David McDonough (ex-Deep Switch): "Rock is theatre"

Deep Switch is one of the unique bands of NWOBHM. Like many other bands of this movement, these natives of Norwich released only one album but what an album it is! “Nine Inches Of God” is filled with heavy riffs, amazing melodies, pungent sarcasm and inexpressible atmosphere. All in all, the album is a must for every rock fan. I’d been trying to find someone from the band for years until I finally found the singer David McDonough through Facebook, and he kindly agreed to answer my questions for “Axe Crazy”.
RUSSIAN VERSION

David, please tell us about your very first steps in music. When did you decide to be a singer?

I was in the choir at school and started writing songs aged eleven. I got my first electric guitar at thirteen and learned my bar chords playing songs off “Never Mind the Bollocks”. I fell into singing by accident really; my intention was always to become a writer if/when I grew up.

How did you get in touch with Deep Switch? Were you original singer of the band or did they work with someone before you joined them?

Johnny Blade (Reverend Nice’s younger half-brother), who I knew from around and about, suggested I try out with them. He used the word ‘jam’ so I didn’t take it to be a serious audition and spent the afternoon in the pub. It was Christmas-time and my mate Terry drove me into Norwich from the wilds of North Norfolk in a Mark 1 Ford Escort with holes in the footwells and no heating. They’d tried out various singers and were getting desperate, I think.

What were your first impressions about the band? Did you share the same vision of what you wanted to play and the same sense of humor?

I was expecting a chat and accoustic guitars in someone’s front room so I was astonished by them. They were set up under lights on a dance floor in the back room of The Jolly Butchers pub: Rev. Nice and Jeff Shinn on guitars, Johnny on bass and Simon Dawson (now with British Lion) on drums. They already had a lot of the music you hear on the album, the tunes that would become “Spinning on the Wheel”, “Lovers of the Dream”, “Poison Lake”, “Time Machine”, and they were tight, man! And loud! “Lovers of the Dream” gave me goosebumps. Amazing – I’ll never forget the feeling. “Nine Inches of God” was a much faster song originally and they gave me a sheet of lyrics and a mike and invited me to sing. I’d been drinking Guinness all afternoon and I thought I was going to die – all bright red and sweaty, gasping for air, my heart pounding. But I must have done something right because they invited me to join and I spent the next six months living in the cupboard under the stairs of a tiny house in Old Catton. If anyone was going to sing on those tunes I wanted it to be me. Reverend Nice was a slave-driving tyrant but it was a lot of fun too.

What was it like to be in a heavy metal band in Norwich back in the day? Were there enough fans who supported you, Deviant Instinct, Ground Zero and Metal Virgins?

The eighties was a great time to be in a band in Norwich. There were loads of talented bands and lots of venues. In fact, I would say that people who weren’t in a metal band in Norwich in the eighties were very much in the minority. When you played the Festival House or Whites the audience would all be musicians from rival bands, watching the guitarist’s fingers and bitching about each other’s hair.

Please, tell me everything you can recall about the demos from 1985. Where were they recorded? Did you shop them to labels? Were you an active tape-trader?

The first demo was recorded in the original Kitchen studios, which was a cellar on Upper St. Giles in Norwich. Eight track desk, Tascam reel-to-reel tape and old school spring-in-a-drainpipe-in-the-corner reverb unit. The engineer was a guy called Steve Osborne, who went on to become a hugely successful producer. Hearing myself played back dry (without reverb) in the control room for the first time was a horrible experience. I’d only been in the band six weeks and had no real strength or technique to speak of. I wanted to curl up and die but instead I went back in the live room and did it better. We must have sent some tapes out because I remember the rejection letters. Record companies were inundated with tapes in those days; I doubt they even listened to most of them. We used to sell them at gigs (from our ‘swill’ bucket!) and on sale or return in local record shops.

There are several tracks like “Don’t Wanna Work” and “Dance Feeder” which weren’t on those demos. How were they recorded? Did you record them just for fun or did you play them at shows? By the way, which version – “Pigfeeder!” or “Dance Feeder” – you prefer more? 

