Growing up as a gay person, you take on a lot of shame for who you are, and you're made to carry that shame.

Even though you come out, you're visible, you're having a happy life, all that shame is still on your shoulders.

And I think your shame is a really, really nice way of turning that around so that when you feel shamed by someone, And you can actually say, it's not my shame, this is your shame.

You're putting it on me.

And I think it's that nice twist to say, I'm not carrying this burden anymore.

Take it back.

Hello, everyone.

This is W, host of The High Art, on the Edge page, host of Surprise Cast.

And boy, we have some special guests in the Surprise Cast studio.

This is my fourth or fifth conversation with these two gentlemen.

Primarily talking about the Orchids, but today we're going to talk about a little side project and a brand new album.

The band, Mon Jouy, pardon my interpretation there.

And I want to bring in Ian Carmichael first.

How are you, Ian?

I'm good, thank you.

Thank you for asking.

I'm very well.

Cheers to you.

Nice to see you again.

And I believe you have your sidekick here.

James Hackett, how are you?

How are you?

I'm well, thank you.

William, how are you?

I'm doing fine um cheers yes cheers to you the last time i spoke with you two, the album things must change hadn't been released yeah you dropped a single, and now that it's out there in the world just released a couple weeks ago yeah.

Ian, tell the listeners what kind of response you've received from fans, friends, anything you want to share.

Anything you want to share.

I think one of the first things that I was concerned about was having the album reviewed in the press.

And I got kind of obsessed with that slightly at the beginning.

And when the reviews did come out, they were all fantastic.

They all said some great things.

One review said we were the best new band around, which was high praise indeed.

But this week, James and I did a live event where we had some question and answer sessions with people from the audience.

And that, for me, was just something which was a bit overwhelming because we had complete strangers talking to us face-to-face, telling us how our music has impacted their lives and how beautiful it is.

And it was astoundingly good for us, for me anyway.

I mean, I think that suddenly looking for validation from press, those kind of official reviews, yield in significance with these people telling us how much our music meant to them.

It was really astounding.

i saw some photos from that event it looked truly lovely it was connected to your fans, james do you want to share your response to that about that event.

Ian really did put it all in a nutshell but it really was like uh so yeah it was overwhelming and the reactions we had from people, we had lots of friends and family all saying the nice things, but people who picked up on the music not through a connection of knowing someone who knew someone, it was just that they managed to get the record on the fact that they'd heard the music, and were telling us that we've done a great job And that was really, like Ian says, just the best thing.

It really was.

It's such a booster.

I'm very happy for you two, and we will go deeper into the album in a little bit.

But I wanted to start this conversation with a few kind of relaxing, funbreaker questions.

Ian, we're going to start with you.

Here in America, Halloween is a big deal.

You know, parents are now throwing these big elaborate parties.

Schools are very festive.

Tell the listeners and me, is that something that is celebrated in Barcelona at all?

It's not celebrated in the same way at all.

I can see some of the shops have some Halloween decorations.

My neighbor has some Halloween decorations, but then he's Dutch, not Spanish.

And it's not a big thing here, I don't think.

And actually, even for me, it's never been such a huge, a huge thing.

And I remember Halloween in Glasgow, being as a kid, and dressing up and really enjoying dressing up and getting sweets and things from people.

But after I was 12 years old, I'll put it aside, it's not something that I carried on thinking about.

So I've seen how it's thrown over the years.

I just was in Glasgow this weekend, as I said.

My whole family have got so many decorations around the house and everyone's doing it.

And I carved my first pumpkin ever this weekend.

So that was quite a treat.

But here in Barcelona, no, it's not a thing.

It's really not such a big thing.

Tell the listeners, Ian, some memorable costumes that you wore when you were...

My goodness, my favorite costume that I ever made and wore, I was a table.

And so I had my head was a vase of flowers.

I had a big board from my shoulder so that my head was sticking out in the middle.

And a white tablecloth all around with knives and forks and plates stuck to the table.

And it was a great costume.

It was a great effect.

But I couldn't eat anything or drink anything because I couldn't get my hands around the table.

I couldn't even go to the toilet because I couldn't see what I was doing.

