Chords for Danny Bowes (Thunder) Interview, 1993

We're now joined by Danny from Thunder.
Firstly, the question you know I'm going to ask is about Snake.
What happened with him?
You don't muck about, do you?
Straight in with the good ones.
What happened with Snake?
He was, _ over a long period of time, we had just too many disagreements.
Simple as that.
It's just like a personality thing.
Unfortunately, when you're in a band together, you spend an enormous amount of time cooped up together, like in the tour bus, in the dressing room, waiting for things, waiting around.
It's probably the worst thing, because that's when people get irritated about little things.
And when you are irritated about little things already, they just get worse and worse and worse, because they just keep compounding on top of each other.
So, it's just one of those things really.
You can't have [G] a band like our band, which is very tight emotionally.
We're all very good friends.
You can't have someone in the band who's not like that, because it just makes everyone else miserable.
So, like I say, it wasn't something we wanted to do.
It wasn't something we found very easy to do.
But for the good of the band, for the good of the future, you had to go, I'm afraid.
So, what about finding someone else?
Because you're all good friends from years [F#] ago, are you going to go back to someone who's a friend, or are you looking for someone who'll just fit in now? _
We are not ruling anyone out.
We're not precluding anyone.
As far as we're concerned, he needs to be all one of these.
Each of these three things.
He needs to be, A, [G] a good bass player.
He needs to be a really good bass player.
He needs to be a really good bloke, so he fits in.
And he needs to look okay.
He doesn't have to look like an oil painting or a fashion model.
None of us look like that.
But he needs to be all of those three things.
And I'm sure we'll find him.
So far, we've done quite a lot of looking, and we haven't found [D] anyone.
Going [F#] back to the single, better man.
The single.
Yeah.
Do you feel better men after, I mean_
Better men, oh, for God's sake.
But over the last ten years, you must have changed quite a lot.
I haven't noticed too much of a change, but do you feel that you're better people?
No, I wouldn't say that we're better people.
I'd say we're slightly more relaxed than we used to be.
When you're struggling in anything, when you're struggling to achieve some kind of success in anything, you have a tendency to be a bit uptight.
You're always looking for another way to get yourself into the spotlight, if you like.
Or get yourself that one big chance to promote yourself.
You just have to _ take it as it comes, pretty much, at that time.
It's only when you get a little bit of success that you can actually sit back and say to yourself,
Well, we're doing all right now, but there's always something else to go for.
Someone said to me the other day, it must be really good when you get successful because all your problems go away.
And I said, no, they don't go away, you just get different ones.
So I wouldn't say that we're any better than we were.
I don't think we've changed very much.
I think we're probably slightly more relaxed and a few more wrinkles.
You've got your wife and baby now and everything to keep you on a level and keep you in check.
Keep you sane, that does.
Yeah, babies.
But what about the others?
Have you noticed them become a bit, maybe, arrogant or whatever?
No, I don't think so.
We're not those kind of people.
You have to bear in mind that we as a band have known each other a very long time. _ _
_ And it's like anything, if you have a very long-term relationship with someone.
Luke and I have known each other for over 20 years, you know that.
And in that time, we've been through a hell of a lot of things together.
And we know each other so well.
It's impossible for someone to go off a tangent without either of us knowing what he was going to do
or what he was going to do at the end of it, which direction he was going to take.
Because he's seen me go crazy and I've seen him go crazy.
Nothing he does surprises me anymore and I'm sure it's the same the other way around.
[N] Where do you see Thunder going from here?
Because you've played Hammer Smith two nights and things like that.
Do you see the next step as the arenas or are you going to continue as you are at the moment?
Are you planning anything?
It's very difficult to know.
We're at a bit of a crossroads in that respect.
I mean, it really depends.
I mean, arena shows are really good because you can put on a great show.
You can put on a much bigger show.
It's much more spectacular.
The problem is, it's not as intimate.
_ You get the intimacy with your theatre shows, you know, where the audience are.
I mean, it's even more intimate in a club.
But every time you go down a little bit, you can't put the show on to the same kind of degree.
And I think to a degree, people expect you to be climbing the ladder.
Otherwise, they think that you're standing still.
And if you're standing still, then you're one step away from going backwards.
And you're slipping.
I can just see it now, the headlines in the music magazines.
But we're not sure what to do, to be honest with you.
I would like to think that if we got into the stage where we were big enough to be able to play arenas,
that we would do some arena shows.
But we would try everything we could do to make them as intimate as possible.
You know, like take the seats out, for one.
Maybe get some of those great big screens and stuff.
Maybe get some interaction going on with the audience.
Who knows?
Maybe get some of the audience on the stage, like Metallica did.
You've got them in that snake pit thing.
I went and saw one of their shows.
I thought it was fantastic.
I was in there.
It was brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
The snake pit.
Have you seen the snake