Hiya Ron and Gol from hovercraft, thanks for joining us in the virtual RGM lounge today. Grab a brew and take a seat.
I hear you have new music. What can you tell us about it?
Gol: “Blown Away” completes our Bond-themed trilogy, and it’s deliberately the rawest, most unfiltered material we’ve reconstructed. Where “Shaken Not Stirred” had that polished neo-soul sophistication and “On The Rocks” explored moody experimentation, “Blown Away” is Charlie’s vision almost completely unvarnished – explicit, aggressive, emotionally volatile.
The standout moment for us is probably the double A-side we released on Black Friday – “New Pine Overcoat” and “Angel.” They’re having a conversation with each other: the first is basically Romeo and Juliet, a suicide pact between lovers where the title literally refers to a coffin. The second is what happens when you break that pact and choose bitter survival instead, ending with the ultimate spite move: “I’m gonna screw all your friends.”
What’s brilliant is that the original recording of “Angel” is from a 1996 rehearsal, and at the end you can hear Charlie off-mic casually asking “D’ya wanna do it again?” right after delivering this devastating emotional journey. That combination of intensity, working-class pragmatism and dry humour – that’s pure Charlie. We kept it in the reconstructed track right at the very end, and it gives the song a whole new dimension. But you do have to listen to the whole song for the pay-off!
The whole album traces that arc from hope to wreckage, sophistication to chaos. Like Britain itself, really. Like the hovercraft technology we’re named after – started with so much promise, ended up rusting on beaches. A bit like us, except we’re still trying to take off!
It’s been nearly 10 years since Charlie was last seen in Bournemouth. How has your thinking about the search evolved? Are you still genuinely hoping he’ll hear this, or has the project become something else?
Ron: Most of the search for Charlie has so far come to a dead end. We have had some contact with a few people that knew him in the Bournemouth/Boscombe area but they’ve only really corroborated what we’d already learned.
Our next steps are a little uncertain. We’ve talked about potentially approaching the traditional media – newspapers and radio stations – and even heading down to Bournemouth ourselves, although we think that without a targeted approach and firm leads it would probably be a wild goose chase.
We knew very little about Charlie’s personal history when we were playing in the band together, just anecdotes and odds and ends about his past life. We know his hometown was Winchester. We know he lived in Brighton and Bournemouth, and travelled to India and back. We know he’s had his own struggles during that time. But apart from that, it’s been quite difficult putting anything concrete together to understand where he might be now.
We genuinely hope he somehow hears the songs or that someone we’ve been in contact with may get a message to him. In many respects I think that’s our best hope.
The project is Charlie, he wrote the songs and we were fortunate enough to be part of that. I don’t think it’s morphed into anything else. AI is just a creative tool ewe’ve used to make his original songs presentable – and they’re great songs, they deserve to be heard. If that’s all we achieve in doing it’s better than doing nothing.
You’ve been transparent about using AI for reconstruction. Have you encountered resistance from the industry? How do you respond when people dismiss AI music without listening?
Ron: I haven’t personally encountered too much resistance yet. I’ve been met with mild curiosity and ambivalence from some of my muso mates, but most people that have listened to the songs have been impressed by them and really like them. We’ve had a few knocks from some in the music industry but it’s mostly been a positive vibe.
I also think anybody that dismisses anything without having experience of it is offering nothing but opinion without substance. I understand the scepticism of some in the music industry. You know, the ones that say it isn’t real music, it’s soulless and without creative foundation. It may be true in some cases but these songs were originally created and recorded by four musicians in 1995 to 1996, so in that sense there’s nothing artificial about them.
Yeah, we can manipulate the voice and instrumentation but our whole purpose was to produce the songs without losing the human dimension or arrangements that made them great songs in the first place. They had to be about what Charlie’s vision for his music was; about what Hovercraft’s vision for the music was.
It’s not as though we’ve trawled through endless tomes of Byron, Keats and Shelley nicked a few of their stanzas knitted them together thrown them into a mincing machine pressed a button and a fucking album of freshly cooked songs has popped out!
Mr Shimble, our old drummer, loves them. Our former manager Belvoir-Hunter loves them. Me and Gol love them. We wouldn’t have released them if we didn’t think they represented what we and what we think Charlie would have wanted. So that’s good enough for me.
I guess what I’m saying is fuck the naysayers and democratise the music industry. It gives everybody the opportunity to create something meaningful, even if it’s just meaningful to them.
I wrote my dissertation about this twenty-five years ago – how the music industry commodifies rebellion and controls the means of production. Punk was DIY until the majors figured out how to package it. Now Suno’s struck a deal with Warner, and we’re watching the same cycle repeat with AI. That’s why it matters that artists use these tools NOW, while they’re still accessible, before the industry locks them down and monetizes everyone else’s vision.Historically, technology has always been used in music and music production, from the early field recordings of country blues musicians to the use of synthesizers, and later auto-tune and god knows what in the modern day. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hendrix all revolutionised, used and promoted recording technology. Bob Dylan went electric and mortified half his fan base. They even made it into a movie. AI isn’t going away.
Gol: As for stealing other artists’ work – yes, this can happen, just like it’s always happened before AI. But did Richard Ashcroft steal Bittersweet Symphony from The Stones? Or did Allen Klein steal it from Richard Ashcroft? Where did folk music and the blues come from? Who literally stole blues songs in the 60s? The Beatles? The Stones? Led Zeppelin?
Every band that ever existed tried to sound like their heroes, taking things from other songs without even realisinge it. There are only so many melodies and chord progressions. So much is in the arrangement and production, not just the performance.
We used a female vocal in some of our reconstructed songs that, to my ears, sounds like Alicia Keys. Is it her voice? I would love it if it was. But if it is, and I’ve stolen it, she’s very welcome to reimburse me for all the money I spent creating it, and I’ll gladly give her all our royalties from our streams and sales in exchange!
You kept these demos in cardboard boxes for thirty years. Was there ever a moment where you nearly threw them out? What made you keep them?
Gol: My wife has tried to throw them out many times! But they’re part of me, who I am. It would be like deciding not to keep an arm or a leg. I kept them for my kids, and because I always wanted to do something with them. There’s not much likelihood of a band reunion, and we couldn’t afford session musicians. AI gave us the opportunity to recreate the songs.
The trilogy is complete. What happens now? Are there more songs to reconstruct, or is this the end of Hovercraft’s second life?
Ron: I hope the release of the trilogy means Hovercraft lives forever.
Gol: I still have a box full of old tapes to go through. There could be more songs on there, there could be nothing.
Our intention was always to try to recreate our original sound, which we’ve done to some extent already. They sound uncannily like we did thirty years ago, rehearsing in that vicar’s house we rented. We wanted to get Charlie’s blessing to release them with what sounds like his voice. But at this point, we’re broadcasting as widely as possible – hoping he hears them, wherever he is.
Thanks for doing us today, folks.
FOLLOW THE BAND HERE
CHECK OUT THE LATEST RGM TRENDING MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS HERE