It was a nightmare.

It was the worst idea ever.

It looked bad.

Terrible.

So it didn't win any costume awards?

I'd certainly no design awards.

That's a good story.

James, what about you?

Tell us a little bit, some of your Halloween memories.

I have to see, I haven't really got any yet.

I know a Cub Scout or a Scout would do a small party, but as Ian was saying, in our generations previously, it wasn't really a thing.

It wasn't really celebrated over here.

So I never carved a pumpkin.

In fact, in Scotland, it's historically a tumshi that you carve, which is something that you just can't do really, because a tumshi is actually a turnip and it's incredibly difficult to do, so I wouldn't go anywhere near it, but it's not, I do recognize that it has got a bit more familiar over here, but nothing I've ever taken part in.

That's crazy to me, because I spoke with the Boo Radleys a couple weeks ago, and Seiss kind of said the same thing.

Like, whilst growing up, it was not a big deal.

It was like bobbing for apples, and that was really it.

And he said the UK picked up on it because of America.

Yeah, I would think so.

Boo Boo.

My friends, we're going to get into this brand new album, but we're going to do it in a slightly different way.

I'm going to be reading some quotes to both of you, and I'd love to get your response as it relates to the themes of the album.

Themes of hope, desire, change, acceptance, tolerance, love, pain, all of it.

So let us kick this off by, to all the listeners, I'm holding up a towel here.

And last night my girlfriend and I and her daughter went to a basketball game, and it was pride night at the basketball game and they gave us these pride towels so we could wave them around root for the team and then during the basketball game they had pride questions, And if you got the questions right, you could win tickets to another Warriors game.

So here's my question.

Ian, I'm going to throw this over to you.

I was sitting there in the stands thinking, I'm having a great time.

This is fun.

Why can't the world just get along?

I'm sitting next to this stranger.

I don't know his political motivations.

But we're all enjoying this game.

What the fuck?

What are your thoughts on the world right now and where we're going?

It's, I think times are getting darker.

And I think it's led predominantly by the far right and right-wing politics and populist politics.

And we see it quite dramatically coming from America because that's one of the biggest Western democracies which is influencing the rest of the world.

We also see it coming from Eastern Europe and we can see it in the UK too.

And at the moment, I think, gay people want to know all of this before.

In the 60s and 70s and 80s, we had all of this anti-gay propaganda and anti-gay feelings, but now it's kind of more targeted towards trans people.

And the amount of anti-trans rhetoric that's out there is just horrifying and stupid.

Most of it is just dumb.

And it's something that I feel because of that, it's turning on gay people as well, because we're all queer folk.

So I think it's turning a bit dark at the moment and a bit scary.

and I'm not enjoying it.

Have you ever felt, Ian, there was a time that it wasn't so dark, that it was more embracing and accepting?

Yes, I have.

Think up until the last...

Two or three years, I actually became quite complacent about it and thought, yeah, we're safe, we're fine, everything's great.

We're accepted, you know, we're part of society, everyone is okay with this.

And then all of the anti-trans rhetoric just threw everything on top of it over its head.

Yes, I did feel at some point that there wasn't much to worry about, which is a bit naive.

So here in San Francisco, it is very embraced, it is very celebrated to be who you are, to be what you want to be.

Do you get a sense of that's kind of the same in Barcelona?

I do.

I think Spain is, I think, the second most tolerant country in the world for LGBTQ rights.

I think Chile is the first, which we've just read that recently.

Yeah.

We'll figure it out.

And I think I live right in the center, the old center of Barcelona.

And when I'm walking down the street, passed on the street so often by people I term as non-binary because I cannot tell the gender.

And they quite proudly.

Walking down the street, being themselves, being authentic.

And I love that.

I absolutely adore that.

There's a bar around the corner from me, which is predominantly for trans and non-binary people.

You can go into cafes, bars in Barcelona, where there'll be a group of people that you know that are just either trans or non-binary or gay.

And no one cares.

No one really bothers about it.

So I feel like in Spain, yes, there's...

A very open-minded community here.

James, when I was waving this around last night during the game, I also thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice to not have a night celebrating pride?

