In this latest interview special of Electric Friends, I speak to a legend in Gary Numan's music history: Rrussell Bell.

In case you didn’t know - Rrussell is a prolific musician, composer and comedy writer. After graduating in Physics at London University, he joined Tubeway Army in 1979 - first appearing on record on 1980’s We Are Glass. He would then spend the next 10 years recording with Gary and touring the world in his band. He would then go on to form the band Dramatis alongside Chris Payne, Ced Sharpley and Denis Haines.

Also a seasoned session player, he is also an award winning jingle writer, worked as a musical director for BSB, and has worked on many film and TV projects. This includes acting, stand-up comedy and script-writing for people such as Craig Charles and Keith Allen. He released his first EP Like a Human in 2019.

Rrussell very kindly agreed to be on the show, and I hope you enjoy this special interview!

Please get in touch on YouTube, X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, or email at numanpodcast@gmail.com.

Tom invites Rrussell Bell, a prolific musician and former member of Gary Numan's band, to share his experiences and insights from his extensive career. Rrussell reflects on his early days in the entertainment world, growing up in a family of performers, and how that shaped his artistic journey. He discusses his transition from an aspiring guitarist to joining Tubeway Army, highlighting the challenges and excitement of auditioning for Gary Numan. The conversation delves into memorable moments from their tours, including the immense popularity of Numan in the late '70s and the exhilarating atmosphere of live performances. Rrussell also touches on his diverse career beyond music, including writing jingles and comedy, and hints at upcoming projects with Dramatis, emphasizing his enduring passion for creating music.

Takeaways:

• Rrussell Bell discusses his early life growing up in a family of entertainers, including trapeze artists and comedians.
• He shares how he first became a fan of Gary Numan after seeing him perform on television during the 1970s.
• Bell highlights the unique experience of touring with Gary Numan, recalling the excitement and challenges of live performances.
• The recording process for albums with Numan involved a collaborative effort, allowing band members to contribute creatively.
• Bell reflects on the bittersweet feelings surrounding the end of Numan's career during the Wembley gigs, leading to the formation of Jamatis.
• His diverse career spans music, comedy writing, and jingles, showcasing his multifaceted talent in the entertainment industry.

Electric Friends, a Gary Newman podcast celebrating.

The tracks by a musical pioneer.

Hello, I'm Tom and welcome back to the Electric Friends podcast.

And this time I have another interview special for you.

And it's with one of the biggest names when it comes to the long list of people who have worked with Gary Newman during his career.

Russell Bell Russell Bell, in case you didn't know, is a prolific musician, composer and comedy writer.

He would then spend the next ten years recording with Gary and touring the world with his band.

He would also form the band Jamatis alongside Chris Payne.

Said Sharply.

And Dennis Haynes, also a seasoned session player.

He is also an award winning jingles writer.

He worked as a musical director for BSBD and has worked on many film and tv projects.

This includes acting, stand up comedy and script writing for people such as Craig Charles and Keith Allen.

Even appeared in the Vindaloo music video from Fat Les.

He's an all round talented and lovely man, and he very kindly agreed to appear on the podcast.

So without further ado, here's the interview and I'll speak to you at the end.

Well, so firstly, Russell Bell, thanks for being on electric friends.

My pleasure.

So, obviously it'd be great to start right at the beginning and your early days before meeting Gary.

And just from reading past interviews, it sounded like you were amongst entertainers from quite a young age.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, my grandparents were trapeze artists, Barnum and Bailey's, and my grandfather actually had a metal plate in his head because he went through the net once.

Well, a bit traumatic.

And my dad was.

He was an acrobatic comedian.

He used to do stand up and tap dance on his hands with metal gloves, which was different.

I just assumed everyone's dad didn't, that he could juggle.

And my mum was a tiller girl and so I was always hanging around when they were doing pantomimes and different shows.

So I grew up in that theatrical.

Environment and it sounded like you also had a bit of sporting experience growing up as well.

So he was very young.

