Interview with Rosie Garland (vocals), Tom Ashton (guitar) and William Faith (bass guitar) from The March Violets
Many years ago, purple was considered the colour of royals - so what could be more appropriate for a band like THE MARCH VIOLETS who are considered by many as “Goth royalty”. THE MARCH VIOLETS are another one of the famous 80s Alternative bands to hail from Leeds, UK. The band was founded in 1981, by Simon Denbigh and Rosie Garland, Tom Ashton and Lawrence Elliot on bass. With such excellent songs as ‘Snakedance’, ‘Walk into the sun’, ‘Grooving in Green’, it’s no surprise that the band sustained their position in the indie charts.
‘Walk into the sun’ ended up in the coveted number one position in 1984, with the highly addictive, dance floor favourite: ‘Snakedance’ was reaching number two. The latter can still incite a mad rush to the dance floor in UK goth clubs. Their discography has also inspired many band names like CHILDREN ON STUN and GROOVING IN GREEN. There was even a club night named “Snakedance” in early 90s Leeds. When news broke that THE MARCH VIOLETS were touring this year, there was a buzz of excitement. Sadly, due to ill-health, Simon is not joining them and the current line-up, consists of Rosie, Tom and William Faith (FAITH AND THE MUSE, SHADOW PROJECT and CHRISTIAN DEATH).
Their fan base stretches as far away as the US, but here in the goth heartland of West Yorkshire, the band will always be extra special. There is a feeling of homecoming for many local fans. THE MARCH VIOLETS have just returned from playing WGT in Leipzig and have since embarked on a UK tour. RoD had the pleasure of joining Rosie, Tom and William, as they relaxed in the Green Room head of their gig at The Old Woollen in Leeds on the second night of their tour, for a trip down memory lane - and a preview of things to come. The future looks great: the future looks purple!
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: Hello and thank you so much for meeting with me. Welcome back to Leeds where it all began.
Tom: I know, it’s an amazing feeling. The last time I was in Leeds was probably the last time we played here which was probably 2014, I think. Gosh that’s going on for ten years!
Rosie: Yeah, it’s eight years since we played and that was in 2015 in the USA, but this is definitely nine years since we were in Leeds so it’s really fabulous to be home.
RoD: There must be a huge sense of nostalgia playing back here.
Tom: Yeah, well Choque promoted tonight - lovely chap. I’ve known him from way back in the beginning. He was one of the first people I met when I first came to Leeds, when the VIOLETS started. He was in SALVATION at that point. He was out there watering plants when we drove up in the minivan. It was like, “Bloody hell,” and big hugs all around.
RoD: And you just played in Leipzig at Wave Gotik Treffen! That must have been an incredible feeling, I saw the photos on Facebook and you guys were just like huge rock stars at the front.
Rosie: We try our best (laughs).
RoD: Were you there for the entire event then or just the day you were playing?
Tom: We were there for four - no, three nights. We had to rehearse one of the days, so we didn’t go out much that day, did we. We went to the venue that we were going to play on Saturday, we went there on Friday. We saw 1919 play a blistering set which was fantastic.
Rosie: CORPUS DELECTI!
Tom: CORPUS DELECTI, yeah, were brilliant as well and we saw a whole bunch of friends who we haven’t seen for a long time - you know, socially.
Rosie: I think that’s that thing about Wave Gothic Treffen, is that it is tens of thousands. Is that right?
William: Yeah, between 20,000 and 30,000 people go every year.
Rosie: And they’re folk from literally all over the world. And that’s the thing is, it’s a truly international event. It’s quite incredible. Going there as part of a band, is one thing, but I really like going as somebody who is there to enjoy it, then I really get to understand what’s so special about it. I’m planning to go next year - just to enjoy it.
RoD: Did you meet a lot of the other bands whilst you were there as well - apart from the ones you already know?
