Michael Messer and Chaz Jankel combine for a gig at Chichester’s Bar Havana on Tuesday, February 25 on the back of their first album together which came out last year.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspaper. It's a real
00:06pleasure this afternoon to speak to Michael Messer. Now Michael, you are heading to Chichester
00:11for a gig at the Bar Havana on Tuesday, February 25th, which as we noted was George Harrison's
00:17birthday, to play with Chas Yankov, and you are doing so on the back of an album which
00:24you released together last year. Now you'd known each other for a long time, so in a
00:29way the album was a long time coming, wasn't it? It was a long time coming, it was 45 years
00:34coming. How do you explain that? I can't explain it. I met Chas back in the late 70s, just
00:43as the blockheads were kind of getting known, and we've been friends ever since, and it
00:48took until 2020 for us to sit down and say let's make some music together, and that turned
00:55into the album Mostly We Drive. And 2020, the pandemic, was the pandemic a spur to actually
01:02getting working together? No, we actually, well in a way, we met to play a few days before
01:09the pandemic, before the lockdown actually started, and then the lockdown kind of did
01:17make it happen in a way, because nobody had anything to do other than write at home, and
01:23so in a way it did, yes, it did. And the lovely thing is, by collaborating with a long-standing
01:29friend, you were able to push each other in different directions. How did he expand your
01:34musical horizons, do you think, just working with him? What did he make you do that you
01:39wouldn't have done normally? It was good to, I've always, apart from one other album, I've
01:48always produced my own albums. I've been the producer, I mean I've been in a studio with
01:52a band, but I've always been the producer, so the buck stops with me. It was really good
01:59to have somebody helping me as the producer, and giving me ideas and opinions that I wouldn't
02:09necessarily have thought of. So I can't think of, oh this is something I wouldn't have done
02:14without him, but just sharing the responsibility of it, and not only sharing it, but trusting
02:22the person that you're sharing it with. And a meeting of different musical personalities
02:26as well, of course. Very much so, yeah. But also both very open, and Chaz's love, although
02:35he's not known for it, Chaz certainly grew up playing the blues, and I've always, you
02:42know, while blues is what I'm known for, I've been around and played a lot of other music,
02:50so we're both very open to different styles. And the album was Together We Drive, which
02:59is a great title, isn't it? The album was Mostly We Drive, which is the English title.
03:05Mostly, I beg your pardon, Mostly We Drive. Yeah. Fantastic. Yes it was, yeah, and it's
03:14great, we're really happy that we did it, and very happy with the results, you know,
03:18fantastic. We're really lovely to meet you, and to speak to you. You'll be in Chichester
03:23on Tuesday, February the 25th, with Chaz. Thank you so much for your time. And looking forward
03:28to it very much, yeah. Please, anybody listening, come down and come and join us. It'll just be
03:33the two of us, it won't be a band, it's just the two of us in an acoustic setting, so. It
03:37sounds perfect. Intimate show. Fantastic, well thank you very much. Thank you Phil.