Tim Burgess of The Charlatans has been recording with Freebass - a collaboration of bass players Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order), Mani (Stone Roses/Primal Scream) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths).
“The record is actually now finished,” Peter Hook told Undercover. “And I’m in the unfortunate position of trying to find a way to exploit it in this current climate, which is proving a little more difficult than I thought. So Freebass is actually finished musically.“We’re waiting for Mani to be finished with Primal Scream, they’re doing some stuff I think out your way, or in Japan or the far east. We’re waiting for that to finish before we get the group together physically, but the record is done and we’re literally a week or two weeks away from releasing it digitally.”
It will come out with an accompanying EP called ‘Two Worlds Collide’, which is where the guest vocalists will appear.
“The vocalists are Tim Burgess from The Charlatans, Pete Wylie from Wah! Heat, Howard Marks a.k.a. Mr Nice who has done a state of the world rap and me, I’m one of them,” Hook says. “We have an EP called ‘Two Worlds Collide’ and then the [physical] LP will be probably January.”
Gary Briggs (ex Haven) is the band’s permanent singer, fronting the band that sports two and sometimes three bass players.
“The band features three bass players on some tracks, and two on others,” Hook explains. “There’s an interest in the amalgamation of three bass players, which is what’s got everybody wondering, but musically it actually works quite well. On a lot of the tracks Andy Rourke plays guitar, so Mani and I work quite well actually. He’s the rhythm, low player and I play the melody and the high bits, so the amalgamation of the two of us works pretty well and there are few tracks with three bass players and it works, well it works for me anyway.”
If you’re just dying to get your hands on something Hooky related, you can pick up his new book ‘Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club’ when it is released next week.
Join the author, Tim Cashmere on Twitter.
