"I thought they'd drop us... the daft stuff made the label think it was viable": Trifecta's new album features Alex Lifeson, didgeridoo and Zappa nods - but Nick Beggs insists he's no prog musician
The New Normal is the surprise second helping from Steven Wilson bandmates Beggs, Holzman and Blundell. Among the silliness there's also deep love and sincere cynicism
Is Nick Beggs an alien? Is he even a prog musician? can you train a dog with a didgeridoo? All these questions and more are answered as Prog peeks under the hood of Trifecta's The New Normal, an album that reunites Beggs with fellow virtuosos Adam Holzman and Craig Blundell. Just don't ask what his wife thinks of it.
"I have to be honest with you - I'm not really a prog musician," confesses Nick Beggs. That's a disarming proclamation from a musician who's played with Steven Wilson, Steve Hackett, led the prog power trio The Mute Gods, and who recently filled in for Pete Trewavas with Marillion on Cruise To The Edge.
"I'm really a pop writer," insists the bassist and Chapman Stick player. "That's how I learned, that's what I schooled myself in, that's how I started out and I've had some success doing it. It runs pretty deep in me. Old habits die hard; and when I start thinking about material, I start thinking about three-minute pop songs."
That leads us to The New Normal, the second album from Trifecta - the trio of Beggs, keyboardist Adam Holzman and drummer Craig Blundell, veterans all from Wilson's live band. It's a double album of delightfully wonky prog fusion, but the compositions are concise, filtering their flights of fancy through the discipline of pop songcraft.
"Adam is the one who'll help to expand things into the more prog-fusion idiom," says Beggs. "I do like that way of working, but the kernel of the idea has to be a song format for it to work; unless it's a piece of a more surrealist idea, which is just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks."
The follow-up to 2021's Fragments is a surprise to Beggs, who hadn't expected Kscope to want another Trifecta album. "I thought they'd drop us," he says. "The first album did about 5,000 copies, which is average for that type of project. I thought, 'They probably haven't made their money back, so why would they want to get more in the hole?' But they really liked the project."
Where their debut album was predominantly instrumental, this time the music is interspersed with spoken interludes as Beggs talks to himself, playing fractious siblings or possibly a splintered psyche locked in argument with itself. "It's the psychological thing about how we all wrestle with a twin", he says. "I think we all have a dual personality. I certainly do. People have conversations with themselves about how they feel; about how they are in the world. I talk to myself all the time."
That duality exists in the form of his identical twin sons, Jake and Callum, as explored in the track Sibling Rivalry. "Very often it's like talking to the same person - they're two sides of the same coin. I channelled that kind of tension into the concept of that piece of music."
In the song two brothers, both voiced by Beggs, argue over who is the better didgeridoo player. When asked why, the bassist produces his own didgeridoo and provides an impromptu demonstration, explaining that it works wonders to stop his dog from barking when the postman's at the door. Apparently, his Trifecta colleagues are unfazed by such diversions from their bandleader.
When I played it to Alex Lifeson he said, 'I was just celebrating my wedding anniversary and it really resonated.' I said, 'I wrote it for the same reason'
"I think Adam looks at me sometimes like I'm an alien - which of course I am - but the thing is that he tolerates it. He's learned that I'm not putting it on; that's really how I live my life on a daily basis. The other two are very patient with me; they put up with my antics.
"Those wacky sides to the record came later. I think they were unsure as to whether the label would go for it. From what I understood, it was those things that made the label think that it was viable. I thought they were going to say, 'Let's cut out the daft stuff and we'll release it as a single album,' but they didn't. They wanted to do the expanded record."
Holzman, Beggs and Blundell worked remotely on the album, which seems surprising as the music relies on nimble, seemingly instantaneous interplay between the musicians. They're heard tipping their hats to musical idols from JS Bach on Bach Stabber to Jeff Beck in Beck And Call (which features a call and response between Beggs on Chapman Stick and Holzman on Moog). Once Around The Sun With You, a moment of heartfelt honesty among the madness, features a guest appearance from Rush guitar legend Alex Lifeson.
