Q. Who are you?
A. We are Tinyfish; four - no, five - no, four musicians from South London who love to make progressive music. Simon Godfrey sings and plays guitar; Jim Sanders plays guitar and occasionally sings; Paul Worwood plays bass and bass pedals; Rob Ramsay speaks, triggers samples, writes our lyrics and occasionally plays the harmonica. Leon Camfield plays the drums and assorted percussion for our live gigs in a smaller, whiter Chester Thompson way.
Q. When and why did you get together?
A. Tinyfish had it’s origins in an acoustic quartet which was formed in 1997 which played the open mike spots of London for several years. However as the millennium came and went, the band became frustrated with the limitations of playing purely acoustic music. An e-mail back in the summer of 2004 started the Tinyfish ball rolling when Simon asked if Jim would like to form a new band that concentrated on a more progressive approach.
Q. Who are your influences?
A. They are many and varied but the main ones would be; King Crimson, Marillion, Tom Waits and Rush.
Q. Why do you have no keyboard player?
A. For two reasons; firstly, we were keen steer clear of as many progressive clichés as possible and a keyboard player might give the band too much of a traditional prog sound. Secondly, we didn’t want to upset the writing chemistry which had evolved over the first six months of the band’s life. We use guitar synths and samplers to obtain any exotic sounds beyond the reach of our six strings.
Q. Why did your debut album take two years to complete?
A. Upon formation in 2004, the band decided to adopt a D.I.Y. approach to keep costs down and our independence high. We built a studio in a loft, begged or borrowed any equipment that we didn’t already own and set about learning how to record the music that we had written.
Q. How does your DIY approach work?
A. Everybody in the Tinyfish doubles in another role. Jim designs all the artwork, Rob is the label manager and maintains our website, Simon is the band’s studio engineer/blogger, and Paul deals with anything MySpace related. We try hard to be a self contained unit and rely as little as possible on the industry of others.
Q. Why then did you decide to sign with Festival Music for your second album?
A. Because there just weren’t enough hours in the day to make the music and attend to all the administration that goes with maintaining a band. David Robinson who runs Festival Music, saw us play at the 2007 UK Summer’s End festival and approached us a few weeks later with the notion or releasing our second album through his label. Festival has released some of the best progressive music in the UK over the last decade (Magenta, Solstice, Manning, Credo etc.) and we were keen to raise our profile within the scene (something that we do not have the logistical clout or time to achieve under our own label). David seems to genuinely love the music which he releases and we look forward to working with him.
Q. What do you think sets you apart from other progressive bands?
A. Perhaps that’s not for us to say. What we can tell you is that there are lots of bands out there who can play mini moog solos a lot faster and better than us, so why try? We want to emulate our heroes not imitate them, and our debut album is just one step towards that goal. We use space, texture and spoken word passages as a way of putting our message across without having to resort to dry ice and wizard’s hats.
Q. Has the internet contributed to your success?
A. Paul, our bass player, suggested that we set up a page on MySpace and place some of our demos on it to gauge public reaction. Within a few months, we had attracted an unusually large number of fans from all over the world who liked what we were putting out. No-one was more surprised (or delighted) at the popularity of our material than us. Paul now works almost full time administering the many questions and requests that we receive through our page. We’ve found MySpace to be a phenomenally useful promotional tool and we continue to use it to road test new material and get feedback from fans. We've now set up a forum on our site so that the fans can talk to each other much easier!
Q. Is Tinyfish your first Progressive band?
A. No, Simon, James and Paul were in a prog band in the late 80’s/early 90’s called Freefall, along with Frost member Jem Godfrey.
Q. Are Simon and Jem related?
A. Yes, they are brothers.
Q. Do you play live?
A. Yes, we’ve played quite a few shows now. We undertook a mini UK tour last year which was very well received and culminated at the 2007 Summer’s End Festival. Since then, we have scaled back the shows as we are now working on the second album. That said, we do slip in the occasional live date to keep our fingers from seizing up.
Q. Would you like to play outside the UK?
A. We’d love to and expect to book some European dates in the not too distant future. After that, well, playing in the USA and maybe even Japan is not beyond the realms of impossibility. Watch this space.
Q. When will we expect a new Tinyfish record?
A. We are releasing our second album, 'The Big Red Spark' in the late summer of 2008 through Festival Records (F2 Music)