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Late last month Circa Zero made their live debut at L.A.'s El Rey Theater in front of several hundred fans. It's unusual for a new band to headline a thousand-person venue, but when that group features Andy Summers, guitarist for the Police, there will be a lot of interest.
Circa Zero started with Summers teaming with multi-instrumentalist Rob Giles of the band the Rescues, rounded out by drummer Emmanuelle Caplette. The trio has a full album of material recorded and mastered. They're waiting for the right deal before unleashing their alternative-pop hooks on the music world.
100 Greatest Guitarists: Andy Summers
Anxious to get going with a show and album under their belt, Summers and Giles spoke with Rolling Stone recently in the Venice, California studio Summers has called his musical home since the late Eighties. The pair talked to us about why the early days of a band are the best, the Police song that makes Giles take his shirt off and how to find the right deal in the ever-shifting music industry.
Is there a release date yet for the album?
Andy Summers: There's a lot of interest, but it's like everything else now – should we do this or should we do that, go the Internet route or go a different route? There's more than one way to do it now, so we're not quite sure. But we want to get it out pretty soon because we finished the record – it's completely mastered.
Rob Giles: We don't know yet. The industry as it is, we're still talking to everybody, 'cause there's interest. We're not sure who or what label, all that stuff.
I've spoken to many bands who find this early time, when everything is open, really exciting.
Summers: It's a cliché, but when you think back on bands, always the really great time is the first couple of years. Certainly I look back with the most affection about the Police with the first couple of years when we were going like a rocket. It was all so new, and we were going so successful. Five or six years in, we're monsters. You start to get into the five-star hotel, private jet thing, and you get more jaded about it. It's always the first bit because it's new and you're proving it.
Can you give us a preview of the album?
Giles: All our songs trudge like rock. There's one that's an odd time, the ballad, but it's not a power ballad about a girl so much. Everything else is really full energy, not that that one isn't. As a fan of Andy's I enjoy all of his solo work, but fuck that – he gets to rock, and we haven't heard this virtually ever. It is a bit of a long-play-feel album. It's not like filler, really. We love all the songs.
Summers: They've all got a lot of energy. It's almost an album with 10 or 11 singles. They've all got strong attitudes and hooks, which is what we were intending to write.
Was there a song that started you on the path to being a band?
Summers: I think it was "No Highway," actually, because we'd just met and we already felt like we're connecting this. And I had this idea of a song I'd written some time before, but Rob took the main line and sang a very different melody that was really intriguing. I think that was one of the first things we got into. We didn't really know each other, but obviously he's a great drummer, but he plays great rock bass and rock guitar as well. We'd start with guitars or whatever. We connected and we got a number of things going like that, [which] all made the process much easier.
Talk about taking this material to the stage.
Summers: We got a great drummer [Caplette], a girl drummer, who's not here today, obviously, but she's fantastic – very good, intense drummer. Playing with her, the songs really work. We open them up, typically, like you would do from the album, add in little bits and pieces to open them up, make them more live. So I think it's gonna go well.
You know there will be Police requests when you take the stage. Which gets more yelling – "Message in a Bottle" or "Roxanne"?'
Summers: On the applause-o-meter I don't know, but "Message in a Bottle," the minute you play that riff they tend to go nuts.
Giles: First time Andy played it in front of me I actually took my shirt off. I threw it at him, and he was like, "What are you doing? Please put your shirt on."
- Rolling Stone Magazine
Late last month Circa Zero made their live debut at L.A.'s El Rey Theater in front of several hundred fans. It's unusual for a new band to headline a thousand-person venue, but when that group features Andy Summers, guitarist for the Police, there will be a lot of interest.
Circa Zero started with Summers teaming with multi-instrumentalist Rob Giles of the band the Rescues, rounded out by drummer Emmanuelle Caplette. The trio has a full album of material recorded and mastered. They're waiting for the right deal before unleashing their alternative-pop hooks on the music world.
100 Greatest Guitarists: Andy Summers
Anxious to get going with a show and album under their belt, Summers and Giles spoke with Rolling Stone recently in the Venice, California studio Summers has called his musical home since the late Eighties. The pair talked to us about why the early days of a band are the best, the Police song that makes Giles take his shirt off and how to find the right deal in the ever-shifting music industry.
Is there a release date yet for the album?