Do you know what I mean by that?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think what you're meaning to say is that it shouldn't have to be highlighted.

It should be normal.

It should be just something that is just the same as everything else, just something, and not anything in particular, just something.

I think that's right.

So where you live, do you feel what Ian was saying about Barcelona, do you feel that it's accepting?

I do.

Glasgow's an odd city in the fact that in a way it's quite friendly, It's like any city has its device of people.

But generally, people tend to live and let live and just let it be.

Not being gay or in any way affected, I think it's difficult for me to say because I'm not getting any prejudice or anything making me feel unwelcome.

But I've got plenty of neighbors that fall into the gay non-binary.

Arrangements or whatever and I don't see them getting any different treatment from older or other neighbours round about so I'd like to think that yeah people are accepting and yeah you'll get your few that don't understand and even though you will explain something to them they're just not willing to understand and that's really.

That's the hard thing that's the thing that I can't get the closed single vision of people who know that when it's highlighted to them their thoughts not reasonable they don't like being told that they're unreasonable because they're single minded they're narrow minded and they don't like it but They want to just get somebody else to substantiate their feelings of struggling more and more now to find people agreeing with them.

That's a good thing.

Here in America, we have television shows.

We've got movies celebrating all different races, cultures, sexual orientation.

I personally feel the pendulum is shifting more into this notion of being more accepting.

Is it perfect?

Of course not.

So, James, are you seeing not just in Glasgow, but the pendulum is shifting a bit more based on music or art?

I think actually in the.

The best barometer of change is actually like TV advertising.

And when you actually see like advertising and they're using same-sex and non-binary subjects, people, then you know that that's change because you're talking money there and people don't mess with money.

And this is money being aimed to get money back so they know that they're talking to a large proportion of people when they're doing that.

So I think that's a very good barometer.

I think that's the best change you'll be having in the UK.

That is an extraordinary point you just made, and I completely concur.

Absolutely.

Ian, I'm going to read a quote for you, and I want you to tell us how this quote relates to the theme or the spirit of this album, yeah?

Here we go.

So this is from CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper.

Are you familiar with Anderson?

Yeah, I know that, yes.

This is what he said.

While as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history, only advances when people make themselves, fully visible.

Would you care to respond to that?

It's a good point and I kind of agree with it.

And I think...

Most of the gay rights movement, for example, started with visibility.

And I think there's been an ongoing development of visibility.

I mean, I remember going to gay bars in Glasgow, for example, when I was in my late 20s, 30s.

They were always on a side street, you know, in an alley somewhere.

They were always closed off.

You know, and then I got to Manchester and we had Canal Street and all the bars had big windows so you could see in and out.

And the physical representation or visibility that that afforded was astounding.

It made everything out in the open.

And I think that's been growing and growing since the 90s.

I think the visibility that we've seen now with trans people, And even that, but I just mentioned earlier, you know, walking around in Barcelona, the visibility of non-binary people here is, I want to say, unremarkable because it's become the norm now.

And it's remarkable and it's unremarkability.

So I think visibility is a very, very important aspect of this.

And I think the more visible we are as a community, I think the more that it becomes unremarkable.

So, beautifully stated, based on what you just shared in Visibility, do you feel that this new album lends itself to making these topics more visible?

There are a few.

There's quite a few themes on the album.

And I'll touch on one which is obviously Your Shame, which speaks really to that idea of visibility.

And although Ben James wrote this song and he wrote the lyrics to it, but I've always had my own interpretation of those lyrics.

And I think growing up as a gay person, you take on a lot of shame for who you are.

And you need to carry that shame.

Even though you come out, you're visible, you're having a happy life, all that shame is still on your shoulders.

And I think your shame is a really, really nice way of turning that around so that when you feel shamed by someone, you can actually say, it's not my shame, this is your shame.

You're putting it on me.

And I think it's that nice twist to say, I'm not carrying this burden anymore.

Take it back.

It's yours.

It's your shame, not mine.

They carry the burden.

Yes, they ought to carry the burden.

Because gay people shouldn't feel shame.

They shouldn't be made to feel shame.