Just to be clear: I didn’t sing on “Don’t Wanna Work” or "The Festive Zone”. I had left the band by then. And I sang on “Dance Feeder” very much under protest. I don’t know what Rev. Nice was thinking with this new ‘commercial’ direction but, for me, these songs are pure shit.  I like the original, demo version of “Pigfeeder!” best: the guitars are slower and more menacing, the vocal is spiteful, nice tom-work from Simon and you get the extra verse where the piggy joins the navy!

The band was known for theatrical performances with costumes and make-up. Did you try to be different, provoke people a bit and get some attention or was it your strong believe and a will to combine hard rock and theater?

It’s fun to put on a show. If you’re going to be up there on stage you might as well try and make it count and send people home with something to talk about. Hard rock is theatre.

 People compare Deep Switch to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band very often. Would you say that it’s an accurate comparison? What were you influences at the time?

Yeah, I’d say that’s fair – they obviously had a dressing-up box too! I like The Sensational Alex Harvey band – their stuff’s clever and thoughtful. At the time we were listening to Ozzy, Scorpions, Accept, Loudness, Malmsteen, early Anthrax (with Neil Turbin), Dio – that kind of thing. As a singer I was influenced by Phil Lynott, Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull, John Lennon, Bob Marley even – guys with some timbre going on, not just shrieking and wailing all the time like the house is on fire... (Maybe I’m getting old, huh?!)

I guess the stage names were used for the same reason. How did you come up with your nicks Jinx and The Duke? And what is the real name of Reverend Nice?

I think The Duke came about because I used to go about in a dinner jacket all the time. I guess I must have had delusions of grandeur! And then stuff kept going wrong so I decided (tongue in cheek) I was jinxed. What’s in a stage name, right? I’d better not tell you Rev. Nice’s real name though – there might be a warrant out for him or something. Just to narrow it down for you: he’s not called Marlon P. Blatherskite . . .

I believe that people in bars and venues of East England wasn’t ready to see guys with make-up and in woman wears, so there could be possible incidents and funny stories. Can you share a couple (or more, if you want) of them?

Ha ha! You got that right, dude! So, the cross-dressing started as a practical joke that I played on the band in a pub called the King’s Head in Kessingland. It was essentially a barn full of pissed-up Hells Angels – like something out of a Mad Max movie – and I thought it would be amusing to go on stage wearing a gold lamé mini-dress and fishnet tights. I had the tights on under my jeans and the dress (borrowed from a groupie) in my bag and, when the band went out and started playing Poison Lake, I knew I had about 30 seconds before my vocal cue. So I took off my jeans, put on the dress and out I went, like fucking Tina Turner in “Beyond Thunderdome”! Everyone was open-mouthed with shock but the band managed (to their credit) to keep playing and when I started to sing the place just went wild (in a good way). I think the bikers admired my bravery. And I do have nice legs, as it goes.

We did a gig at the Blue & Gold club at the football ground in King’s Lynn where Johnny and Rev. Nice wore ladies’ clothes as well and the crowd (Hells Angels again) were totally silent all the way through our set. Afterwards we were scared to go downstairs again but I was desperate for a drink so I got changed and went down to the bar. The bikers started banging me on the back and buying me pints. Apparently the total silence meant they liked us. If they hadn’t liked us we’d have known all about it, I was told... 

Reverend Nice mentioned in one interview that the lowest point in the band’s history was when you came to some venue and there were none and you played just for two guys. My question is about the highest point in your career with Deep Switch: what show with the band was the most memorable for you? 

That would be the night when the band got the audience’s autographs! The two shows I mentioned above were pretty memorable, as was the one at Earlham Park where the police came and shut us down because they’d had noise complaints from five miles away in Norwich. Kessingland King’s Head was my favourite though – the dress thing was funny but we played well too.

Is it true that you sent you demos to about 200 labels and got negative responses from all of them?

I couldn’t tell you an exact number but I wouldn’t be surprised. I remember we had a lot of rejection letters up on the wall in our front room.

