For their fourth studio album, 2013's Oceans Of Time, UK proggers Touchstone signed to Cherry Red and cranked the guitars up. Sadly it remains the band' most recent album and they've been on hiatus since 2017. This is its story...
You expect many things to arise from a chat with one of the UK’s brighter prospects in modern prog. Praise for their collective musical pleasures including Yes, Van Halen, Genesis, Our Lady Peace and Porcupine Tree; musings about the present state of the progressive rock landscape; thoughts on the industry and all that kind of thing.
What you do not expect are exaltations of Josh Groban, banjos and Morgan Freeman… While they’re deadly serious about their music – especially in light of their fourth studio album, Oceans Of Time – never let it be said that Touchstone take themselves too seriously.
Prog is meeting what guitarist Adam Hodgson – a member since answering an advert from keyboardist Rob Cottingham in 2003 – calls “the classic Touchstone line-up”. Assembled today in a north London pub, said line-up features vocalist Kim ‘Elkie’ Seviour (tiny in stature, colossal in voice, and today, blue of hair), bassist Andre ‘Moo’ Moorghen (friendly straight-talker and purveyor of nifty fretless slides) and drummer Henry Rogers (at 22, the youngest Touchstone-ite and already winner of a Classic Rock Society Best Drummer award). And Rob Cottingham, of course – concept-loving founder of the band, yet to arrive.
It’s fitting that we have this time with the group as a four-piece, echoing the relative absence of Rob’s keys on their new guitar-led work. Anyone who heard the multi‑layered, keyboard-tastic likes of Wintercoast (2009) or The City Sleeps (2011) will have questions about the keys on Oceans Of Time. More specifically: “Where are they?”
The answer offers a grounding reminder of the reality faced by most working musicians today – he had to work, in the ‘day job, pay-the-bills’ sense that at present Touchstone are unable to do on record sales and gig tickets alone. Adam, for example, is a designer by day, while Moo sells audio equipment.
“Rob was getting going on his new job, so he was out of the picture for a lot of it because he was flying all over Europe for work,” Moo explains. “So it ended up being very guitar-led, purely from the fact that there were no keyboards! Or compared to previous albums certainly.” But still, keys are there where they need to be. “Where they’re used they’re effective. It created a whole lot more space for listening to nuances of the drums and bass, and the vocals sound a lot better on this one.”
It’s fair to say that Oceans Of Time does seem to have more breathing space. Syncopated rhythm flourishes are clearer; vocals comfortably span ethereal, harmonised intimacy and glass-shattering wails; and flashes of Joe Satriani-meets-Steven Wilson guitar heroism emerge startlingly from the likes of Spirit Of The Age.
“I think the intention was to get a bit more guitary anyway,” Adam says. “When it was heavier we wanted it to be really heavy, and when it was lighter we wanted it to be really light. For quite a few of the songs I’ve written the initial idea on the guitar, so when it came to bringing it to the band, we were all developing it from a guitar base. I’ve given Kim the riffs and she’s written melodies to it, and the keyboards come in behind it.”
At this point, Rob arrives – a tall, smiley vision of bald head, spectacles and long leather jacket. A bit like a lanky Doctor Who, but more homely. Amid much hugging, cheery greetings and beer-ordering, there’s seemingly no love lost over his band’s latest heavier rock sound.
“Actually, I was worried that a lot of it was too light,” Adam says. “Yes, Flux is totally in your face, but then you’ve got Contact, not very heavy; Tabula Rasa, not very heavy… There are just greater extremes. And it’s a lot filthier because there are a lot of dirty guitars.”
“We wanted some filth on this album,” says Rob.
“Yeah, we like filth,” Kim agrees.
Along with the filth, and taking the lyrical lead for Oceans Of Time, 28-year-old Kim has kept busy studying to become a cognitive behavioural therapist. It’s a project largely separate from her band persona, though the aforementioned Tabula Rasa (Latin for ‘blank slate’) was the product of a chapter in one of her textbooks. A soaring Porcupine Tree-channelling trip of exquisite harmonies and rousing guitar, it leaves a triumphant impression that sits well alongside pensive lyrics – some stemming from her experience of M.E.
“I’ve actually become a much more positive person,” she says. “You start being especially grateful for the good things you have. I almost feel lucky to have had it; to have been able to gain this view of life. And on tour it’s just about managing it.”
“Ah yeah, screamo emo!” Adam interjects.
“Oh, that’s just when I’ve got PMS on tour; otherwise it’s fine,” the singer deadpans.
“And when she hasn’t eaten!” Henry chirps.
“And when I haven’t eaten,” she concedes. “There’s a definite Snickers advert moment when that happens. My latest thing is Eggs Benedict. If I’m feeling crappy and someone gives me Eggs Benedict, a bar of chocolate and a hug, then everything’s right with the world.”
Speaking of tours, as we speak, Touchstone are on the cusp of co-headline dates with Finnish prog darlings the Von Hertzen Brothers. It’s an enticing live prospect – two star pupils of 21st-century progressive rock in one package – and one that reflects their ‘quality over quantity’ gigging approach.
