by Mark Kadzielawa

Classifying Nektar an be very difficult. There are so many significant elements that make up the whole sound. Whether it’s a short track, or a longer more expanded piece of music, those elements are always present. The unusual time and tempo changes, the guitar-drum connection, and everything else in between makes it very exciting. The unmistakable sound and style is very common and consistent throughout every single Nektar release. No wonder, the band themselves describe it as “Nektar music,” and that’s by far the most accurate way of putting it.

The band began in 1969 in Hamburg, Germany, yet made up of English musicians who just happened to find themselves there. Nektar consisted of Roye Albrighton on guitars and vocals, Allan Freeman on keyboards, Derek Moore on bass, Ron Howden on drums. From the very beginning, Nektar was striving for a very original sound, combination of psychedelic, rock, and progressive rock. With each release Nektar challenged themselves with very inventive songwriting. Soon they became a cult band with a following that was quickly advancing. Nektar absolutely peaked with "Remember The Future" in 1973. The album was regarded highly on both sides of the Atlantic, and to this day is still considered a classic. Nektar of course did continue to create great music, and once again stunned everyone with "Recycled" in 1975. Year later, Roye Albrighton left the band, Nektar still released the contractually obligated "Magic is a Child" with Dave Nelson on guitar and vocals. Albrighton and Freeman tried to give it one more try with "Man in the Moon" in 1980, and then it was a long period of silence. The band was laid to rest.

Nothing was heard from Nektar until 2002. The band regrouped to play a NEARfest, and soon after released their comeback album "The Prodigal Son." Two more studio albums followed, "Evolution" in 2004, and "Book of Days" in 2008, and soon to be released "Juggernaut." Also, there were a couple of live albums, the latest being "Fortyfied."

Several lineup changes took place since 2002. Since 2009, Nektar consists of Roye Albrighton on guitar and vocals, Ron Howden on drums, Peter Pichl on bass, and Klaus Henatsch on keyboards.

Original members Roye Albrighton and Ron Howden, talk about the present day as well as the past, and try their best to explain what "Nektar music" is all about.