The album “Nine Inches Of God” was a self-financed affair which was quite hard to afford for an independent band. Did you have someone who backed the band financially or were the band forced to make a loan?

We never had any money in those days and no bank would have given us a loan. We borrowed the money from our families I think – otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you now.

What are your memories about Kitchen Studios? Did the name speak for itself?

The Kitchen was fun. The cellar was tiny so eventually they moved to an industrial unit in a former shoe factory called St. Mary’s Works, where we recorded the album. I liked playing live but I always loved studio work best. There was a snooker club upstairs so if I was having trouble with a take I would go up there and have a pint and play Mr Do (my favourite arcade game) to relax.

Did it take long to record the album? Were there any difficulties or did you cut it pretty much fast?

I think we spent around a month on the album, most of which was taken up by the guitars. Rev. Nice is a perfectionist and his solos were super-technical so a lot of work went into them. I remember one particular day where nothing was recorded at all because he was struggling with the solo for “Lovers of the Dream”. I’d say he nailed it down hard in the end, to be fair – it’s superb. What it did mean though was that there wasn’t much time left for me to do the vocals – and some of them were tricky. There’s eight of me on the intro to “Poor Bastard”, for example: four-part harmonies, all double-tracked, which took time because the pitching and timing had to be extra precise or it sounded terrible. Little known fact for you, incidentally: I played keyboards on the album. Just a few chord layers here and there which you’d have to listen hard to pick out. The most obvious bit of keyboard is the church bell on “Nine Inches of God”.

Let’s talk about the lyrics for “Pigfeeder!”. What influenced you to write it?

Weird song, isn’t it? Norwich is a city in a rural area so you used to get these farm labourer-types with gaiters on and straw in their hair, all covered in shit, like, wandering about. The term pigfeeder became a derogatory term used by the band to mean someone who went through life doing a menial job with no aspirations to anything better. In the gutter but not looking at the stars, perhaps, to misquote Oscar Wilde. You see, our boots were held together with gaffer tape but we still thought we were better than everyone else. First time anyone rapped on a metal song, I think.

What did Reverend Nice mean in the title track? What is it about? it’s quite tough to get the meaning of the song not being a native speaker.

Obviously I can’t speak for the Reverend, but I think it’s fair to say he had/has a bit of a grudge against the church. The lyrics are made up of religious references which have been sexualised, so “Nine Inches of God” is like a massive great whanger or whatever. I was brought up Catholic so, after all those hours spent in draughty churches listening to wrinkly old fuckers droning Latin, I was happy to put the boot in. Stunningly brilliant guitar solo.

Tell me, please, about the song “Lovers Of the Dream”. it’s so amazing and so stand out. I’d say that was potential hit. Did you play the song during live shows? 

It is a beautiful song, isn’t it? It would have made a good Christmas single, I think. We did used to play it live and I used to dread it. It is so hard to sing! I’ve heard a couple of other singers try it and it’s been a complete car crash. There’s a shonky old video of us performing it live on YouTube and I miss the high ‘A’. Bollocks! This song gave me a bit of trouble in the studio too but I’m reasonably happy with the end result (and I smashed the high ‘A’ – twice cos the middle sections are double-tracked).

How do you view the song “Poor Bastard” these days? Wasn’t it too much over the line?

We set out to offend people and it worked. I’m not going to try and defend the indefensible here: it was over the line in 1986 and it’s even further over the line today. Sorry everybody! . . . It was fun to sing though and another corking solo from Rev. Nice.

Why didn’t “Silver Bullet” make it to the album?

There was a school of thought that “Poor Bastard” shouldn’t be on the album, and “Silver Bullet” was a strong contender for its place, along with a song I had written called Feast on Love. But “Poor Bastard” won out, much to the disgust of all right-minded folk. Nice vocal melody in “Silver Bullet” and an early outing for my nascent falsetto. One of the howling wolves is from a BBC sound effects tape and the other one is me.

I know that the cover of the album was done by the father of Reverend Nice. Did you discuss it with him or was it all his ideas? What do you think about it nowadays?

