Mechanics going strong as 8th album is released
For Mike + the Mechanics, these truly are the living years.
With the release last week of “Let Me Fly,” its eighth album, the British group — founded in 1985 as a side project for Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford — remains as active as it has been at any time in its career.
Since relaunching in 2010 after a six-year hiatus and releasing “The Road” (2011), the Mechanics have toured regularly and become the kind of going concern that the band was unable to become in its earlier incarnation.
“The original Mechanics were a recording band,” said Rutherford, 66, speaking by phone from his home in England. “We hardly ever toured.”
That group — which included vocalists Paul Carrack and Paul Young, now deceased — scored early hits with the singles “Silent Running” (1985), “All I Need Is a Miracle” (1986) and “The Living Years” (1988).
“A new Genesis record would take a year, and then a tour would take a year,” Rutherford recalled. “Then the Mechanics would record, and then it was time to get back to Genesis. There wasn’t really time to tour and establish (the Mechanics) as a band.”
With Genesis dormant since 2007, however, Rutherford has taken a different tack with this edition of the Mechanics.
“We do a lot more touring,” he said. “Some of these songs were hardly ever heard live before, so it’s quite a nice happening to be doing this like we are now.”
Rutherford views “The Road” as “the start of the
next stage.” That album introduced the new vocal tandem of Andrew Roachford, known in the United Kingdom as a solo artist, and Tim Howar, a Canadianborn singer/actor best known for his work with Van Tramp.
“I didn’t really know the two singers really well when we did the last album,” he acknowledged. “Now it’s been five years of touring and getting to know everybody and getting to know their voices, so (“Let Me Fly”) was a lot easier to make.”
Rutherford recruited a number of collaborators for the newest album, including old friend Brian Rawling, whose credits as a producer include work with David Bowie, Cher and Tina Turner. Frasier T. Smith has worked with Adele and Sam Smith, Ed Drewett has produced for One Direction and former Johnny Hates Jazz singer Clark Datchler became a songwriting partner for Rutherford, whose son Harry also was part of the creative team this time out.
“The quality control on the songwriting has been high this time,” Rutherford said. “We’ve taken a different approach to songwriting. This time around, we’ve kind of gone in and actually written a few songs and thrown some out and rewritten them. We really took a lot of time to make things right.”
The title track to “Let Me Fly,” one of the first written for the new album, expresses the overall feeling that Rutherford wanted the album to convey.
“It’s a nice, simple message — which is a message of positivity,” the guitarist explained. “It’s like: ‘Don’t have any regrets. If you want to try something, do it.’”
The Mechanics will continue working the road in support of “Let Me Fly.” The group toured the United Kingdom earlier this year and will return to the U.K. in June to support Rutherford’s Genesis mate Phil Collins
“We’ve taken a different approach to songwriting. ... We really took a lot of time to make things right.”
— Mike Rutherford
in Dublin and London. A European tour will kick off in early September, and North America is on the agenda for the spring of 2018.
The Mechanics have opened for Collins previously — a decade ago in Germany during Collins’ last solo tour. Rutherford — whose Genesis memoir “The Living Years” (Thomas Dunne, 2015) preceded Collins’ own recent autobiography — considers the pairing a good fit for obvious reasons.
“It’s great for us because there’s an audience who probably know and like us anyway,” he said. “It’s a nice, friendly environment to do a couple of shows.”
He’s hoping, for many reasons, that Collins’ return to the stage is successful.
“I’d like to see him just get off the ground this time,” Rutherford said. “It’s great that he’s going to get back and do some playing live. He’s had a funny few years in many ways — they haven’t been the best time for him, actually. I think he needs something in his life like music again.”
If it does work, of course, Genesis fans might hear the R word — — bandied about again.
“I’ve always said, ‘Never say never,’ because who knows?” Rutherford said. “If Phil gets up there and has fun doing this, there’s no reason we couldn’t do something. We’re all alive; we’re all great friends.”