After two excellent Queensryche-tinged albums with Siam, Tony Mills got back with his former bandmates to reform Shy, and reaction to their most recent album 'Unfinished Business' has been nothing short of ecstatic. Kieran Dargan caught up recently with the veteran singer....

The new album is out , Unfinished Business, I guess the title sums it up really?

"Yeah , I guess so. I did have a bit of a disagreement with Steve Harris about the title. I was very keen in calling it 'Skydiving' actually. He went for 'Unfinished Business'. The reasons were probably two fold, the first being that we only expected the album to take four months and it took a year and a half, secondly I had a long break from the band and in between we all worked on different projects, so when we got together to discuss the possibilities of another records, well I think Steve decided we had some unfinished business to attend to."

I think it definitely gives the impression that when Shy finished it should have ended differently and you didn't get the chance to finish things off properly.

"I have had a lot of time to reflect and I assume they had as well. It was quite interesting getting together on this project to see the difference that time has had on all of us, so I think you could say that."

So is it easier for all of you to work together now?

"It is now that the drummer has left. It wasn't that he was a bad drummer or anything and he was a decent backing singer, it was just that we had a clash of personalities from day one back in 1983."

I think I remember you telling me previously that he said you were lucky to be in his band?

"He made me ask his permission to be in the band, which was a bit heavy actually after I had been working with him as a backing singer on a different project for about a year or so. I thought having to ask his permission to join the band when we already had a deal was a bit over the top. I could never understand his reasoning behind that."

So the nucleus of Shy in 2002 is yourself, Steve Harris and Roy, and Paddy McKenna appears courtesy of his own bad self?

"Well Paddy is probably the reason why the recording took so long because, as I understand it, he was doing various other things. Since the project has been completed he has decided that he no longer wants to be in the band."

It's his own decision then?

"Oh yes, totally. We were keen for him to play and get on with rehearsals because we have a lot of things to do, so we drafted in the Siam guitarist Ian Richardson, so we're no longer a keyboard band - it's all guitars."

Do you think that will have an effect on the Shy sound? I mean when you listen to any Shy album there were always lots and lots of keyboards.

"To be honest, no. That's the reason I drafted in Ian because he can play clean pick pattern on guitars that emulate the overtones that come off keyboards. I mean even the intro to a song like 'Emergency', he just arpeggios on guitar and it comes across very well."

Do you think that it will come across a much heavier than usual?

"I'm not adverse to that at all, I was always a great fan of two guitar bands over keyboard bands, but that was Steve's preference in the early days. I'm very proud of two guitars to be honest. I have two pretty damn good guitarists to work with at the moment . I'm not too concerned about being too heavy, the subtleties will still be there if needed. We'll still be AOR to the AOR fans."

From your own perspective as the singer where do you think Shy fit in?

"It was always a sit on the fence type band, with a guitarist and a keyboard player, because whatever you tried to write it dragged it back onto the fence. Nobody wants to put themselves into one pot or the other, everybody wants to say they have their own style. To be appreciated by a large amount of people who like one particular style of music is a damn good thing rather than neither liking them and sitting on the fence. I think Shy have a lot of capability, I think and hope it will open us up to a lot more people having a second guitarist."

So coming back after such a long period away from Shy, when the project was first mentioned , did you have any reservations?

"Having not been in the band for eight or nine years, a) all I had done in the meantime was work with heavier band. b) I couldn't work with that bloody drummer again and c) did the band ever get off the fence one way or another? Did they become Chicago or did they become Dokken?"

So was Alan ever considered for the drummers position this time around?

"Well, I was asked first so I'll never know that."

So you laid down the law

"Not really. I said I would be happy to write and record and do another record, but not with that bloody drummer. I mean he knows, he's not daft. The thing is, the day I decided to leave I pulled the band together and told them I wanted to do different things, you know, some of us don't get on together and all that, and before I had even finished, after ten years, Alan had already gone. I mean I never even got to say best of luck."

How did the writing process go. Did Steve have some old bits and pieces written, saying 'Yeah, one day when Shy get back together we'll do this and that,' or is it all brand new material?