I like the cover a lot apart from the main Deep Switch logo which is rather wanky and the band photos on the back which are, frankly, shit. The boys’ dad was a real character, known as the Birdman of Briston because he bred hawks and owls.

Do you remember anything about the album’s distribution? Did it sell in healthy quantities? Who did all mail deliveries of the album? 

I’d left the band by the time the album came out but I know it was distributed by Backs Records. I imagine it must have sold a few copies here and there cos it’s gone to several pressings. Couldn’t tell you about mail, I’m afraid.

Kerrang! gave the album very low rating. Did it affect the sales and the band’s career in general?

I don’t suppose being slagged off in Kerrang! did us any favours but, on the other hand, Tommy Vance was playing our stuff on the Friday Rock Show and gave us Album of the Month in Metal Hammer magazine, so maybe it balanced out in the end.

The album was recorded by four musicians but there are some pictures portraying Deep Switch as a 5-piece unit. Why did you decide to extend your line-up? Would you say that Nick Evison and Jeff Shin fitted the band?

Deep Switch was always a 5-piece until Reverend Nice decided the album would be tighter if he did all the guitars himself. While that is undoubtedly the case I think we sounded heavier with Jeff’s rawer sound complementing Reverend Nice’s warmer tone. Nick was Jeff’s replacement when he left the band and a similar kind of bluesy, Brian Robertson-ish feel-player. Wonderful guys, both dead now and very sadly missed.

By the way, when and how Johnny Tippler joined the band? 

I have no idea who that is, bro.

It’s a shame that nobody signed the band eventually. How do you think why? Was it because your image and lyrics were too weird for typical listeners? Or was it because you were far from London and had no chance to get attention from wider audience?

I think if I had hung around we would have been signed. I know there was interest from a couple of record companies on the back of the airplay, but I wasn’t happy so I went and got on with my life. I only stayed to make the album because we had financial commitments that I wanted to honour. It’s a shame but that’s the way it is with bands. I was only twenty, after all.

What you’ve been up to after the band’s split? Were you involved with any other bands and projects?

After I left Deep Switch I formed Sullen Blaze with Nick (Johnny Blade was also involved in the beginning) and we were together for several years as a 5-piece gigging and recording. I would love to get a CD out but I don’t have any of our master tapes. If anybody out there has any Sullen Blaze masters – get them to me, please. There’s some Sullen Blaze stuff on YouTube that will give you the gist but the sound quality is not the best. For the last few years I have been working on a trilogy of novels, the first of which should be available later this year, all being well. Watch this space, kids – it’s gonna be a wild ride... 

Do you still stay in touch with the others? Don’t you know what happened to the idea of Reverend Nice to release a rock musical?

I’m friends with Simon on FaceBook and I see Johnny from time to time but that’s about it. Last time I spoke to Reverend Nice he had three rock operas on the go, so who knows?

What do you think about ongoing interest to deep switch? Were you involved in the re-issue of the album which came out on Shadow Kingdom Records? Don’t you think it’s about time to make a reunion show?

I love that there’s still interest in the band. We worked hard and I’m proud of my part in the album.

My last involvement in Deep Switch was when we went to watch Nine Inches of God being pressed. I never even owned a copy of the album (other than pre-mix cassettes from the recording session) until around the year 2000. I have the Shadow Kingdom CD box set (which is a quality product with an amusing booklet written by Rev. Nice) and a cool-looking pink vinyl on Black Widow, which I haven’t played so can’t comment on. I think a reunion is unlikely, to be honest. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. My son Joel is the singer in the family now.

Feel free to say a few words to your fans to round up the interview.

It’s been fun to reminisce and I’ve enjoyed listening to the songs again. It feels like a different lifetime but also, in some ways, very vivid . . . Hookers with blue legs coming in from the snow to watch us rehearse in the pub; boiling bass strings because we couldn’t afford to replace them; a policeman telling us off for shooting passing cyclists with pea shooters through our letter box; Billy Wong giving us scraps from his chip shop to keep us alive till spring; being pecked by a Russian steppe eagle during a photo-shoot . . .

We were young and every outcome was still possible.

Keep the faith.

The night belongs to lovers of the dream.