Andy Summers: There's a lot of interest, but it's like everything else now – should we do this or should we do that, go the Internet route or go a different route? There's more than one way to do it now, so we're not quite sure. But we want to get it out pretty soon because we finished the record – it's completely mastered.
Rob Giles: We don't know yet. The industry as it is, we're still talking to everybody, 'cause there's interest. We're not sure who or what label, all that stuff.
I've spoken to many bands who find this early time, when everything is open, really exciting.
Summers: It's a cliché, but when you think back on bands, always the really great time is the first couple of years. Certainly I look back with the most affection about the Police with the first couple of years when we were going like a rocket. It was all so new, and we were going so successful. Five or six years in, we're monsters. You start to get into the five-star hotel, private jet thing, and you get more jaded about it. It's always the first bit because it's new and you're proving it.
Can you give us a preview of the album?
Giles: All our songs trudge like rock. There's one that's an odd time, the ballad, but it's not a power ballad about a girl so much. Everything else is really full energy, not that that one isn't. As a fan of Andy's I enjoy all of his solo work, but fuck that – he gets to rock, and we haven't heard this virtually ever. It is a bit of a long-play-feel album. It's not like filler, really. We love all the songs.
Summers: They've all got a lot of energy. It's almost an album with 10 or 11 singles. They've all got strong attitudes and hooks, which is what we were intending to write.
Was there a song that started you on the path to being a band?
Summers: I think it was "No Highway," actually, because we'd just met and we already felt like we're connecting this. And I had this idea of a song I'd written some time before, but Rob took the main line and sang a very different melody that was really intriguing. I think that was one of the first things we got into. We didn't really know each other, but obviously he's a great drummer, but he plays great rock bass and rock guitar as well. We'd start with guitars or whatever. We connected and we got a number of things going like that, [which] all made the process much easier.
Talk about taking this material to the stage.
Summers: We got a great drummer [Caplette], a girl drummer, who's not here today, obviously, but she's fantastic – very good, intense drummer. Playing with her, the songs really work. We open them up, typically, like you would do from the album, add in little bits and pieces to open them up, make them more live. So I think it's gonna go well.
You know there will be Police requests when you take the stage. Which gets more yelling – "Message in a Bottle" or "Roxanne"?'
Summers: On the applause-o-meter I don't know, but "Message in a Bottle," the minute you play that riff they tend to go nuts.
Giles: First time Andy played it in front of me I actually took my shirt off. I threw it at him, and he was like, "What are you doing? Please put your shirt on."
- Rolling Stone Magazine
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
THE BIRTH OF CIRCA ZERO
(according to Rob)
Coattails. Piggybacking. Standing on the shoulders of giants.
This is often the case in rock music, though it isn’t always successful. For every
Hagar there seems to be two Gary Cherones. For every few great bands, there
seems to be a not so great supergroup. But when people ?rst hear about Circa
Zero, the new band with Andy Summers and Rob Giles, they all seem to think
the same thing: Who is the other guy riding the coattails of Greatness? One of
them is a legend, true. A very well-known master in a few hipster circles in three
or four neighborhoods of Los Angeles and New York, having sold hundreds and
hundreds of albums, both as a solo artist and as a member of The Rescues. But
give the other guy a break. He played guitar in a band called The Police.
The story goes – Andy was a fan of The Rescues, and came to see them every
chance he got. When Giles ?nally got the chance to hang out with Andy after a
show one night, they hit it o? immediately. Andy called a few weeks later, saying
something English and debonair like “Fancy jamming some tunes, mate” or
something, to which Rob said “fuck yeah!”.
They started writing songs together at Andy’s studio in Venice. The evidence
there was a “band” in the making was immediate; it was the most fun, and the
most “rocking” thing either of them had done in many years. Without trying to
sound like or run away from the in?uences of The Police etc., they simply
followed their mutual muse and began to carve out a growing number of
melodic songs with a walloping dynamic punch, both familiar and new, modern
and classic.
What is most shocking, perhaps, is how vibrant and contemporary Andy
Sounds. He is old as water, but he sounds like a teenage prodigy from the
Valley. And Giles, who played both bass and drums on the debut album as well
as the epic and unhinged singing, is a bit of a mystery – how has he not broken
through to bigger audiences yet?
They will release their ?rst album “Circus Hero” soon, and will follow it up with
live dates throughout 2014.
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