I’ve always found it odd that you were a British band, but based in Germany. How did that work?
Roye Albrighton: Yeah, that’s correct. Ron and the original members of the group, were actually a band with a different guitar player. They were sort of permanently based in Germany for quite a while. And the band that I was with came over to Germany from the U.K. I mean we’ve all played Hamburg in those days. Briefly it was the case that during the day, there is really nothing going on in Hamburg. Nothing at all because all of the clubs are closed. It’s a nighttime town. I was just passing by the Star Club one day, the doors were open, the cleaner was there, and I heard this drummer rehearsing, and I just popped in, introduced myself to Ron, and we just hit it off like that.
Getting back to more recent times, it’s been nearly a decade since the return of Nektar. How would you describe the significance of that time?
Roye: It wasn’t sort of the plan to get back together. What happened was, we’ve received, I received an email from the promoters of the Near Fest in New Jersey, and it must’ve just found an address which happened to be mine. The e-mail asked if there was a possibility of Nektar reforming, the original band, and doing a show at the Near Fest. I almost ignored it, but after I did a little investigating, I thought if it was held at a great venue, maybe it’s worth a try. So, I contacted everybody, and it took a while to put it all together. And everyone eventually said yes, so we came over and did that. It just took off from there. Ron and I decided to carry on, and here we are.
So, it was a single event that inspired the reunion.
Roye: I think it was, because we all lived in different countries at the time. That was the sort of anchor point for everybody.
The reunion album, “The Prodigal Son,” has a very reflective feel to it. What emotions drove you when you were driving that record?
Roye: I think I went through a very serious and traumatic time in my life. I had a serious illness, and was basically close to death. I managed to survive, and the first thing I did when I came out, and did better, I sat down and wrote the songs for “The Prodigal Son.” If you listen to the lyrics you’ll see the different phases I went through until I actually left the hospital. And that’s the dreams I’ve had during that time. There were all kinds of weird things going on. When you’re in the narcosis, there are all kinds of strange things you think about. And all from when I arrived to the when I came out is written out as music.
You definitely pick out these emotions even from the music alone.
Roye: It’s funny you say that, because right before you arrived, someone asked me what was going through my mind when “Always” from “Evolution” was written. That was his favorite song, and he wanted to know what it meant. And it’s nice to hear that because you can actually discuss it. I mean everybody has a different idea, it’s like when you read a book the characters in your mind are different than what your friend who reads the same books imagines. So it was great to clarify what I meant.
How did things progress into the next album “Evolution?” This albums also brings Ron back into the band as the drummer. Ron, what effect did you have upon returning?
Ron Howden: A bit of delay, a bit of reverb (laughter.)
Roye: It’s an ultimate thing with Ron and myself.
Ron: We really lock together without even thinking. We don’t even have to think about it, it just happens.
Roye: “The Prodigal Son” was without Ron unfortunately. I wish he would’ve been there. It would’ve been a far different album than what it was. The first album that Ron was on was “Evolution,” and you could see the difference. We really have this thing together. You can’t explain what it is, but we know what each is thinking all the time. I mean you’ll see tonight when we go up on stage, there certain things that we do together which you could never do with a replacement drummer, or a replacement guitarist. It’s just locked together so well. And that’s really the basis of Nektar. It’s that togetherness between the drums and guitar.
Four years later, you’ve released “Book of Days,” but lost Allan Taff Freeman on keyboards. How did you go about maintaining the balance within the band?
Roye: Nektar has been always very lucky when it came to finding great keyboard players, and great bass players. We’ve been extremely lucky. Right from Randy Dembo to Peter Pichl, and of course. Of course Derek Moore, we can’t forget him, he was one of the originals. We now have Peter on bass. We’ve had Tom Hughes, and now Klaus on keyboards. We’ve had great musicians around us. Really, a lot of bands don’t have that choice, they end up with players that are mediocre. These guys know Nektar music inside out, and no matter what we do they fit straight in there. They understand the mentality of us, and that’s the difference you see. The mentality of the band. It’s been hard for us because people move on. Bass players move on, keyboard players move on to different projects, so we have to bring new people in. And it’s hard work to get it going again. It’s not a 12-bar blues music, let’s face it. It’s a lot of work involved in it, but it’s also a lot of fun. And whoever comes in next, always brings something special into the music. I have to say that’s the beauty of Nektar music. You got a frame work there, but you bring these people, and they add something different, a different flavor to it, which is great. The Nektar brand is still there, but it has quite a different flavors. It’s great, and it’s really enjoyable to keep the music interesting.
How do you view "Book of Days" in comparisons to the previous two records?
Roye: I'm just going to say this to clarify. "Book of Days" was not Nektar. "Book of Days" was Nektar's music if you look at it from the point that I wrote the songs, but the album was not Nektar playing. We were under a situation where we had to bring an album out. The contractual obligations if you please. Something had to come out, and what I did, the pre-production was there already, and I just did what I could just to get an album out. Better that music out there than nothing at all. So I thought you got a chance of not bringing an album out, and another two years to wait, or bring the album out. I wanted it out there it's not Nektar, but it's Nektar's style. So, I decided to put it out, so people have actually something to listen to until we can get around to make another album.
In the meantime, there was a solo album, " The Follies of Rupert Treacle," you did in 2002. How does venturing on your own varies from writing for Nektar?
Roye: Years ago, I bought a Roland synthesizer guitar. Steve Hackett had one, and I had one. Both exactly the same, and what we did we sat at home, and wrote songs for this particular guitar. Steve went under different direction than I went. Steve went for the synth guitar and a band, and I just went for synth guitar with synthesizers. So everything on that record is just the synthesizer guitar except for the vocals, and real guitars. Everything else is played on the synth guitar, drums the lot. It was basically an experiment just to see how it would turn out, and what are the possibilities of a synth guitar. Since then, obviously synthesizer guitars had become far more technical, but this was the first model ever made. That's what it was really, just a trial.
Also, there was a live album called "Fortyfied."
Roye: The reason why we decided to bring that out was because people were little bit confused as to exactly who was in the band now. And also, didn't know how the band sounded now. So rather than keep all this confusion out there, we brought out another live album. We have a lot of live albums out there, but this albums shows how we are now. And then we could work on the new studio album.

