GuilFest 2006. The 3 Day Guildford Music Festival on 14th, 15th and 16th July 2006

Interview:

Artist: Barry Rutter
By: Hugh Fort
Portsmouth Evening News
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Danny Bowes had to be talked into reviving rock gods Thunder - but now he says it's the best decision he ever made. 'I didn't really want to do it at all,' admits the singer. 'I knew it would be great fun but I knew we couldn't just play, we would have to make a record and continue going forward in some way. 'Thunder is a great band to be in, really good fun. I agonised for 18 months before we split up the first time, but when you feel like you're going round in circles and the record company isn't putting much into selling your records, you wonder what the point is.'

The band had split back in 1999 after struggling for a couple of years with record companies that were still obsessed by Britpop and had no interest in rock. Hits like Backstreet Symphony, Love Walked In and A better Man were long behind them, and it was way before The Darkness and co made rock hip again. Then three years later Danny had the idea of taking the old Donnington Monsters of Rock Festival on the road and took it to promoters Clearchannel. 'There were a few logistical problems but we solved it all and got a really good bill together with Alice Cooper and The Wildhearts,' he recalls. 'Then they dropped it on me that it would be a really good idea if Thunder got back together again. 'I had gone to them as a co-promoter ready to fulfill the Bob Geldof role as the mouthpiece, talking it all up, I didn't think I'd have to play. But they made it a pre-condition, so I took it to the band and they bit my arm off.'

Three years on the South London five-piece have proved they're as good live as they ever were, and their latest album, The Magnificent Seventh, is dripping with Thunder-esque rockers like The Pride, Monkey See Monkey Do, Fade Into the Sun, and You Can't Keep A Good Man Down. The added bonus is that the band no longer have an apathetic record company to impress - they're running their own l abel and doing most sales through the internet.

Again though, Danny wasn't too keen. 'Our bass player Chris (Childs) had said for ages we should make and release our own records and I had visions of licking l abels and sticking them on CDs like a cottage industry, and I absolutely didn't want that,' he says. 'I think you have to compete, so we set about using the internet to sell our own records and we made a four-track EP and stuck it out there. We sold 4,000 almost immediately and I thought maybe this is all right. 'It's hard work but being in charge is great, and we don't have to sell as many because all the money goes straight back into our business.'

All he regrets now is the time he wasted in between the two Thunder incarnations. 'I did a solo album and other people kept dropping out,' he recalls. 'I couldn't understand it. Thunder had always got on really well. We have a laugh and got on really well. 'We go out to play and people like us, it's very straightforward.'