He used to be a PE instructor in the army.

But my sporting experience, I just didn't stop.

At school.

I was captain of rugby, basketball, athletics, got a three a's, five star badge and qualified for the All England.

I was doing a lot of running and swimming and jumping and so when.

Was it then, that you first like discovered a love for music because that was quite from young age as well, from what I can tell.

Did you have any particular early influences as well?

I started off dancing but I didn't consider it as a profession at that time because I was three.

But yeah, moving on.

Yeah.

At school, in the primary school, headmaster assembly said, would anyone like to learn violin?

So we were looking at each other and he said, violin will be provided.

I was writing that.

I just kept it up.

Kind of likes it.

The hardest instrument in the world to play, especially starting, but you have to start as a kid, I suppose.

Eleven, I wanted a bit more.

I discovered Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and I wanted to be a guitarist.

So at eleven I got my first guitar and just carried on from there, really.

And so were you in many bands before joining up with Chuba army?

Was that.

Yeah, I mean, I was in a school hippie band at school called Petal.

Wow.

I was in a punk band called local Operator, but mainly when I was at college I was doing session work, things like.

They had these albums called sounds like.

So basically it's an album of recent covers.

I used to do sessions on those and just sit there with a bunch of session players.

The very first track I had to do was hocus pocus by fusion.

Bloody hell.

Fortunately I'd learned it because I really liked it.

But Jan Ackerman at that time, he was hard to keep up with when I got away with it.

Yeah, that was.

That was fun.

That's quite the debut.

So when were you already a fan of or obviously aware of Gary's music before auditioning for him?

What was that?

What was that?

I saw him doing our friends electric on the old gray whistle test and I immediately loved the band.

I thought, oh, I really like that band.

Then I heard a rumor that he was looking for a guitarist.

So I phoned up Eggers banquet and I said, is it true that he's looking for a guitarist?

Because I'd like to apply for the job.

And I said, well, we don't know anything about that.

So I thought, okay, that's just a rumor.

And then I used to get some melody maker every week and I looked in the small ads at the back and it was an ad saying guitarist wanted into Gary Newman, into Tubeway army, stroke ultraviolet.

I thought, it's got me there.

So I applied for that audition, turned up and it was them.

And so I auditioned and got the job.

I took a guitar synth along, which I've been using in another band and I think that didn't do any harm.

It's a massive, great thing with four outputs of strings and bass and synth sounds.

And that didn't do any harm.

On the first tour, what did you have to do in the audition itself was.

It was like a particular.

Played our friends electric and cards, basically.

Wow.

Yeah.

Nice.

And then when I could.

When they discovered I could play violin as well, because Chris was playing viola on tracks, that was a bonus.

Yeah.

So what were your first gigs with the band and who else was there at that time?

The very first thing I ever did with them was a tv show in Holland called.

Was it top hop?

I don't know.

I can't remember.

But that was my first experience with them.

And we did electric because Europe was a bit behind as Tuba army, and it was a weird gig.

We did the tv show and then the record company took us out to a restaurant afterwards, and they had three different cars, and we all came back in different cars.

He had the estate version of it.

And we were bombing down the road and he drove straight into a parked car and he said, get out and run, because there, if you have an accident, especially in drinking, it's a mandatory week in jail.

And so we jumped out the car, still slightly dazed.

And for some reason, at the restaurant, I decided to steal a plastic lobster that they had on seafood display.

I was running down the road with a plastic lobster and turned on.

That was that.

Washington, my first gig turned up back at the hotel with a.

Out of breath with a plastic lobster.

And we started collecting them after that.

We had quite the collection from around the world.

Yeah.

That's quite the first induction into live performance.

This is what it's like.

Yeah, yeah.

So as someone who wasn't, unfortunately, around in, like, 79, and I've obviously seen all the videos of the touring principal and always very envious of other fans I speak to, but what was that whole experience like?

Because it just looked like an incredible set.

Brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant.

I loved the minute of it.