“We do get slagged off for it. People say: ‘Oh you don’t gig enough,’ but where we do gig, we tend to get decent numbers,” explains Moo.
Indeed, it’s easy to overlook the fact that those numbers are crucial in enabling any band to put on a show in the first place. “People don’t realise how much it costs to do gigs,” Moo adds. “So we need to play places where we know we’re going to get a return – which means people through the door. So it’s not that we don’t want to play these other places, but it’s just not feasible.”
“I think our fanbase like it though, because if they know enough in advance, they’ll take a couple of days off,” Adam says. “We have people who’ve travelled 60, 70, 100 miles to get to a gig, and they’ll book a hotel and maybe stay in that area for a couple of nights. It’s better to have a hot, steamy venue with a lot of people, rather than doing too many shows with, say, 30 people. But as we get bigger, which we will, our dates will get bigger.”
This pragmatic outlook goes hand in hand with their decision to embrace the world of record deals, PR and proper management, thereby moving away from the cottage industry approach favoured by myriad credible but ultimately struggling prog bands. DIY may offer artistic purity, but in a musical Serengeti, it sure is helpful having knowledgeable pen-pushers to steer you ahead of the herd. Right?
“Yes. We’ve always been of the opinion that if you can get to the next level, you want to get the right people on board,” Adam agrees. “That’s why we got involved with a record label in the first place. We got to a point where we weren’t progressing. We’d give a lot of our freedoms up to be with a label, but then they’d open a lot more doors to us. So we thought: to hell with it, you only live once. Let’s do it and see what happens.”
What happened, initially, was a signing to noted German rock label Steamhammer/SPV, through whom they hiked up their profile and released 2011’s critically praised The City Sleeps. Two years in, however – just as Oceans Of Time was on the cards – uncertain times at SPV signalled the time for change. “We’d never had a chart entry, and we got that with Steamhammer with The City Sleeps,” Adam muses. “But we felt we needed someone local.”
Talks began elsewhere, settling at their current label stable, the London-based Hear No Evil/Cherry Red Records. “We all really like their ethos as a company,” enthuses Adam, to much earnest agreement from the others. “They’re keen for you to get involved.”
“There wasn’t a great marketing push from SPV,” Rob adds seriously. “There wasn’t… I think they were navel-gazing; they weren’t sure what was happening. We still left on good terms with SPV, mind you. It was a great next step to this.”
For the first time in Touchstone’s 10-plus years, there’s no weak link in terms of musicianship – as Rob says, “Now the world’s our lobster – we can do anything.”
And you want to pay attention, for besides working incredibly hard, Touchstone make an engaging, quirky crew, spanning a bigger range of ages and life experience than your more typical mates-from-school line-up – not to mention having an intriguing musical back catalogue (Adam has written soundtracks for independent films and played in a funk-metal band, Rob has released solo record Captain Blue, Henry also drums with progsters DeeExpus…). But does it all pull together?
“It’s challenging at times,” says Adam, “but when we all get in the van and we’re doing gigs, it’s never an issue. We all enjoy the same things.”
“Musicians stop growing up when they’re around 15 anyway,” Kim says, sagely.
“I’d always been in bands before where you have a rehearsal every week, and you’re seeing your mates at the same time and drinking after,” Adam remembers. “Whereas we spend a lot of time apart. Before we start writing an album, I think, ‘Christ, we haven’t written anything for two years – are we going to be able to pull it off?’ But the minute we get back into it, it’s like we’ve never been apart.”
“In a sense we’re so different, but there’s a chemistry and magic that just comes out,” Rob smiles.
This bodes well for their confident, contemporary take on prog. But it’s interesting to consider how such a group responds to a genre still very dominated by its heroes of yore – and viewed from both purist perspectives and less traditional ones.
“Progressive rock for me was always about trying to push rock music forward,” says Adam. “We’ve always loved progressive rock, and we like very commercial rock too. I like to keep things as contemporary as possible.”
“There are probably aficionados who are going to say: ‘You’re not fucking prog,’” Moo concedes. “But things have changed a lot since the 60s and 70s, and if you look at the bands that are called ‘prog’, a lot of them to me aren’t overtly ‘prog’ in the older sense.”
“The problem is, how do you define prog? Y’know, is it all about noodling?” Rob adds.
As in a King Crimson, stop-start style?
“Yeah. We want to be progressive not by sounding like a 70s prog band, but by taking things forward.”
So, how will Touchstone take things forward on the next album?
“It’s going to be a symphonic epic with a banjo solo!” Rob chortles with glee.
A banjo solo?
“Yes! Next album’s all Cotters. He’s had an album off. I’m tired!” Adam laughs.
Jeremy Irons did a voiceover on Wintercoast. Who’s next?
“We could ask Morgan Freeman,” Henry suggests.
“Yes!” Kim agrees. “And Josh Groban. Give me some Josh. I do like him.”
Henry: “Less of a like, more an obsession…”
“So yeah, the next album’s going to be guest-tastic!” Adam continues. “Every man and his dog. You’re going to be on it!”
Hilarity ensues. And we try to imagine Morgan Freeman guesting on a prog rock album. With banjos…
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