AZTEC CAMERA FRESTONIA

Named after the squatter’s community in Notting Hill, where it was recorded, the final Aztec Camera album finds a newly clean Roddy Frame making soulful AOR, including the glorious “Sun”, to commercial indifference LANGER: I knew Roddy was sober. I don’t know if he was doing AA or whatever, but I remember saying to him before we started, “OK, I’m not going to drink on this album” – which was a new thing for me! He was super talented, a great singer, and one of the best songwriters around. I was very impressed by his guitar playing. WINSTANLEY: There was no sense of Aztec Camera as a band anymore. It was just Roddy, though we auditioned quite a few good musicians. Yolanda [Charles] was playing bass, Jeremy Stacey was on drums. LANGER: It wasn’t a particularly commercial record, but we were all very happy with what we were doing. We weren’t really having hits at that time, and neither was Roddy. It was more about making a good album than being in tune with the charts. The arrangements were quite loose at times, like Traffic or something. He’d let the band fall in and find themselves, rather than be: “It starts like this…” There were no battles or fights, it was an easy album. When we went to cut the record, we were in a cab, and Roddy gave me a big hug and said thank you. He’s a nice guy, and we had a nice time.