It was a really good bunch of people to work with.

Probably literally the best team I've ever worked with.

It was fantastic.

I really enjoyed it.

Were there any particular, say, highlights from that tour that you remember, like, any venues or moments?

Hold on.

I mean, because we didn't know what to expect.

And it was packed solid.

Ten foot high stage, and the floor was shaking with everybody cheering and stamping.

And there were people trying to get up onto the stage, standing on each other's shoulders.

And the dry ice is rolling off the front of the stage and suffocating.

And when we came out, the bus was parked about 20ft away.

We were getting our clothes ripped off, which I thought was very hard.

We only just made it there alive.

Yeah.

Plans running down the street and banging on the bus.

Oh, this is brilliant.

Yes, this is what it should be like.

Well, I was gonna say, like, yeah.

Gary's fame and success in 79, 80, you know, it was so immense and quick.

Like, what was that period like for you and the band?

Obviously, he had the brunt of all the focus, but what was it like for you as well?

Well, it was great.

We were non stop.

If we weren't recording, we were touring and so we always had stuff to do.

There was.

Gary obviously had to do loads of interviews.

We had the easy bit, really.

We just pitched up for soundcheck and then did the gig.

We did a lot of.

We rehearsed probably twice as long as most bands do and it was really worthwhile because once you know it that well, nothing could go wrong.

It was a really good system.

And then also, obviously, particular things like going to America and doing Saturday Night Live.

I mean, that must have been an amazing experience.

That was a hell of an experience because it's absolutely, literally totally live.

Everything you hear is being played live and you know that when you've got the camera, load of cameras and when the one in front of you, when the red light comes on, you've got 45 million people looking at you, you just know that a couple of them are going, he looks stupid.

So you think, oh, my God.

I was very nervous.

My teeth were itchy.

But it was a really good experience.

I absolutely loved it.

Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from England, Gary Newmande.

There in my car, I was safest of all, I can lock on my doors and it's the only way to live in cars.

And so was, um.

Yeah, I think I'm right saying that telecom was the first album you were involved with in terms of the making.

All the way through.

Yes.

And so how did that process with Gary and the band work back then?

Was it what was, like, the recording and writing process, like, and how much input did you guys get to have?

Well, it varied on track to track.

Generally, Gary would come in and put down like a Moog bass line, which would tell us what the chords changes were going to be.

And we'd get.

And then we get the structure down like that, and then we'd get the drums down first and then slowly work different bits in and each song was slightly different.

There's a couple of songs where you say, play a guitar solo all the way through, and I'll pick out some little bits of melody that we can use for the vocals.

And other times he came in with a pretty much totally finished song.

Another time he'd say, oh, can you do a funky, sort of Niles type rhythm bit on this?

And so it was guided, but we had enough influence to make it satisfying.

Senator gods.

We'Re on you faces.

Oh, I'm so sorry, but my reasons are wrong.

My reasons are wrong.

And I must have been.

That whole period is obviously quite shocking.

When he announced that he was retiring.

Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise.

Yeah, yeah.

That must come from nowhere at the time.

Well, it was a bittersweet thing at the gig because the Wembley gigs obviously were incredible and that's a hell of an experience, but it was with a bit of sadness, thinking, oh, this is like.

This is it.

And at the end of it, we sort of looked at each other.

What are we going to do now?

Yeah, that's how dramatis came about, really.

We all get on well.

We work well together, so why don't we stay together and do our own album?

And how quick was that decision for you guys, then, when you decided to go, let's try it that week?

Yeah, yeah.

We had a bit of a cool off and it was like, right, let's get together and see what we can do.

And did Paul ever think about joining was for him?

We asked him if he wanted to join, but he was doing his own recordings at the moment, at that time, and he didn't want to be part of it, really, because, as I say, he had his own projects going.

Yeah.

And then I relistened to the album a couple of weeks ago and I just.

I love the difference in the tracks, but also I like the quirkiness of the fact that the band shared lead vocals on the albums.