"Nothing was written whatsoever. In Shy I have only ever written lyrics against music, so it would be impossible for me to write without having music in front of me. That's just the way we've always worked. Steve, he's the most difficult guy to get to work on something rather than do nothing, so I imagine the cheque would have had to have been on the table before he did anything . We spent time together and worked on things and ended up in a studio in Coventry and I would take away backing tracks and come back with lyrics and vocals and they'd go 'Naah, that's shit' or 'Yeah that's half decent, we'll keep that one.' It took twelve months really for everything to gel together, so that's how it went basically, a constructive period of time."

Once you all got back together in the writing frame of mind, how easy was it to put the songs together in pre production?

"Pre-production was done in the process of recording. It was extremely obvious when backing tracks went down to see if the key was right, the tempo was right etc, so it was built into the recording of the album a year or two ago."

Like any artist that has been away for a period of time, especially doing different things, did you come together with a pre conceived notion of how things should sound?

"That's a damn good question because Shy have lived for a long time and everybody harks back to 1987 and 'Excess All Areas'."

Is that somewhat of an albatross around your neck now?

"Not at all. No, it's a serious plus."

So you don't think that everything that you write for the rest of your natural life is going to be compared against 'Excess..'?

"Well I have been reading a lot on the internet and everybody is saying 'Skydiving' could have come off 'Excess...', in fact it's been an improvement. I'm very happy about that. Obviously it's different, all the big eighties snare sounds have gone, there's a better production about it and I'm quite happy about having given Steve more leeway with longer solos on this record - in fact some of the longest he's ever played. I'm quite happy with that and my expectations of Shy in this day and age are really up to date and a serious step forward from 'Excess All Areas' I don't think it's a sideways or backwards step. I'm impressed by it and we've been asked to do another record and there's a live album being recorded in Germany so I guess we've been doing something right."

Why not record on home ground?

"Birmingham... to be honest the venues are either pub sized or stadium sized and to have a nice A-Dat set up with a picture book crowd is not such an easy thing to achieve .Germany is a safe bet for us, it's the bands stamping ground having never been to Japan which is, oddly enough, the other big market for us."

Now that you're back, the 'Unfinished Business' is still unfinished. You're playing Z Rock in Germany and the Rocktober show in Wigan. What then?

"I have committed myself to Shy. I am quite happy to work with everyone. Germany will be a serious concert to play and we're in rehearsal right now, in fact we have been for two or three weeks now, so we have a few weeks left to fine tune everything and we're confident we'll do a great show. I've been writing tonight. I have a studio at home."

Is this a follow up to Cruiser?

"Yes it is, I have been asked to do that."

So you've been keeping the voice in good shape for the forthcoming live shows?

"I've never had a problem with it really. In fact I always thought that stacks of Marshalls and a big drum kit were the reason I was screaming my tits off, so having two guitarists now is great because both are actually singers and they're taking some of the load off me."

So now that you're in rehearsals, you have obviously worked on the basis of a set list. Any surprises in there or will it be basically a greatest hits type set?

"The general scheme of things is it will be split between a full live show and acoustic unplugged. There will be quite a bit off 'Excess...' as well as the new album plus a mix and match of other bits and pieces, so it should be really good."

So you personally are working on another solo record and what about Shy, will there be another studio album?

"Well, we do have a damn good relationship with Z Records so there is no reason that there couldn't be another product after this one."

As Steve said in the liner notes , expect a new record in 2004

"Hahaha... well not that long because we won't be recording at the last studio and we won't have a keyboard player."

So finally... you're back on the road, full steam ahead. How does it feel?

"Well I spent the last ten years recording two albums with Siam and playing more live gigs than ever before. I spent a year in a Rush cover band called YYZ doing my best Geddy Lee impression... that was interesting, got a bit monotonous after playing the same two hour show every night. I haven't been totally static, and last year I got the offer to do Shy again, like a bolt out of the blue, and so far it has been a very good move for the band. It was an opportunity to shake off the deadwood and move forward. It's going to be great to get to play and recording the album was a good experience, I'm keen on being in the band again. I'm fairly positive that it can be a long term thing and we, as a band, are really looking forward to get back playing live ... so far so good ..."