viewed well over 40,000 times, I’m guessing the promo footage was all done digitally, presumably to save precious costs.
“It was yes. We want to do, and need to do, the next video with real people, including band members, with a story board and some kind of plot, but to do all that is a lot of money and unfortunately, you don’t get the return for it.”
The band have released quite a few albums this past decade and I just wondered where Robb gets his inspiration from, who funds it all, as Tygers of Pan Tang get zero airplay on the radio, certainly in this part of the world.
“The inspiration is constant, and I’ll explain. If I said to myself, I’m going to write a song today and I go upstairs to my studio, sit down and think right, I’m here to write a song. My brain, my whole being would laugh at me, and it just wouldn’t happen. I’m just not wired like that. So I always say to my wife, “I’m just going upstairs for half an hour to exercise my fingers.”
I plug into my studio set-up and ten times out of ten, as I’m playing, something just jumps out of the four fingers on my left hand. I don’t know what’s coming; it’s crazy. And it happened today! I was sat in my chair, I’ve just decorated my studio so there nothing on the walls, just fresh white paint, I’m waiting for a new studio desk to arrive. This isn’t an Abbey Road recording studio set up. I have a sixteen-track digital recording system which I like, I understand and it has a nice sound.”
Photo By: Roy Goodall
And who funds it all?
“I fund my studio of course and the band and record company fund the everything else”
So every album you’ve done is paid for by the band and the record company, with the hope that you get monies back via ticket sales, merchandise….
“Yes, something like that!”
On the money theme, I was keen to explore what amount gets spent on an album campaign, this one for example. Do you make a profit?
“On the new album we’ve spent very little. The record company has taken out a few adverts in various magazines, and the band’s manager, who has looked after me personally for 48 years; he’s such a lovely fella. I’ll introduce you to him at one of the shows you’re coming to. He’s actually studied how social media works, he’s very much a facts and figures and graphs kind of person, he has a bit of a degree in social media and knows what works and doesn’t. Apparently, it’s a lot to do with algorithms, whatever they are!”
Being lucky enough to get the occasional Press Review tickets, I’m very conscious of high-ticket prices and yes, I do sometimes have to pay. T-shirts are nudging towards £50, I and many like me, feel big top end bands are ripping music fans off. Being a musician in a working band, I just wondered what Robb’s take on this matter was?
“Oh gosh, I’ll get straight on my soap box. I’ll tell you exactly what my thoughts are on this. Sometimes when we book a tour, a venue will say what price our tickets should sell for and if they’re outrageous, we do get involved. If I do ticket prices, for instance we’re playing Newcastle, our home town on 29th November. It’s a Sunday afternoon matinee show because kids can come, and kids are the future of the music business. If you don’t get kids involved, in thirty years’ time they’ll be no headline acts! I really feel very, very strongly about that. For that show, in Newcastle, tickets are only fifteen pounds, and kids are a fiver. The show sold out very quickly.”
Continuing the theme, I ranted about other large outfits that have ‘gold circles’, meet and greets, which cost a fortune, again fired Robb up.
“I’m very well-tuned into that. Let me tell you my take on it. The bands that charge for these meet and greets, I absolutely do not agree with that, and I wish they wouldn’t do it. Of course its all for money, but what these bands don’t realise, or maybe they do, these fans that they’re asking to pay to sit on the stage, or shake their hand of have a photo, can pay up to £1,500 to meet a band member for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes or whatever, these people that are paying this, I really wish they wouldn’t. They’ve brought all the products over the years, all the T-shirts for gods amount of money, have supported the band through thick and thin, and are now being asked to pay this extra premium to come and meet the band for ten minutes. It’s money. They agree to it, and I just think it’s profoundly wrong. I’d urge them to stop doing it. The Tygers do ‘meet and greets’. Ours are completely free. We’d never think of charging anybody. We genuinely enjoy it and see it as part of our job. Roy, I like to know how people tick. I’m from Newcastle, if we’re playing in Chester, playing in Stoke, or Portsmouth, I want to talk to you, know how your life is in your city. Is it any different to mine? Let’s have a chat about your family…”
Crikey! Having met and spoken to many a named act over the years, I’ve never had this fired back at me. After my little resume about life in Derbyshire and what I’ve been up to, we went back to when I first saw Tygers of Pan Tang at Hanley Victoria Halls, when Magnum was supporting them. At the time Robb’s stable mates Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard have now all since hit the dizzy heights, so was he happy about how things have gone for the band?
“Oh yes, you know, everything happens for a reason. You have to take the rough with the smooth. We’re still playing around the world. We might not be selling out arenas, but this year we did nine shows in South America, in seven countries, in ten days. Up early every morning, getting onto another plane to go to another country. The first two shows were certainly advertised as ‘Sold Out’, the other seven, I think we sold out six of the seven. It’s South America so it didn’t make big news, but that’s fine. We’ve been around Europe, all over the place really. I’m just looking at my diary for next year and we’ve got 27 shows booked in already, including another rock cruise!”
Purely by chance I’d found out the day before our chat that Robb’s day job is on LNER, the busy fast railway that goes from Inverness and Aberdeen to London, and he’s been there for twenty-five years! I wondered what his work mates thought, how the hell does he do both, and look after his family?
“Crikey. Well, it is a task, it is. I am a ‘CEL,’ a Customer Experience Leader, and my job is to look after the staff who are on board the trains and make sure everybody is doing what they should be doing, plus working alongside them. And I’ve been doing that for twenty-five years. LNER is a great place to work and I love my job.”
Presumably having a well-paid day job helps fund the band then…
“No, absolutely not. The band is a business, and it funds itself. It has to. We all have different lives and when we do the band, we all have to take time off from our other lives. Of course, taking time off means you’re not earning what you could be earning from the day job. The band has to pay to make sure we’re all not out of pocket”
Doing my research, I counted the Tygers Of Pan Tang have put out 36 albums in their career. Yes, that includes live albums, compilations and the like, but Rolling Stones aside, I can’t think of another band that’s done this amount of work. And that’s not counting E.P.s and singles! A fact Robb is extremely proud about, delivering that kind of output takes hard work and dedication. And I too would be very proud. He went on to inform me about the early days of their first single, ‘Don’t Touch Me There,’ fly posting around various venues in the north, and how their then label originally pressed 1000 copies of said tune, which sold out in a few days. Only for it then to get re-released via a larger label, MCA, who pressed up another 50,000!
As time moved on, the Tygers replaced original singer with the brilliant Jon Deverill, who had a tremendous voice, thus taking the band to another level.
“An amazing voice, and that was the start of a slightly different direction for the Tygers. It was a lot more hard rock and melodic as he had a much bigger range than our original singer, plus John Sykes was already in the band then, now sadly passed away. We were on our way then, as they say. It’s been a great journey.”
And with 2028 being fifty years of Tygers of Pan Tang, more work is plumbed in the pipeline. As we start winding things up Robb makes a strong point of saying, ‘Thank You,’ so I asked what he’d like to say to the faithful?
“Thank you so much for coming on this journey with us, for buying albums, the CDs, the T-shirts, the pens, whatever we throw at you, its always a pleasure to meet you after the shows. If it is at all possible, financially possible, please keep coming to see us, please keep saying hello.”
What an amazing chap. If you can, try and catch the current up and coming Tygers of Pan Tang, “Electrifyed” tour. Pounce and buy a T-shirt, or get your claws on the new album, ‘Electrifyed,’ out now in all good record shops or via the band’s website, www.tygersofpantang.co.uk