How did that decision come about?

Yeah, it wasn't a decision, really organically, basically.

It's like, for example, like, Chris sang on turn because he'd written most of it.

And so we recorded.

We always recorded the backing tracks first and then thought about vocals at the very end.

And quite often that usually we recorded them in too high a key for me to sing, but with Chris, we said, what does it go like?

So he sang them, his version of the song.

We said, well, you record it.

There's no point me learning it.

You know it already.

So you're going to do it.

And so it was basically mainly Dennis and I doing the lead vocals, but it was just like, whoever had the most input on the song did the vocals.

And then Gary came along, and he came along to Ridge Farm Studios, where we were recording.

I was just about to do the vocals on love mes no disguise, and he said, oh, I really like that.

Can I sing that one?

Yeah, sure.

Save me.

Saved me a lot of effort.

And, of course, it came out really well.

Did a lot better than I could.

I mean, it's.

It's one of my personal favorite songs that Gary's ever sung on.

It's.

It's such a great song.

What was the.

I just wondered what, like, the meaning of the song in terms of inspiration and the lyrics.

I wrote the lyrics.

I wrote most of the lyrics on the album, but, yeah, no, it was about our time touring with Gary.

We tour the skies and the friends all go home love these disguise.

It was literally about that, which is kind of ironic, because he ended up singing a song that was written as a tribute to him.

Yeah.

She'll say.

Under the cross gates are closed remember we found the skies.

And how did you feel about the album as a whole?

Was there ever plans to do another one?

A second one?

No, absolutely.

Definitely.

But Chris moved to France and we didn't because, well, as we were doing it, let's get this straight.

We were doing a tv show with David Essex, I think Newcastle or match?

Probably Newcastle.

And after the show, there was a phone rang backstage, and stage manager got it and called me to the phone, and it was beryl lining up, and she said, gary wants to go back touring again.

Would you be interested in joining?

And so we.

I said, well, I have to get back to you.

We'll talk about it and I'll get back.

But we said, yeah, it's nice touring, big stadiums and America and Japan and Australia, isn't it?

Yeah.

So we decided.

We never know if it was the right decision, but it was a good decision at the time.

So we rejoined, as it were, put the dramatist thing on hold, and we were.

We were.

We did a.

Did one tour, and we were gonna get back together again, as you know, sadly said died just the week that we got together, the three of us, to start the whole thing again.

And then I'd written a few songs before the next album, and I'd done some work with Chris in France, but he was busy with other projects, and so was I, because I had a jingle company and I was doing comedy writing and go to writing comedy books and doing scripts for BBC, ITV and Channel Four.

So we were both really busy.

The songs were all written for the second album and most of the backing tracks are recorded.

Just got some vocals to finish off and it's just getting time to actually sit down and mix them and produce them.

Because my engineer producer lives in Leicester, it's not quite convenient.

And we work on Zoom, but it's never the same because he's got different plugins to me and vice versa.

And I spend half the year in Barbados now and I've got a studio here in Cornwall and same.

I've copied it in Barbados, but it's still not the same as being in the room with somebody.

So is Chris involved in your new works or is it mainly yourself at.

The moment, because he's literally so busy.

Yeah, but I.

Hopefully he will be.

I want to get him.

But when I did, and we had a dramatist who are booked, but he double booked and couldn't do it, so I ended up doing on my own, just a couple of gigs, I think, a couple of years ago, and then did three last year.

That was three last year.

But, no, I'd love to get back together again.

We really like working with each other.

It's just a question of logistics and time.

Yeah.

When I spoke to Chris, he mentioned how you met up with Cedric and how it just felt really natural and great as a thing.

It must have been such a shock to lose him.

It was a closer still, not over it.

Yeah.

Well, what I like about dramatis is the fact that you never technically broke up, but you joined back, obviously, with.

It's just been a slight 28 2nd album.

It might be a world record, actually.

Yeah.

And then obviously, you remain part of Gary's live band for the rest of the decade and played on his albums, I think.