And I think when we did the video, for example, we put this chat line at the end which says, live without shame.

Because you don't need it.

You don't need to carry that weight.

Life's hard enough.

So tell the listeners, Ian, when did you kind of stop feeling the shame?

At what age?

Oh, my goodness.

I think that I was of that era of being so afraid of being gay when I was well into my 20s.

I think it's kind of like carrying trauma around.

You never, ever get rid of that.

I don't think I have ever gotten rid of that.

Not fully.

I mean, I have a very happy, I have two husbands.

I'm very visible.

I have a very happy life.

But I can't say that that element that I carried around for most of my adult life has all gone.

Of course, there's still a bit of it there.

I still check myself sometimes.

So what do you say to the people who are very vociferous about, Ian, you have two husbands?

First of all, how do you balance that time and any negative ill feelings they have about that?

So what do you say to those people?

What do you say to those people?

I'm not actually, I don't have anything to say to any of these people.

I have no interest in what they think.

I have no interest in how their opinions impact on my life.

And if I say I have two husbands, either I have very interested questions on how does that work.

I'm very interested, in which case I'm happy to talk about it.

And any other reaction to that, I'm not interested.

So I'm not allowing your shame to impact me anymore.

This is fascinating.

And just seven minutes ago, you were feeling like the world is getting dark.

Yet you've got a shield now that protects you from the negative barrage, the closed-mindedness.

So I'm hearing, like, you're getting stronger, but you still feel fearful about it.

I think what's happened is that I've been in a place where I've been comfortable for quite a long time, that I feel like I got complacent.

And now I'm seeing a backlash against trans people.

And now I'm starting to worry that this is going to impact my life too because we're in the same community.

And I have trans friends.

I have a trans nephew.

I have non-binary relatives.

These are my family.

These are my friends.

These are people all around me.

So I cannot live a truly happy, fulfilled life if all my friends and family are being persecuted.

So of course it won't impact me.

That's what I meant about getting darker.

Thank you, I understand.

Okay, James, I'm going to read a quote to you.

This is by the great playwriter and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda.

You may be familiar with his Hamilton work.

And this is what he's...

I've had no...

I've had no...

He says this...

But nothing here is promised, not one day.

And love is love is love is love is love is love.

Cannot be killed or swept aside.

Now, fill the world with music, love, and pride.

So, based on the work that you've done with the orchids, and now this side project, How does this album feed into that love?

Well, it's the most important thing.

So I think, yeah, it's magnificent in every way.

We made the music, we made the album because of love.

We want to spread the idea and the hope and the change that requires to let love be.

And so I would quite like some love back, but no it's a really good quote well everything everything exists because of love and if you don't have love then there's no point can you identify or tell us about a song that illustrates that from the album is it in love with the world, heartfelt yeah Yeah, well, just about all of them, actually.

That was the problem, was trying to struggle with picking one.

Because, I mean, I wrote most of the words, and Dean would pick and choose and move around words, add words for me.

And, you know, sometimes the loss of love can be so significant.

And with things that change, there's a couple of songs in that.

And never be the same, is about kind of like knowing and realizing that things change all the time.

Things progress.

Sometimes you have to sit and take note that you're in love, enjoying love, and seeing love, and then all of a sudden tomorrow comes, and you've got to keep working at it.

And if you don't work at it, then you'll lose sight of it.

and it's so it's just important, the most important, love that song speaking of love and i love the opening electro cinch feel that it has.

And it and then of course james your very sweet tones come in it's a really beautiful song ian do you want to share anything about that song um there are a few songs which the way we used to work, or the way we do work normally, is mostly James will send me a song just him singing with an acoustic guitar and.

Been a few times when he sent me something and I thought, what the hell am I going to do?

Because he sends me something that's just beautiful.

And Never Been the Same was one of those songs that he had this beautiful guitar, the beautiful guitar sounded and beautiful chords and this lovely little melody.

And I thought, what the hell can I do with this?

And so I took it all and sucked off all of his guitar and tried something completely different.

And I think it worked.

And I was reminded of this when we were rehearsing for the live event last week, and he played it on guitar again.