Tom: A lot of them were staying in the same hotel, so the hotel there is called [redacted] and we were there, THE CHAMELIONS were there. Mark Burgess was sitting out there having a coffee, we were like, “How you doing?” I remember seeing him around over in the States quite a bit over the last year as well. It was really nice, there were a lot of people you know, a lot of banter. People crawling down to breakfast before 9.30am going “Uh, uh!”
William: A lot of the fun of festivals is the all-star breakfasts.
RoD: So how was the opening night in Birmingham last night?
Tom: Fantastic! It couldn’t have been better.
Rosie: It was such an amazing response.
William: Brilliant.
Rosie: Really brilliant, I mean the venue was lovely, the sound guy was lovely, it really was fabulous.
RoD: I’ve seen people really gushing about how fantastic it was, on Facebook.
Rosie: Yeah, and we didn’t have to pay them either! (laughs).
RoD: Did you guys ever rehearse at Parkside (recording studio) because I wrote an article about them and they mentioned you.
Tom: I’m not sure if the VIOLETS did. I remember trying to get bands together after the VIOLETS had split back in the day - so about 1987-ish - something like that. Stan from SKELETAL FAMILY, Gigi the drummer from DANSE SOCIETY, Tim from DANSE SOCIETY - just a mishmash. All the bands that were kind of from everyone, trying to get a band together (laughs).
RoD: Yeah, I gathered it was quite a networking hub. I don’t know if you have seen the Leeds bands family tree that someone has drawn, it’s massive. I think one of the things that does attract people to Leeds, is this heritage and this feeling that the bands people listen to, were from there.
Rosie: it’s also a sense of bands helping each other out.
Tom: Yeah, very much so - jumping into each other’s shoes occasionally, I mean I was in the SISTERS (OF MERCY) for a little while right at the beginning, because their guitarist left for Edinburgh. I mean that will have been early 82, I guess.
RoD: I didn’t know that!
Tom: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they asked me to join (laughs). I said, “No!” But that was the reason we came to Leeds, was because of the heritage even back then. It was GANG OF FOUR, MEKONS, DELTA FIVE - all those bands. That’s what drew me literally, back in the early 80s to come here.
RoD: I noticed that you were in the States recently, I didn’t quite catch what that was about.
Tom: It’s about a new MARCH VIOLETS’ album!
RoD: Fantastic!
Rosie: Cos Tom’s got a fantastic studio, he’s got his own recording studio, just outside Athens in Georgia and it really is in the backwoods. It’s surrounded by a forest.
Tom: Nearest neighbour a quarter of a mile away!
RoD: Sounds lush!
Rosie: It was amazing and er… who would have thought that three people who really enjoy being with each other, who are really creative - we created our own little bubble and wrote lots of new songs. It was amazing, really amazing and how you said William, it was how it ought to be!
RoD: So, when can we expect this new album?
Tom: Hopefully, late July / August, but I’m not gonna rush it.
Rosie: No! We’re already performing a couple of the new songs on this tour.
RoD: Excellent! What are they called?
Rosie: One called ‘Heading for the fire’ we’ll be playing tonight - and during the tour and one called ‘Crocodile Teeth. We are also playing that tonight and throughout the tour.
RoD: We’ll look forward to that and of course, you recently released the full back catalogue last year, I believe?
Tom: It’s kind of been a rolling thing, I think was it Record Store Day 2021, Jungle (Records) did a reissue of all the BBC sessions that we’ve done on a double, purple vinyl of course. I think that’s all we’d agreed to do and we thought, let’s see how that goes, and it went really well, basically, so then the guy who runs Jungle Records said, “Well let’s do more!” so I said, “Yeah, why not!”
Rosie: And he’s a good bloke.
Tom: Jungle Records have been fantastic with every side of it, just great. So now I think about eight months after that, the ‘Play Now, Play Purple’ double vinyl came out and then, we did the five CD boxset and you wrote the whole thing…
Rosie: Oh yes, I did the sleeve note!
Tom: For the 44-page booklet for the CD box.
Rosie: We sort of like dug deep into you know - it’s amazing what old photos you can find tucked underneath something and one of the things I’d find - it was really interesting - would you believe I’ve found a couple of old music cassettes that we’d use as a demo and a couple of songs we’d completely forgotten that we’d written!
