I’ve seen it before I can tell/If you want to
help… Let it melt”
There are bands that go the distance. And then there is Diesel Park West. In a tale of Homeric
proportions, the group from Leicester, England have kept faith throughout a career that
stretches back, unbroken, to the era of major label deals, MTV and music industry excess.
Now, 30 years after their first album Shakespeare Alabama, a new chapter begins with the
release of Let it Melt, an album of savvy, street-survivor, sign-of-the-times rock & roll that
only a band with their immense experience, resilience and know-how could have written and
recorded.
“We’ve never lost the spark,” says singer, songwriter and guitarist John Butler. “We’ve never
stopped writing, recording and gigging. We’ve never let the setbacks encroach on our
creativity. We’ve only ever judged ourselves by the standard to which we are performing.
And we’ve pushed on through.”
The band now comprises three members from the 1980s line-up - Butler, Rich Barton
(guitar/vocals) and Geoff Beavan (bass) – together with new boy Rob Morris (drums), who
joined 15 years ago.
Let it Melt is their debut album on Palo Santo, a hip, independent label located in Dallas,
Texas and although it is actually the ninth studio album by Diesel Park West, it feels like a
debut in another sense as well. On the first day of recording, Butler asked Morris what kind
of album he thought the band should make. “One that we like,” the drummer shot back.
“Out of the mouths of babes and drummers comes the truth,” Butler says. “We spent a lot of
time in the old days being pressured by our paymasters on the major labels to do this, don’t
do that. This album is simply made up of new songs that we like to play and more to the
point, that we like to listen to. It’s almost as if we had to do nine albums to get to this starting
point. And I’m not saying that in a flippant way. There’s a deep seam of truth in that
statement.”
With a title that cleaves an appropriate passage between classics by the Beatles (Let it Be) and
the Stones (Let it Bleed), Let it Melt is a masterclass of wry, observational lyric writing and
wiry, anglo-americana riffing. Songs such as Living in the UK, Bombs Away, Across This
Land and Let it Melt chronicle the state of the modern world with a louche swagger and an
incisive wit.
“When you’re 19 or 25 or even 35,
you can’t really write from the
standpoint of someone who’s been
around for a long time,” Butler says.
“It’s only now that I’ve got the
experience to write a song like The
Golden Mile – a metaphor for
finding yourself on the last stretch.
It doesn’t have to be a dark, grey,
end-of-the-line hurtling towards the
final curtain situation. It’s actually a
blast to get this far.”
How have they done it? Diesel Park
West were born in the era of music business plenty. Signed initially to the small, independent
Food Records, they were acquired by EMI, who signed the Food label, simply to get their
hands on Diesel Park West. The band’s epic first album, Shakespeare Alabama, produced by
Chris Kimsey, received glowing reviews, established a solid fan base and made a promising
dent in the UK album chart at No.55. They subsequently placed no less than six singles in the
UK chart, but the breakthrough to a level of commercial success commensurate with the
band’s talent and potential, remained elusive. As the 1980s drew to a close, the baggy scene
in Manchester was sweeping all before it, and then as the 1990s got underway Britpop took
over. But Diesel Park West never hitched themselves to any passing bandwagons.
“There was so much money sloshing around in the record company coffers,” Butler says.
“From CD sales of Dark Side of the Moon, from the Beatles, from Queen, it was coming in
from all sides, and they became imperious about it. We were the beneficiaries of some big
advances, but there was a dark side to it. It made lateral thinking and innovation virtually
impossible. There was a flabbiness in the thinking. And some of the excesses we encountered
were mindblowing.”
Shifting their affairs back to the more grounded world of indie labels, the band released their
genius third album Diesel Park West Versus the Corporate Waltz on Demon. A commentary
on their experience of major label madness, with songs including Good Times Liberation
Blues and The Cat’s Still Scratching, this was an early period masterwork which, ironically,
given the subject matter, languished in the margins for want of a large scale promotional
budget.
As the 1990s wore on and the industry underwent seismic changes, Diesel Park West scaled
down their operations but maintained a full touring schedule and a consistent output of great
new albums - FreakGene [1995], HIPReplacement [1998], Thought for Food [2000]. Butler
also found time to launch a solo career with his debut album The Loyal Serpent [1997], an
enduring cult favourite which has just been reissued, also by Palo Santo, as a special vinyl
edition.
The band carried on into the new millennium, ploughing through the MySpace era and into
the brave new world of Spotify, smartphones and social media.
“We’ve done a lot of hard
labour since the days when EMI paid all the bills,”
Butler says, without a trace of bitterness.
“We’ve been breaking rocks since then. But we’ve stayed with it.”
In the latest twist to the story, a deal was signed with Palo Santo to release the new album,
Let it Melt.
“They got in touch, out of the blue,” Butler says, “I sent them some early monitor
mixes of the new tracks and they wanted to get involved. They came over and we met up at a
show in Brighton. They are
genuine people, and very smart.
It’s been great dealing with them.”
Given the rootsy, riff-driven sound
and freewheeling, outlaw energy
of the new music, it makes perfect
sense that a label in Texas should
have snapped up the album which,
in keeping with the hands-acrossthe-
ocean spirit of the project, was
recorded in D Line Studios,
Leicester and mixed in Pleasantry
Lane, Dallas by Palo Santo co-founder Salim Nourallah.
“The vocals are all live,” Butler says. “We kept the vocal tracks that went down with the
drums, so they retain that energy. It’s better than having some producer making you sing it
with the headphones on for the 23rd time. Somewhere around take eight you’re going to be
losing it.”
Rough, real, full of hard-earned wisdom and a broad streak of black humour, Let it Melt is a
late-blooming masterpiece by a band that has walked the walk like no other.
“I don’t think we’d have been able to make a record like this at any other time in the band’s
history,” Butler says. “There’s something about it that is definitive of where we are now.
Really it’s the truest album we’ve ever made.”
Diesel Park West’s Let it Melt will be released worldwide on September 13, 2019 by Palo Santo
Records.
"Let It Melt is a physical and deeply felt release – this is the sound of a band that, far removed from their humble beginnings, still believes in what they are doing and never go through the motions."
- Music Existence
"...esistono ancora band che dopo quarant'anni di carriera non chiedono nulla se non suonare del rock and roll old-style che pare uscito da una svendita per sgombrare un garage che era rimasto chiuso dal 1964, e che lo fanno in maniera fresca e con canzoni che ci rassicurano sul fatto che sì, il rock sarà anche morto, ma i suoi zombi girano ancora liberi in questo mondo, e suonano ancora alla grande." ".. bands still exist that after forty years of career ask for nothing but to play old-style rock and roll that seems to have come out of a sale to clear out a garage that had been closed since 1964, and who do it in a fresh way and with songs who reassure us that yes, the rock will also be dead, but its zombies still run free in this world, and they still sound great."
- Roots Highway