And I thought, oh my God, I ruined his song because it was so beautiful.

Maybe we'll do a version of it, just acoustic guitar at one point.

But the song for me, when I heard it was, I don't think we had a manifesto when we started this album, but this theme of change that we had, I recognized that coming through.

And when I heard the lines, things must change from never be the same, I always thought that has to be the title of the album.

It's so indicative of what the theme of the album is.

It was an easy song for me.

Once I got rid of the guitar and started working on it.

It was an easy song for me to work on and follow.

Well, those piano notes that you play, it's just beautiful.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Comes in like the first third of the song.

And it just gives that emotional depth to it.

As I mentioned to both of you the last time we spoke, one of the reasons why I love this album, it's very contemplative.

And now that I know more about what the approach was, and I'm telling all the listeners, put this on headphones.

It is such a glorious experience because then you're going to pick up on all these little things that you do not hear the first, second, or third time.

So just a recommendation.

Can we do another quote?

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

This comes from Tim Cook, Mr.

Apple himself.

And he says this.

It's been tough and uncomfortable at times but it has given me the confidence to be myself to follow my own path and to rise above adversity and bigotry, it's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros which comes in handy when you are the ceo.

Of in terms of being a musician Ian, how has your confidence grown how has your skin toughened up.

I think it comes with age, certainly, that you care less when you get older.

And I think one of the things about this album was James and I have been working together with the Orchids for decades.

And so when we started working on this, it was easy.

It was just easy.

here.

James and I work well together.

We have a kind of really deep mutual respect.

He's really easy to tell you.

We had no real conflicts to have to sort out on doing this.

We had some discussions, but there was no conflict.

Everything is easy with this.

And I think it's a part of growing a bit older and wiser is knowing how to avoid those situations of conflict.

Knowing how to compromise and just make life easier.

I think the thick skills thing is.

Learning not to give a fuck really.

And I think that just comes with age.

Because if we had done this album 20 years ago and you got a bad review i'd be crushed i'd be so crushed really and now i think it's beautiful james what about for you are you kind of like i don't give a fuck anymore you know and i'm just gonna keep doing when i do how is your confidence and then toughened up yeah well i think i've always been that sort of attitude anyway i don't let things ruffle me up, I've got what I need to, making my path of life, everything that it needs to be.

Anything besides is just a bonus and being lucky.

So, yeah, I think growing up in the sort of situations and through life, yeah, you get to a point where you realize the attitude is, yeah, go fuck yourself and I'll go on with my life, you'll go on with yours.

And don't give people too much time that have got too much negativity around them and walk away.

Well, it's interesting because I think it was two interviews ago, you had mentioned something about an insecurity of your voice, your vocals.

You don't love your vocals.

And I'm sure people that are fans of the Orchids and Monjuic, they sit here and go, I love his vocals.

I love those soft tones.

So I got to ask you two years later, how do you feel about your vocals now?

I think the biggest strength that I've gained in the past few years, especially working with Ian and other things, is that I realise that I can actually write quite a decent wee song.

Yeah, it's my voice that portrays that song, gives it the emotion because I seem to write words that are quite emotive.

Because, I don't know, I seem to have that wee turn of phrase It kind of works for a lot of people.

And through knowing and accepting that that's what I can do, yeah, I've grown to realize that there is a strength in my soft tones.

Can we talk about a song?

It is my favorite song on this album.

And every time I listen to it, I always hit the repeat button.

And it is called Olympia.

Let us take a listen to this track.

From Things Must Change, this is track number four.

Okay, now that we've listened to this fucking gorgeous song, excuse my language, either of you like to talk about the arrangements for this song and tell the listeners what was this idea of putting some operatic voice behind it that really gives the song wings to fly.

Well, this is for Neen, really.

This is mainly his track.

He gave me just a bit of space to work on and some guidelines for words, and we worked on the words together.

When he first sent me, he had the automated voice at the beginning, and I think if you remember, I kind of straightened them up a bit because you had them sort of all over the place with it.

And I think it made it a bit difficult for the listener.

But when they first sent me it and I heard the opera and everything, I thought, oh, this is good.