RoD: Oh wow!
Rosie: So, it was really fantastic.
Tom: One of which is on the new record.
Rosie: There you go.
Tom: They never got recorded back in the day - you know. It was from a live Leeds Warehouse (club) and it was “There it is, let’s do it”.
Rosie: Let’s record it.
Tom: Cos we’d never recorded it back in the day.
RoD: That is really cool. I mean obviously back in the day, the music scene technology was vinyl records and the press was on paper: NME, Melody Maker, and fanzines.
Rosie: Well Tom’s our publicity wizard!
Tom: I’d sit there on the phone, for about an hour and half after a show or throughout the day.
RoD: But people seem to be going back to vinyl - it’s become like a specialist collector’s thing.
Rosie: Yeah, well we just signed a whole box full at Crash Records.
Tom: Yeah, and I think they are gonna come down later tonight.
Rosie: So, we have merch and as well as CDs we’ve got vinyl as well.
RoD: That’s brilliant, cos certainly a lot of your stuff used to get played in the Phono - I mean ‘Snakedance’ is still one of the most played tracks in the alt clubs in Leeds. I remember, were a favourite of Annie Nightingale on Radio One. I think that was the first time that I heard of “alternative” as a musical genre.
Rosie: Yes, I don’t think they really used the word: ‘Gothic’ much back then - not that there is anything wrong with that.
Tom: It’s actually a nice thing to be gothic - and I love horror movies.
Rosie: Darkwave, yeah.
Tom: We just thought we were snotty little punks, basically, when we were doing it.
Rosie: Yeah, it was - shouty and very fast.
RoD: So did you learn to sing when you were a child? Or were you like me singing into your hairbrush?
Rosie: Erm… I didn’t ever get trained as a singer. I just always sang. I was a teenager in Devon, would you believe - which is another reason why I moved to Leeds. I wanted to be as far away from Devon as humanly possible. So, the outlet in Devon, was singing in folk pubs, so you know, I was 14 or 15 and sneaked into pubs to sing in folk pubs! That’s where I started because…
Tom: I’d like to have seen that!
Rosie: There was no such thing as phones and videos! No, it’s where I started and HAWKWIND lived up the road as well! HAWKWIND were and are, highly influential to me.
RoD: And you are playing Whitby in October.
Rosie: Yeah, Tomorrow’s Ghosts.
Tom: I’m looking forward to that one.
RoD: So, you’ve mentioned the album, obviously you’re doing this tour and then you are off to Paris, I believe.
Tom: Well, we haven’t actually announced all of them yet. That reminds me, we need to make an announcement today for another show (laughs).
Rosie: The one in Belgium?
Tom: There will be more put in around those dates as well… some more UK dates, in the run up to Tomorrow’s Ghosts.
RoD: Rosie, obviously, you are a published author with many books, poems and stories, do you have anything in the pipeline that you would like to plug?
Rosie: Oh, my mind goes blank.
Tom: New book next year.
Rosie: I’ve got a new novel coming out next year. I’ve just joined Quercus Books and I’ve written a retelling of the ‘Greek myth of The Fates’ - spookily enough it’s going to be called ‘The fates’ and er, that comes out in May. In fact, it comes out in exactly a year’s time. We are just doing final edits and I wrote some of it, whilst we were in Georgia.
Tom: Yeah, up in the loft with a desk and a chair.
Rosie: And I was tapping away.
Tom: That chair is still up there actually!
Rosie: It is? Oh right, Yeah, I was writing some of it there as well as doing THE VIOLETS, so I’ve really been enjoying doing that. So that’s the most exciting writing news for me at the moment!
RoD: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Tom: I think we’re good yeah, we’re just really looking forward to playing Leeds again tonight.
RoD: And we’re looking forward to seeing you. Thank you so much.
Tom: Cheers.
Rosie: Thank you.
Website: https://marchvioletsband.com / http://www.rosiegarland.com
Pictures by Mike White
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