6 Qs for Moo of Touchstone

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Touchstone play live at the Peel. This time my 6qs are for their bassist Moo.

Who are your musical influences?

This will be slated by a few people, no doubt, but here goes!! Simple Minds, It Bites, Genesis, Big Country, Duran Duran, The Police, Cardiacs, Marillion, INXS, Trevor Horn (ZTT Bands like FGTH, Propoganda, Art of Noise), The Smiths, The Cult, Michael Jackson, Tears for Fears, Aha, Muse, Blur, The Divine Comedy, amongst others!

What has Touchstone been up to lately?

We recorded the album in February/March 2009 and it was released 1st June 2009. We played at RoSFest, Philadelphia, in May. Cambridge Rock Festival and Peterborough Beer Festival in August. Wintercoast "London to Los Angeles" mini tour, September / October - Yeovil this coming Saturday 3rd October culminating in CalProg in Whittier, California, Saturday 10th October! Then our Christmas party with Magenta at The Peel, Saturday 19th December :-) Next year will be a European tour, some more UK gigs and writing for the third album.

What's your favorite song to perform live?

I have three, personally, favourites for playing live - though I have to say, I really enjoy playing all of the songs live. But - Dignity, Wintercoast & Discordant Dreams/Beggars Song.

How has your music evolved since you first began playing music together?

The music has evolved massively since I joined the band. The Mad Hatters' songs were already pretty much written when I joined, bar a few tweaks which I contributed. Our bar was raised with Discordant Dreams, mainly because we were complete with our proper line up, including Al & Elkie. Again, on that album, there was a mix of old songs and new ones which we'd written together - I feel that you can tell which are which, but the album was very successful for us and set us off on our little musical adventure :-) Wintercoast is a different beast altogether! This is probably close to our trademark sound now - everyone had their full input to the song writing, individual charateristics can be heard aplenty....but the final product is unmistakeably Touchstone! We're very proud of it, it has surpassed our sales expectations already and the feedback from the industry, press and most importantly, listeners, has been truly humbling. We have been working on rough ideas for the next album within rehearsals and I can tell you that it's definitely our sound, but there are some good things being touted about so far!!

If you could play a concert with a band of your choice, who would it be?

That's a really tricky question! I love It Bites, and the tour with them was amazing - a European/World tour with them would be awesome! Also, I honestly think that we could do a really well received tour with DeeExpus who we're touring with at the moment, our bands compliment each other really well and we all get on great, which is a big help! As far as one off gigs go, again, I'll be lynched for this but, Simple Minds!

What's your favorite board game?

Two - Scrabble with a group of friends, some good food and beer / wine, and Backgammon. And I'm a demon at both ;-)

Touchstone is currently finishing of their London to LA tour. Please see their website for the details of last couple of dates. Their new album Wintercoast deserves a place in your collection. Buy it now. It is excellent.