I'm liking this.

This is a challenge.

I need to find my space.

And, yeah, I think I did it.

I got a wee bit of Ian, but it's really Ian's work did put everything else together.

So it'll be up for Ian to tell you how he thought I'd put my opera in, so on you go Ian.

It was actually a song that I had worked on this previously, before Motöring.

It's quite a few years old, this song.

And when we started writing all of these tracks, I just suddenly thought this would fit.

This song would really fit.

And so...

And the vocal that was on there previously, we ditched that completely because I wanted James to take forward the idea that was coming from the title of Olympia.

It's from a book by Catherine Dunn called Keeps Love.

I don't know if you know this book.

The Boot is about a circus family in the 1950s America.

They're traveling around and the circus is failing.

And so they have a great idea.

The family have a great idea of feeding chemicals to the mother while she's pregnant so that she gives birth to freaks.

And they become freakshel.

So Olympia is the oldest daughter.

She's an albino hunchback dwarf.

And the whole book is told from her perspective.

And the thing about this is that it's a story about family and all about the love and the infighting and everything that goes on with the family.

And it's told about, she normalizes everything.

The fact that they're freaks doesn't matter.

but the fact that she's got a brother with their arms and legs and Sammy's twins and sisters, none of that matters because it's just a family.

It's a wonderful, wonderful book.

And what I wanted to do with this song was try and get across that idea that we're all freaks anyway.

You know, we've all got something freaky going on somewhere.

And so James and I wrote these lyrics together that kind of embodied that idea.

The other vocal is from Cantaloupe and that is a song about a girl who's trying to tempt a shepherd away from his flock so they can go and have a go on the hay, something I always loved as a child was this song.

I don't know where it came from, I always just loved it.

And I just thought it would have been nice to incorporate something about.

This idea of putting something old, really, really old, in with this new electronic band that always had a bleep and bop in the middle.

And I think it worked.

I hope it worked.

That's what's so brilliant about it.

I love the merging of the two sounds and those worlds, and they can coexist.

Yeah, yeah.

And I love what you said about the freak sing because, and this sounds like a great book.

I got to read this.

Real quickly, as you both know, I was a school teacher for many years.

And often on the first day of class, I'd get my students in a circle, and I would stand in the middle of the circle, point at them, and I would say, you're weird, you're weird, you're weird.

And then I would say to him, okay, now all of you point at Mr.

Frederick and say, Mr.

Frederick, you're weird.

And they hadn't a clue what the hell was going on.

But then when we talked about it, and then they could start seeing throughout the whole year that we could accept those weirdness, those idiosyncratic behaviors.

It was so fun.

So your story there connected me to my past.

Yeah, that's a good story.

Thank you for hearing.

A couple more things.

Tell us about this lovely album cover and who did it?

The photograph is a photograph that I took.

And it's of Barcelona, of course.

And like everything else, we kept thinking, we'll do everything ourselves.

We'll do everything.

Very, very quickly in doing this album cover, I realized that I can't do this.

And James knew of Pascal Bloch, and he asked Pascal to come on board and help us do this.

And at first I said that Pascal would just help me getting this together.

And it very, very, very, very quickly changed to me saying to Pascal, you do it.

You do it all.

So he did all of the design work, and he did a fantastic job, and he was so wonderful to work with, and I just felt really happy just handing everything over to him because, you know, I have this idea of this is my vision, this is whatever.

This idea of having control of everything, sometimes when we just give up that control to so many trust and say, again, you've got it, now you do it, he did a wonderful job.

James, do you want to add anything to that?

yeah well also i knew that ian was doing so much he was doing tons of stuff but now he's sitting back and letting him get on with it mostly and i've known pascal for a while now and he's such a lovely man that actually more was happy introducing him to ian as a friend rather as a help.

And when they actually started working together and I realized that they go on, I was really pleased too.

So, and Pascal is about the genius.

So he glued all together and, uh, they have perfected it.

It's a lovely photo, Ian.

What, what Pascal did with that?

I love the color arrangement here, but to me, what's so striking in this photo is you have the, telephone lines.

You were trying to suggest communication.

