![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/1974-10-12-SOUNDS-Peter-Sydney.png\")
<\/a>Ambitious<\/span>\nThe old Flash was a four piece and was<\/strong> ostensibly Banks\u2019 trip. They recorded three albums and Banks then did a solo album. The band were moderately successful in the States, but they didn\u2019t take off in Britain at all.<\/p>\n
They broke up after their fourth tour of the States and Banks, whose solo album had been in the American charts for a while, quietly faded from sight.<\/p>\n
But now there\u2019s the new Flash and a new album. It\u2019s ambitious as unusual – as yet untitled, and with an uncertain release date – and has \u201csomething on it for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a song that\u2019s reminiscent of the old Flash, a blues number (near enough); a ballad; a big production thing; and a folk song (almost). But despite this obvious diversity, I thought I could still detect traces of Yes here and there. Peter sounded confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I know what you mean – umm – no, I can\u2019t necessarily agree with you. Well, to be honest I haven\u2019t heard what Yes has been doing for the past few years. I\u2019m surprised you say that.<\/p>\n
Sydney: \u201cI can only see it in the guitar playing. Peter did a lot of the original arranging for Yes and Flash\u2019s arrangements are sometimes quite similar. He\u2019s never really going to get away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new Flash is a four piece, plus Sydney who handles the vocals. Peter, of course, is on guitar and there\u2019s Preston Ross-Heiman on drums, John Gibling on bass and Icelandic keyboard man Freeman Magnasson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know yet. Soon I hope. The sooner the better, I think. It\u2019s certainly the best album I\u2019ve ever done. Probably the best album I\u2019ve ever heard! No\u2026it\u2019s the most straight ahead album I\u2019ve ever done and the most satisfying musically. The songs that Sydney wrote are fine. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve done an album of songs as such. The old Flash tended to take a song and – well, for want of a better word, crucify it and just pull it to pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis album is dead ahead and that was sort of conscious thing. It\u2019s what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Sydney was very much into the old Flash, she too criticized certain aspects of their approach and performance. \u201cI think Flash live were quite sensational. They were extremely aggressive and I think that came through on the albums. What was lacking was a human quality in the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt a Flash gig the audience were subjected to a surge of music coming at them and they couldn\u2019t grasp any kind of overall feeling, except that they were an aggressive English rock group. That was a tour on in itself. But when I first saw Flash I though, I really want to perform with that group!\u201d<\/p>\n Sydney is America – a fact I should really have mentioned earlier – she was at one time very much involved in the folk scene over there and one of the reasons she came to Britain was to get away from it.<\/p>\n But although Sydney started off as a folkie, her first \u201creal gig\u201d was as an Ivette backing Tina Turner. \u201cI was a walking parody,\u201d she says. \u201cI had to get into Tina\u2019s whole on stage energy thing – yet at the same time I was writing ballads, folk-rock songs.\u201d<\/p>\n She tried to get some sort of act together, but failed. Then she saw Flash play and \u201cWow! I thought: \u2018what I could do with my songs and that kinda of music\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter: \u201cI met Sydney on the last Flash tour nearly a year ago in Los Angeles. We were doing a TV show called the \u2018Midnight Special\u2019 and Sydney was in the next studio doing some acting thing – she used to be an actress, she did \u2018Peyton Place\u2019 and all that – and, we just sort of met.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time Flash was on the verge of breaking up and Peter and Sydney decided to get together and write songs. Eventually, along came the new, improved Flash Mk II.<\/p>\n Sydney: \u201cI sort of brain washed Peter. I took him to see a Rod Stewart concert and said, \u2018you see, that\u2019s what you need. A guy like Rod Stewart out there, communicating with the audience. You need somebody so you don\u2019t have to carry the whole show\u2019. Flash was Peter Banks – physically, musically and everything else. On stage he would leap around – oh, all the showmanship came from him. But it wasn\u2019t really enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter: \u201cAnd Sydney\u2019s the best female performer around.\u201d<\/p>\n Sydney: \u201cI tend to break down the barrier of the female sort of honey-sweet voice image.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter: \u201cShe\u2019s like a female Rod Stewart on stage, if I can make that comparison. Most female singers work with a backing back, and the new Flash aren\u2019t going to be like that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n What about Elkie Brooks, when she was with Vinegar Joe, or\u2026<\/p>\n Sydney: \u201cIt\u2019s white soul. Nobody\u2019s going to do it better than Tina Turner or a black chick. If you\u2019re a white chick, all you\u2019re doing is bursting your ass. You\u2019re singing music that a black chick will wipe you away with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWomen have two choices. They can either get funky and wear blue jeans and sing really rough songs or they can get classy and go into cabaret and go straight. You haven\u2019t got any real female rock \u2019n\u2019 roll stars on the level of Jagger or Stewart.\u201d<\/p>\n In retrospect, that\u2019s a bit of a sweeping statement, but I couldn\u2019t but agree at the time of the interview. Perhaps, I thought, the reason why so many female performances eclipse the rest of the band is for the simple reason that – they\u2019re female. Maybe this could happen with Flash.<\/p>\n Sydney: \u201cOh no, Peter is an incredible live performer and he\u2019s one of the only male performers I could see standing on stage who could compete with me – because I am a female and you are right about that attitude – but with Flash there\u2019s something for everybody. I would say that if I were with any other group that would happen, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Flash are currently rehearsing and getting a stage act together. They hope to do a few British gigs in late October or early November, and plan to undertake a full scale tour in the new year – and maybe release a single or two along the way.<\/p>\n Peter: \u201cThe old Flash were always only half way there. We were missing this, and missing that. This time it\u2019s going to be done a hundred per cent. That\u2019s the only way to do it really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SOUNDS<\/a> – October 12, 1974 New Flash<\/a> With Wonder Ingredient (Sydney) Clean Up With White Soul Geoff Barton meets Peter and Sydney \u201cThe only similarity between the old…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":732,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-742","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/742\/revisions\/747"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterbanks.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>I asked Peter when the new Flash album was coming out.<\/p>\n