Last time we spoke to Kenny Maclennan it was related to Radiohead project, Fake Plastic Trees, this time around we catch up to talk about the reforming of the Raining Stairs (initially named Flight To Cairo).
During the eighties and nineties, the band toured with Runrig and shared the bill with the likes of Goodbye Mr MacKenzie and Gun.
2015 sees them back, with a change of personnel, so we asked Kenny a few questions about his time with the band and returning to the band that brought him so much success.
Given the amount of material digged out on the Raining Stairs on the Facebook page, what were your fondest memories of the band , first time round?
I’d have to say being full-time musicians – all three core members of Raining Stairs (Dave Ross, Ewan Scott and myself) gave up good jobs to dedicate our time to writing songs and dealing with the day2day business of running a band.
Although it was extremely hard trying to get A&R people this far north, I don’t think any one of us would change the time we had together. Some real “Spinal Tap” moments – but I’ll keep those for the book ;0)
So what brings the Raining Stairs back now?
I’ve wanted to take the songs we wrote to a new audience for sometime but never thought it would happen – then at a recent birthday party some of my musician friends and two original Stairs members played six of the songs – that was the moment I decided that the songs still had that magic feeling for me.
How does the change of personnel affect the dynamic of the band?
The guys I’ve chosen are close friends and two of them were actually in a support band that did many gigs with Raining Stairs. We will also have Paul Wayman who played bass at our last gig in 2000 in Ullapool and Angus Allan who was our first keyboard player.
So the sound isn’t going to change too much at all – in fact I expect us to be able to bring a freshness to the Stairs sound along with some new songs written recently!
Your promising to play a lot of the original material, how do you think the music stands the test of time?
Yeah a few of the older tracks will be revamped – they were kind of a cross between The Cure and Joy Division so I think they’ll still work well – one thing we were very good at was writing melodic commercial songs – so really hoping they still sound fresh.
I’ve had a very good response on social media which was a tool we didn’t have first time round, so that is pleasing to know that people all over the globe who didn’t hear us first time round are re-tweeting our songs.
How would you describe the music of Raining Stairs to the uninitiated?
Honest uplifting commercial rock music.
What are the hopes for the latest reincarnation of Raining Stairs?
To bring the bands catalogue of songs to a brand new audience and hopefully record a new album.
When can you be seen gigging first and how are you feeling about it?
We will be playing a launch show at Mad Hatters on April 25th – our first live show in 15 years – eek!!!