That was the first thing I was thinking of, these lines of communication.

And how do we express ourselves in a manner that is safe, that we feel safe?

Am I reaching?

You're almost there.

And I think one of the things that I was thinking about was it's taking from a bridge over a motorway.

And so for me, it's always got, has this idea that you're on a road.

It's a journey.

And no matter what's happening in this journey, it's at sunset, sun's going down, tomorrow's a new day.

No matter what journey you're on, everything's going to change tomorrow.

And I think that was one of the things that made me choose this photograph, was this idea of we're all on a road, we're all on a journey, things change.

I would be remiss if I didn't bring up two people.

First person is Stephanie Gibson.

And the second person is Ian Smith.

So let's talk about Stephanie.

And the reason why I know Stephanie is because she's part of this group that I run for Trash Can Sinatras.

And she's done some wonderful photos with them as well.

So I noticed she had taken some lovely photos of you two.

So tell us a little about your connection, your friendship with her.

It's recommended that we use Stephanie by Ian Smith from last night from Glasgow.

We're both not very, I have to say, you know, we don't seek the publicity of photographs.

You know, we don't need the approval of our faces being seen.

We've not got that much to really sort of glorify on it, but she did a good job and captioning us and making us look.

You know and willing and wanting to.

Be identified not always wanting to be identified because if you know the orchestra you'll know there's not a single photograph, none of the records were made all of the bands at all really don't need people to see our faces to sell the record they wouldn't work so this time I thought Yeah, let's have a go.

Let's do that.

Let's see how it goes.

I really enjoyed it.

It was such a good day when we took those photos like this.

Yeah.

She captured this essence between you two that, obviously, your longstanding friendship, but I also saw this quality of brother.

Just, again, what my eyes were telling me.

Ian, do you want to share anything about your experience?

I think that the thing with Steph was, I mean, Jim's kind of nailed it when he said, We don't really seek to be photographed.

And in fact, I was really nervous about it.

I said to Steph, you know, we hate being photographed.

So let's get over that first of all.

And I said, we don't want any photographs.

We don't want to look like two old men, you know, gazing into the distance.

You know, I said, you know, I have all these things about what you can't do.

And I gave her a whole list of things not to do.

And we arrived at the studio And We were talking and talking She was putting us at ease, She'd taken so many photographs before I even realized she was taking photographs.

I wasn't at all doing it.

And as she was showing me some stuff, she just has this way of making you feel easy and making you feel involved and making you feel that you're not some thing on a pedestal being scrutinized, which is what we hated anyway.

And she was fantastic.

She was so fantastic.

In her photos, she also has a way of capturing the essence of the human heart, the condition in a way that doesn't seem showy in any way.

It's very natural, organic.

Okay, and now Ian Smith, last night from Glasgow.

I mean, he, that gentleman is busy celebrating bands like there's no tomorrow.

And, of course, going to Taylor Swift concerts.

Yeah.

So, James or Ian, do you want to talk about your relationship, friendship with Ian?

We didn't really know Ian, but we weren't really found out about Ian, I think.

No, James, actually, you had known him or known of him.

I hadn't.

Yeah, I'd met him a couple of times, not in any professional way around him.

I had no idea that he was.

And I think it was my brother-in-law who mentioned us to Ian and he got in touch and we had a meeting with him, a Skype meeting, and we talked about how he would fit into his record label.

And his criteria, I wonder if I should be telling people this, his criteria for us joining his record label was just not to be pricks.

And I was thinking, oh my goodness, let's hope we're not.

And I think we got along right from the start.

We seemed just to have the same goals, the same ideals.

And one of the things I found very, very, very strange was that when we were working with him all this time and releasing these singles, and he had the album for months before it came out, he never listened to any of the music.

Because I thought he's a businessman.

He doesn't really get involved in that.

So when the album was coming out and he did listen to it, he came back and told us how beautiful it was.

It actually meant something more to me because I thought, okay, now he's just discovering it.

He's done all the business side of it, and now he's discovering it, and now he's telling his sister feelings about it.

And he loves it, and it's really nice to be working with him.

The way Ian describes music, based on what I've read, there's no bullshit to him.