And what about the upcoming album, all we know it will be called "Juggernaut."
Roye: We're currently working on finishing it, and I'm very close to the material. I think if you were to listen to some of the newer material like "Doctor Kool," and "King of The Deep," or "Where Are You Now," which are from "Book of Days" you'll hear what Nektar have in line for the future. Which is music more acceptable to a wider audience. It's not necessary going away from what Nektar sound like, and how we are. We still have out ups and downs, time changes and all that. We want to make it more acceptable to a wider audience because at the end of the day, it's mostly a male audience, and we would like to see females in the audience enjoying it as well. It's only right that we do that. And the only way you're gonna entice females in the audience is by having good rock songs, catchy melodies, and not just staying with one note. It's a very fine line to find, if you find it you're right in there. So, that's what we are working on.
Nektar of the 1970s was a band that established certain sound and style, what in your opinion the band did in the 21st Century?
Ron: I think it's just an evolution of Nektar. It's like, you grow up, and you're baby, you're toddler, you're teenage, and then you mature. I just think it's the maturity of our music. It's hard to define Nektar music, it's just what we play. To tell you the truth other people put us in categories like prog band, or so, but we never thought of that in those terms. We just play Nektar music, and that was it.
Roye: People too easily want to label you. They want to stick a label on you, and market you. If they wanna call us space rock, if they want to call us progressive rock, or classic rock, or whatever they want to call us, we don't mind because we're just gonna carry on what we do anyway.
What is the most common criticism you are faced with over the years in regards to your band or music?
Roye: I would say we were faced with a lot of negatives during Nektar's career. Not in the early days when we had hits with "Remember The Future." That was working perfectly O.K. But the machine broke down. The management machine, the record label machine, the agency machine broke down. And no matter what we did, or tried to do we've always taken on the worst management in the world, the worst record company in the world. It just all fell apart, or have been falling apart all the time, and that's been out major hold back. Now, we have a great record company who is 1000% behind us, we've always had a great fan base no question about that. They'll drive 500 miles to come and see us. The only problem we have right now is the agency, they seem to be insecure about Nektar. Which is understandable, but they've got to be convinced there is plenty of life left in us, and we have plenty more music to write, and we get up there and we do what we do. We get standing ovations every night. All we need now is a great agency to support us. We have a record company in Los Angeles now that want to push us like hell, but if you don't have the shows to go to, and people don't know we're coming, what can you do?
There is a lot of re-working/re-mastering of your old catalog. Are you involved in the process?
Roye: We have the rights to our old albums. Bellaphon Records own the right to that material. They gave me and Nektar the right to reproduce it, and sell it anywhere around the world, except for Germany which is where they are based. We did a deal with Eclectic Disc, and they did a very naughty job. They had access to our archives down at the Bellaphon in the cellar, and they took everything, and they put everything out. Which is something we did not agree with, I certainly didn't, and I stopped it straight in their tracks. So along come It's a Bad Music. They said they wanted to release the back catalog but being that there is so much out there already, let's do special editions. I agreed to that, and they asked me for anything we could attach to those releases as bonus. So my idea was to give them live recording from different venues and put that together as a bonus disc for each release. They like the idea, and there are two albums like that out already, and there is five more to come. No Cleopatra on the other hand, I couldn't give them anything except for one album. They already had "The Best of Nektar" from way back, which is totally out of date now. So I told them, we put out together a "best of" album which is right up to date, and it's just sitting here and nobody is taking, should we use that one? They liked it, and this time it's 2 CD set. We did the albums cover for it, and I was talking to them how Nektar never really toured America properly since reforming. They were like, it might be a bit risky sending Nektar across the country on their own, why don't we do a package tour. Let's do it together with Brainticket and Huw Lloyd Langton, and just go across. The response couldn't be better. We're definitely coming back to do another tour next year! Also, we'll have the new album out by then, so we'll be promoting it as well.

If we can go back in time now, why was it you left the band back in 1976?
Roye: I personally felt Nektar's time came to an end, and I was a youngster. I was young and I was hungry to do something else. I just wanted to play music. We've moved over from Germany to the U.S. We've done a tour, and when it was over we were sitting in New Jersey doing absolutely nothing, and I was bored. I wanted to go and do something else. I didn't know anybody, I didn't know any of the musicians. I wanted to do something, so I've decided to leave the band and go back to Europe.
And very little was heard from you until the band got back together, so what did you do?
Roye: I slept (laughter.) No, I told you about the ill health. I didn't really do much at all. I was still writing stuff. Unfortunately Ron and I lost touch which was a real sad thing. We should've kept in touch. He didn't know where I was and I didn't know where he was. They all moved around a bit, and I moved around a bit. There was no Internet then.
While you were gone Nektar did one more record, "Magic is a Child."
Ron: When Roy left we were with Polydor records, and they really got us down to the fine line of the contractual thing. They were owed another album, and they had to have it. We were actually in a rush to get it out, so that's how that came about. And soon after we released the album Polydor didn't do anything for it. They didn't do any advertising, nothing. Seems like they thought we were well known so they could make money off us. But when you have an album you have to push it no matter who it's from. They failed to do that. And shortly after that the disco phase came in, and that was the end.
Roye: At the same time Ron was doing "Magic is a Child" I was doing "Man On The Moon." So there were two Nektar albums, and they were posed in two different countries. And that was bizarre.
What are the most defining moments for the band, or for you as musicians, writers and so on?
Ron: To tell you the truth it happens every night we play. The fans are just incredible. I was just speaking to a fan who drove 400 miles to see us. You can't argue with that, it's incredible.
Roye: Not only that, which is absolutely truth, but the love of Nektar music is what keeps us going, and it's getting there, playing it, regardless. It's just something that comes from the heart.

Links:
http://nektarsmusic.com/nn/home/home_new.asp