Cast hit creative high with album ‘Love Is The Call’.

Formed in Liverpool in 1992, Cast are vocalist John Power (formerly of The La’s), guitarist Liam "Skin" Tyson and drummer Keith O’Neill. John Power chats about their seventh album, Love Is the Call, which will be released on 16th February, when the band will also head out on a month-long UK tour.

“I think, at this stage in our career, this is the album we needed to make, and it’s captured the energy and the vibe of what I was intending,” says Power, who sees it as capturing the transitional space between leaving The La’s and founding Cast. For a start, he’s back on bass for the first time since 1991 and “it’s got those rhythms, rockabilly, punk, bouncing basses and jumping acoustics.” But it also benefits from 20 more years’ experience of life and music. “There’s a wistfulness: I’m not wet behind the ears, I’ve had success, I’ve lost success, and I know what it is to feel good inside.” What’s making Power feel good at the moment is the conviction that Love Is the Call could be the best album he’s ever made.

Recording was completed over three intensive weeks at producer Youth’s Space Mountains studios in Spain, with each day following a similar pattern. “The morning would be me and Youth sitting in his courtyard playing the acoustic, working on the arrangement, maybe writing a chorus and getting a lyric.” Later in the day, they would join Tyson and O’Neill in the studio. “We get the arrangement, and we then spend a couple of hours getting the right take. Once that was done it was straight onto the acoustics, maybe I’d do the bass, and then it was dinnertime. We did that every day, and we pretty much did a whole song every day.”

When they were first introduced by Cast’s manager, Alan McGee, Power was unimpressed by Youth’s open admission that he hadn’t listened to the demos. “Generally, the producer will tell you what you want to hear. I just thought he wasn’t really bothered.” Realizing that he needed to put aside his ego, and influenced by a weird dream in which he was talking to a masked spirit that turned out to be Youth, Power decided to try again. “So I went back to see him, and we got on amazingly. I was not used to letting people so close but once I allowed him in, he was brilliant, the best guy I’ve ever worked with.” As an example, Power explains that the third single from the album, “Faraway”, was originally a slow ballad but Youth persuaded him to up the tempo. “I got inspired, he got inspired, and it blossomed. It was the most creative session I’ve been on.”

“‘Starry Eyes’ is about knowing the truth and feeling that you can dust yourself down and know what you’re in for, and then you can start finding who it is you’re going to be”

— John

The first single to be released was title track “Love Is the Call”, although Power had originally thought it would be “Starry Eyes”. “It started with that rhythm in the verses – a lot of the songs have got these little jumping rhythms, but the verse was going somewhere, it was very interesting. And the chorus, if you listen to the bass on it, it’s got a cracking ‘Gimme Shelter’ vibe. The musicality of it is thrilling.” The lyrics to “Starry Eyes” are also some of Power’s favourites from the album. “It’s about the naivety of people’s needs and what they think. You’ve been sold this dream, like something from a fifties American movie where you got a suburban utopia, and it’s just not like that. It all comes crashing down. That song is about knowing the truth and feeling that you can dust yourself down and know what you’re in for, and then you can start finding who it is you’re going to be.”

Those two tracks kick off the second side of the vinyl record, which is where Cast have concentrated the harder songs. Changes in music consumption since he started out affected how Power designed the track listing. “Originally Side Two probably would have been first because it’s just nonstop, blistering, sonic, hard rock and roll. But with digital downloads, Spotify and whatever, I didn’t want to blow people away before they’d had the chance to listen to it.” Side One starts more gently with the brief acoustic “Bluebird”, influenced by Hunky Dory–era Bowie and so setting the tone for Love Is the Call’s overall vision. “The vibe was: how would I like to do a debut record now? I’d want it to sound somewhere between Revolver and Hunky Dory.” “Bluebird” was originally intended to be a full-length song played by the whole band but at Youth’s suggestion it mutated into this slower, stripped-down, abbreviated version. “I thought if I start the record with that then it won’t give anyone any preconceived ideas. It’s like you’ve got to listen to the second song because it’s just this little sort of radio wave that comes in.”

L-R: Liam "Skin" Tyson, John Power and Keith O'Neill. Image: Paul Husband.

The album closes with “Tomorrow Calls My Name”, another song that was transformed during the recording process – from a tentative ballad to a “storming” anthem. The final bars were a last-minute addition by Power. “The outro takes the song where it truly needs to go. That extra gear change, it just picks it up emotionally.” Seeing the song’s effect on the friends who heard it first reminded Power of why he became a musician in the first place. “I really believed music was going to change the world. Now I’m older, but the dreams and aspirations haven’t changed that much: a fair society, having an open, tolerant view in life, these things are still valid, and there needs to be a soundtrack to those movements. I’m also old enough to know that I’m just passing through, I’m not going to change the world, but I can have a good shot at changing my own and having an effect on people around me.”

Although Love Is the Call was conceptualized as a return to the band’s early days, Power is far from nostalgic. “When Cast had the success that they had, I kind of missed it all. I was too uptight, too intense. A lot of my time in that so-called successful era wasn’t very enjoyable.” The new album has given him a second chance to enjoy the moment – “I know how quick it’s gone, and I know that if you don’t take notice of what’s happening in the now, it may as well not have happened at all.” “Tomorrow Calls My Name” evokes the complicated emotions that everyone feels when looking back. “When you’re young and immortal, you think it’s going to last forever. But like everything in life, it’s a seasonal occupation. ‘I’ll see you all tomorrow,’ as the last song on the album says. It’s a very fitting ending to the record. I do hope that it becomes a live favourite where people sing along.”

With a headline tour only weeks away, the band recently got together to run through the new songs and are looking forward to playing them live. “We feel we’ve made something very exciting to perform, and I think it’s going to be very exciting for people who are into the band and for people who are yet to discover the band.” Even with a well-loved back catalogue to draw on, Cast are staking their reputation on the new material and Power is confident that their present can easily match anything in their past: “As an artist, it’s a good place to be when you’ve written, recorded and are going to perform what you may consider to be your best stuff right now, after all these years.”

Love Is The Call arrives February 16th 2024.

Author: Rachel Goodyear