There is no bullshit.

No.

He will tell it like it is.

Yeah.

And so, wow, that's really nice praise from him.

Hats off to him and your connection in the vinyl.

I think that's fabulous.

What is coming down the line for Monjuic and or the orchids in 2026?

Anything you want to share?

Working on some new Monju songs, we've got half a dozen or so.

We'll keep working until hopefully Ian Smith will give us a chance to do another record.

I was rehearsing with the orchestra last night, but we have no plans.

We're still right now.

Do I need to talk to Chris and get things giddyed up or others in the band?

Well, thanks for being in hold this year, but it just wasn't too well early in the year.

It's kind of put us back a bit.

So, I think he's recovered, so we'll be able to pick up speed again.

Ian, do you want to add anything?

And we could also ask about a One Dove, anything related to One Dove?

I think every single interview that I've done mentions the One Dove app when is it being reissued, I have no idea I don't know if it ever will be we can just cross our fingers maybe and hold one day at the moment three, as James said I think we've got maybe seven or eight songs from the next album, we're working on some more right now.

And I'm quite sure we'll have an album ready for next year.

We haven't talked to Ian Smith about this yet, so let's be quiet.

Send them a little message.

Yeah.

We're going to wrap this up with two more things.

Any recommendations that you guys have for books, movies, podcasts, TV series, charity organization you want to give a shout out to?

Let's go to James first.

Oh, you put me on the spot, isn't it?

I can't believe Thank you very much for the highlight, you know?

I watched a TV series recently, quite a joke, The House of Guinness.

Okay.

On Netflix.

So sort of like a sort of historical fixing thing.

And it's really enjoyable.

House of Guinness.

House of Guinness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't seen that one yet.

Ian, do you want to recommend anything?

I think that one of the things that's getting me excited at the moment is a new album by something called Everything is Recorded, which I'm really loving at the moment.

Okay.

What type of music?

Dare I say it's very monstery?

Yeah, it kind of sounds like it's a little bit, I think.

There's some people on there that you would recognize.

I think Florence Pugh's on there, Sampha is on there, Jawa Warpull is on there.

Yeah, there's lots of people.

It's really exciting.

I got to check that out.

Congratulations to the both of you on this album.

Quick reviews here.

Classic Pop says, one of the best new acts around.

Louder Than War says, gorgeous.

It's easy to get lost in.

So true.

And electronic sound says nothing short of mesmerizing.

Really nice words there.

Okay.

You two are going to play a little trivia game and you can work together.

You can use Siri.

You can use the internet.

Whatever you need to do.

I'm going to ask you three questions.

Here we go.

Do the best you can.

And the first question, Is this The colors of the gay pride flag Represent different values.

Does the red color symbolize?

You would think I should know this, but I have no idea.

I have absolutely no idea.

Honestly, I'm Googling it if I'm going to get an answer.

Life.

Life.

Really.

Blood.

Life.

Yeah, you know, and it's interesting.

You're not alone.

I'm sure a lot of people don't know the values of what it symbolizes.

Orange stands for healing.

Yellow represents sunlight.

Green is nature.

Blue is harmony.

And the violet symbolizes spirit.

So there you go.

Okay, let's do another one.

This famous singer mentions GLAAD, G-L-A-A-D, in one of her songs.

Name this famous female singer and i'll give you a clue she's the biggest singer on the planet, it's obviously taylor swift it is, ding ding ding ding ding like you're done all right we're gonna do one more, here we go what was the first European country to legalize same sex marriage was it Spain, I think it could have been something like then, or I think it was one of the Scandinavian countries was it Iceland or no Netherlands the Netherlands yeah.

Thank you for playing trivia with me.

That was fun.

You got one out of three.

Well, we couldn't miss.

Ian Carmichael, James Hackett.

Thank you so much for this conversation.

I greatly appreciate it.

And hats off to a wonderful album and to all the praise.

And glad you had that show.

Recently and look forward to hearing more music from this side project, if you will, and Orchids.

Remember this, everyone.

Great community of people are always around you.

All you have to do is keep your eyes and ears and heart.

Open.