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Hi there Shane and Allan,
it's Dave Stewart here.Thankyou for your email.Your site looks great.I
guess i may as well waffle on and let you take the good bits out should
you want to put anything on your site :-)
To give you some background information,I had never met Andy latimer
till the day I arrived at San Francisco airport to start rehearsals
for the coming of age tour.I had been put forward by Foss Patterson
and also David Paton who I was working with in Fish's band at the time.I
sent across some cd's of me playing to Andy and we chatted on the phone
and that was my audition.We really hit it off and next thing i knew
I had cd's and cassettes appearing through my letter box with over 3
hours of music for me to learn...aaarrggh!!!!!
It was probably the most challenging gig that i have had to date and
also the most rewarding.Not only was i playing kit but triggering an
octopad in every song so in some instances i was also playing piano
parts etc....
Rehearsals were pretty intense for that tour.We worked from 10am till
midnight some days....with the odd beer in between....well there was
2 Scottish guys in the band now :-)
It was alot of fun touring.It is a big family between band and crew.Susan
does an amazing job and i only wish i knew here secret to keeping a
cool head when everything around you is going wrong.i always had to
pass her office in the house when making my way to the studio and i
only wish i had had a pound for every time she was on that phone kicking
Butt with some promoter etc..hehe..she rocks!!!
I loved meeting all the fans.They are very loyal and it was also great
for me to see alot of Fish fans in the audience.I remember the signing
session after our first Polish show lasting over 2 hours...My poor wee
hands!!!
I still look back at the dvd of the tour and smile.I miss seeing Andy
and Susan but hope i get a chance to play with him again.He is an amazing
musician.Every note is hit with such power and passion.I loved the fact
that although they are a Prog band you can still go away singing there
melodic songs....I wish more progressive rock bands these days listened
to more Camel.It seems like these days all new prog bands are trying
to be too clever with weird time signatures where Camel got the balance
bang on.
I also hope i get a chance to meet some of the great fans i met whilst
on the road with camel.I am hoping to do more work with Colin bass.I
talked to him not that long ago.I actually was calling him to see if
he wanted to come to my wedding..eek!!!..yes,some poor girl wants a
drummer for a husband..Mindyou,she is English....no brains ;-)
I am still keeping busy drumming.I still manage a drum store in glasgow
but i have and still am doing a fair bit of recording and touring.I
have been recording with Simple minds on a few racks for there new album
and have been playing live with John Young.Check out www.youngjohn.co.uk
We have a live album out which you can get from there.Robin Boult(Fish)
plays on it as does John Jowitt(IQ,Jadis).We are desperately trying
to do more live shows but it's hard finding places that want an unknown
band as such.
All the very best from Scotland
Dave Stewart
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