"It was written with my wife in mind," says Beggs. "I played it and said, 'I wrote a song about you.' She got very emotional. There's a sincerity to it - it's a romantic song. When I played it to Alex, he said, 'I was just celebrating my wedding anniversary and it really resonated with me.' And I said, 'That's why I wrote it; for the same reason.'"
The more outrageous Trump's behaviour, the more he warps the realities of the world in a very quantum way, the more people seem to accept him
The connection with Lifeson began when Wilson's band recorded a cover of The Twilight Zone for the 40th anniversary edition of Rush's 2112. "Alex had come along to see us at Massey Hall [in Toronto], ironically because that's where they recorded All The World's A Stage," Beggs says. "I had my photograph taken with him, we shared a drink and a chat; then he came to another show and said, 'If you ever want to do any music, let me know.' I did a thing with him and Marco Minnemann, and then he played on a Mute Gods track. That line of collaboration is always open. He's such a great guy and very open to working on other people's material."
Since twisted humour permeates The New Normal, the spirit of Zappa is detectable in the mix of intimidating musicianship and absurdity. "I like his irreverence and his disdain for the world," says Beggs. "I have the same disdain for the human race and the stupid things we say and do. I think it's ripe material to comment on."
He believe it's important for songwriters to have something to say - and to say it with conviction. "Hitting people over the head with your ideas is a good thing, and Zappa did that. He didn't pull any punches. He told people if he thought they were stupid. I think it's good; it's challenging. I mean, I'm stupid; we're all stupid. Everything we do is by a process of trial and error and we get it wrong far more than we get it right. When we get it right, we change, and that's good."
In addition to Zappa, Beggs admires Vivian Stanshall from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band as a surreal lyricist, but in writing for The New Normal he was drawn to subjects with more of a scientific angle. "There was only one song on the first album, Pavlov's Dog Killed Schrodinger's Cat, that had a quantum science leaning and I thought we could expand on that a little bit more. Once Around The Sun With You talks about 'fuse the heavy elements that make my life return,' so there's kind of a science centre to it. I like that idea."
It makes demands of the listener. My wife says it's the worst music she's ever heard in her life!
He describes Canary In A Five And Dime as a piece that appears playful yet possesses a hard edge. "I wrote that about Trump," he says. "It refers to his getting ready to take office again, which he clearly will. The more outrageous his behaviour, the more he warps the realities of the world in a very quantum way, the more people seem to accept him. We're faced with a strange scenario where the world is changing, and this is the new normal. He turns impediments into virtues and makes people love him for it."
That new normal expands into all aspects of music, including the challenges of touring; and Beggs says it wouldn't be financially viable to take Trifecta on the road. "I think it's very easy to forget that we've lived through a golden age of music," he reflects. "In fact, the human race has lived through a golden age. We've had a long period of time without that much conflict. We're now entering a heightened set of problems globally.
"From here on in, the world is going to be a different place; that's the new normal. With all those great records that were made in the 60s, 70s, and in some cases the 80s, we had halcyon days of travel. We could go to Europe, we could import stuff without having to pay massive amounts of tax. It's easier for me to go to America now than it is to go across the English Channel to the continent. That's devastating to the music industry.
"I would get up in the morning, drive my car down to Heathrow, get on a plane, fly to Germany, do a TV show and be home in time to watch EastEnders. The world has changed. The reality is that we won't be able to tour the way we used to; we won't make money."
But he'd love to take the trio on tour at some point - particularly now they've got a sizable body of work. Plus, not rushing out onto the road allows fans time to digest the music first. "It makes demands of the listener," says Beggs, noting that not everyone is overly enamoured. "My wife says it's the worst music she's ever heard in her life!
"I made this little film; I'm going to put it up on YouTube around the time the album comes out. It's her reviewing the album and it's very funny because she doesn't pull any punches. She really shoots from the hip. I said, 'Look, it's a double album.' She said, 'Yeah, twice as much shit music.' That's The New Normal - 'Ann Beggs: The worst album I ever heard in my life!'"
