A Chat with Daniel Wylie of Cosmic Rough Riders
Who or what most influenced you musically as a youth? Did you come from a musical family?
DANIEL: David Bowie. He was my hero. I obsessed on him. I also loved bands like Roxy Music, Queen, Genesis, Yes, Steely Dan, Joe Walsh, Stevie Wonder, lots of sixties and seventies bands like the Kinks, Beatles, Beach Boys, Who, Byrds, and lots of Motown and seventies soul like the Chi-Lites, Detroit Spinners, Chairmen of the Board… so much. I was like a sponge soaking it all up…drawn to melody…then punk happened and I got into Elvis Costello, The Clash, and so many others. I also loved Disco music and electronic pop like Kraftwerk. My dad played a little bit of guitar, but there were no real musicians in my family. Both my parents were massive music fans, and I heard lots of great music through them: Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, lots of fifties, sixties and seventies country music like Glen Campbell, Skeeter Davis, John Denver, and Bobbie Gentry…some great folk music like Hamish Imlach, The Dubliners, and Alex Campbell. My dad had a record stall in Glasgow’s Barrowlands market, and when I was 14/15/16 years old, I would work on it at weekends. I would take records as wages.
Can you tell us about some of the past groups you’ve played or worked with?
DANIEL: I can tell you the names of some of them…Transaction, Pioneers West, The Thieves (there have been lots of bands with this name), Rise (again, there are so many bands have used this name). The Thieves came close to getting signed as did Rise. EMI decided not to sign Rise because they’d just signed a band they thought sounded like us…that was Radiohead. :) The Thieves released four singles/eps and then disbanded. They were also the first band I appeared on TV with and had a large local following.
For the uninitiated, how would you describe your music?
DANIEL: Ultra melodic sums it up quite well. Generally, it’s either jingle jangle, chiming, guitar pop with harmonies and hooks, or it’s melodic, acoustic, melancholia with harmonies. My main focus is on writing super tuneful vocal melodies that you can sing in the shower.
Were you part of the Postcard era scene, or just a fan of the music that came out of that scene?
DANIEL: I was a fan of that label. I was in a band called Pioneers West around that time who might have fitted in well with that scene, but we were only together for about a year. I’m a massive fan of Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. Those bands were so great and set the bar high for Scottish music.
Please tell us a little about the early formation of the Cosmic Rough Riders, and how you met Alan McGee through Poptones Records.
DANIEL: Having been in bands for years, in 1996, I finally decided to become a solo artist. I was sick of always having a cynic dragging good bands down…kids…never be in a band with a cynic…they’re already beaten before you get started. A community studio called C# Sharp had opened in my area, and over the next three years I recorded some demos there. These formed the biggest part of the first Cosmic Rough Riders album Deliverance. Some of the album was recorded at Riverside Studios in Glasgow, with the aid of an arts grant. I had originally decided to release my music under the name Dylan Wylie, and in fact, one of the songs made it out on a magazine compilation under that name. However, I’d read a Gram Parsons quote about wanting to make Cosmic American Music and I thought that sounded great. Then, one day I noticed a poster in a jeans store…it was a girl wearing cut off shorts and they were called Rough Riders. I put that together with Cosmic from the GP quote and that’s how I got the name. CRR was a solo project and only became a band by accident. I needed to play a showcase for Alan McGee, who was interested in signing me to Pop tones. So we (CRR was a duo by this stage of myself and Stephen Fleming, who I’d brought in because he was a studio engineer and played some nice guitar), brought in some other guys to play live. McGee offered a deal on the SPOT, but he’d seen the band and wanted to sign us as a band. I’d been trying for a deal for years and was 41 by this time, so I opted to take a chance. So I ended up in a band with guys who hadn’t even played on my songs/records. It didn’t work out as I didn’t get on with a couple of them. When they started to bring in songs they’d written (that I didn’t rate or even like) and wanted them on the next album, I knew it was time to leave my own band. Shit happens. It got very complicated around this time, and I’d rather not go over old wounds again…it wasn’t the end of the world.
From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/a-chat-with-daniel-wylie-of-cosmic-rough-riders
