The Freemasons Interview

Clubbing UK catch up Freemasons front-man, and familiar Brighton local legend, Russell Small in our Freemasons interview, covering details of their debut club hit "Love On My Mind" featuring karaoke queen Amanda Wilson - performed live for the Radio 1 In Ibiza weekend just gone and attaining a mid-week UK chart position of #11, not bad at all.

How did the Freemasons project come about?
"James was also working with me on our Phats & Small project, Jason who’s my partner in Phats & Small, he’s into his guitar based stuff (he’ll probably be at reading this week, mug - in the rain!), basically he wanted to do that and I haven’t got much interest in it all. So me and James thought we’ll just keep plodding along, doing some stuff on our own, we done a few tracks and Tim at Loaded had heard one of them and said he wanted to do it. We were sitting in the pub at the top of the road one day thinking we’ve got to come up with an act name, looked down at menu and there was The Freemasons and that’s how it came about."

What do love most about Brighton?
"It’s just a nice cool place, I travel all around the world and there’s only I could say on one hand, three or four places that are of similar ilk to Brighton, Barcelona Ibiza and that’s about it really, and Worthing of course. It’s just laid back, chilled, everyone’s pretty open minded and everyone just leaves you to get on with your own thing really, that’s what I like about it."

Where did the initial idea for "Love On My Mind" come from?
"It came from Jackie Moore ‘This Time Baby’ (an old record on Columbia, 1978 I think), the actual track was originally done by the OJ’s we pulled that up on the internet, we remembered someone else has remade it, Jackie Moore had done it, downloaded that one and chopped it about, the actual verses from ‘Love On My Mind’ is from a Tina Turner, ‘The Heart Ache Is Over’, it’s cut & shut."

How does it feel to be at the top of Radio 1’s ‘A List’ (amongst many other radio stations & MTV/The Box) and to be playing during the famous Radio 1 in Ibiza Weekend?
"It’s good because obviously people think that dance music’s died, it just goes to show it hasn’t really, people still want to go out at weekends and have a good time. It’s very popular in Brighton, the gay crowd love it and that’s always a sign of good record."

How was the Radio 1 Weekend?
"Very drunk, the thing is we were supposed to be do an interview with Dave Pearce, we got there and that had been cancelled so Amanda did the PA and me and James just stood both sides and got extremely drunk!"

How does the live thing work, do you two play with effects or DJ?

"Amanda does the PA obviously with the backing recorded underneath but she does sing live, me and James we’ve thought about doing the whole live thing but at the moment we’re not that big, you need a bit of financial backing as well, and I prefer DJing."

Have you played Ibiza before?
"Yeah I’ve done it every year for the last six years under Phats & Small, we always do it. We’ve done El Divinos, we’ve done Space, we’ve done Amnesia, Eden residents for Dave Pearce, and this year we’re doing Moneypennys as well."

What do you love most about the white isle?
"I’m going to die there! I got married there as well last year, it’s got a special place in my heart, I go there even when I’m not working, if this track had got to number one I would have brought a place there. I think I’ll eventually end up buying a house there, you just need a massive, massive hit, cause the properties are going up and up and up over there."

Why was the initial release date of April pushed back so far?
"The only people that were playing it were Capital, no other radio stations were playing it, Radio 1 said they needed a longer running with dance records. When it turned out this time we got Radio 1, but because we stopped it last time Capital wouldn’t play it. They only started playing it last week, they had a bit of bee in there bonnet about it, it’s all political stuff, no-one told them it wasn’t gonna be released so they carried on playing it and so they go the hump over it. They’ve started playing it again now, they’re a big network - they’ve got lots of little radio stations, I know Radio 1’s important, but to me, they’re more important cause lots of people don’t listen to Radio 1 anymore. A tactical thing, they were saying you had us, we had you but had no-one else."

Are there any follow up hits in the waiting and will they continue with the 80’s revival theme?
"We’ve got a few things done. The next one’s gonna be a piano driven frenzy which we’ve started playing out a lot and it’s quite cool at the moment, which is good. We haven’t got a contract with any label, so we’re gonna put it out on our own label (Free Maison - meaning Free House) to start off with, and then give it a more commercial release next year.

What’s next for the Freemasons? Another round maybe?
"A big piss-up this Sunday with friends and family, celebrating the chart position. Midweek’s #11, all the people we’re up against is unbelievable, you've got the Kaiser Chiefs, Rolling Stones, Girls Aloud, Oasis, White Stripes. In the top 13 records there are 8 new entries this week. All the rock bands are all selling off the back of V and Reading, their also doing 7 inches and they seem to be doing well."

Any album details or news in the pipeline?
"We think we’ve got an album in us, but whether anyone will give us an album deal or not remains to be seen."

I'm sure they will Russell. And when they do and you get your big house in Ibiza will it be a Free Maison for Clubbing UK?