Was it Outland was the last one?

Last one I played on, I think.

Yes.

So what was that whole period like for you?

Because I know it's obviously a tough time for Gary in terms of chart success and recognition, but I still think he was really making great music throughout that whole time, even if he might not.

He might not rate it himself very highly, but, yeah.

What was that whole period like for you?

Well, it was, yeah, I always look forward to working with him and go in every now and then and do some recording with him, but it's a bit sad then, but with him, I was so busy with other projects, especially comedy writing, and doing my jingle company, which was busy just doing advertising music.

So we sort of drifted out of live gigs and did that, basically.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that was.

I love seeing the video again of you doing lovely guys with Gary.

That was awesome.

That was fun.

Yeah, we did a couple of other little guest spots here and there.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, every time I see Gary, it's like, well, I saw him the day before, just pick up exactly where we left off immediately.

There's no.

There's no awkwardness at all.

It's literally like, oh, back again.

I mean, that was an amazing moment.

So it must have been awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

Although my fold back, I couldn't hear a note I was playing.

No fact.

The problem was I couldn't hear a note anyone else was playing because I didn't have an amp and I just had, like, an effects unit in my headphones.

All I could hear was me, so I had to take one headphone out so I could hear the drums and the rhythm, and that was a bit chaotic.

It was nice to be there.

Chris Pine.

And I just wondered what was the inspiration behind that?

As I think he said, it was your first solo ep.

That was.

Yeah, no, I just had a bunch of songs and I picked a few and I thought it's silly not to, because Bandcamp was so easy to use.

I just thought, oh, I'd stick it on Bandcamp.

It was just something to do, really.

And I'm quite pleased with the ep.

I try to be so not like me.

I try to be like a human.

Torment of angels.

That was when I was talking to Chris about getting back together again, so I thought, oh, I better write a single for that.

So I just.

Not glad I put that out as well as dramatis.

And they've got some good songs now.

I've at least enough for.

Torment of angels black wings will in the million skies my harmony for a face after Godson.

Nothing can tear you apart like a torment of ages.

Is there, like, a particular timeframe of when you'd like to or what you'd like to do with that?

Yeah, ideally, I'd like to have them ready by two years ago.

That's not practical.

It's just that anything that I'm a night finishing things and I need to get into a studio for a period of time with an engineer.

So I finally polish them off and get them out.

Look awesome.

I look forward to hearing that.

Well, outside your work with Newman and Jamatis, you've obviously mentioned it briefly, but you've had a prolific career with tv and film and elsewhere.

For those who don't, might not know, would it be possible to give, like a little potted history of your career?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, after Gary, I started a jingle company called one hand clapping.

The first ad I did was for Toyota Celica in the eighties.

I think I got the New York advertising award for best use of the original music for it.

And I've got lots of other work things like shoe deodorants, clock shoes and all the glamorous things.

Of course, I did hundreds of them.

And then I was musical director at BSBD for a while.

I'm working on the Keith Allen project and I wrote stand up comedy for him and scripts, sketches, and then I was.

I was on Kiss FM morning show with Greg Charles for six months, co hosting that, and I wrote a couple of books with him.

It was nonstop.

I've always got more to do than I've done, which is.

I love the Craig Charles connection as well.

I think, obviously, my favorite artist is Gary and my favorite tv show ever is Red Dwarf, so I just love that.

There's an amazing.

Yeah, exactly.

He's a big Gary fan as well, isn't he?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

He's been appeared on his show a few times, so we've got just a couple of questions from listeners as well.

So, firstly, from Adrian Tudor, did you ever get frustrated not playing guitar on songs that were basically written for keyboards?

Yes and no.

Yeah, because I love playing guitar, obviously, but I was more chuffed that I could play the instruments that were needed and that was quite handy.

I kind of liked playing violin and on stage and the keyboards was fairly easy, so that was good.

But, yeah, sometimes I wasn't playing anything at all.

And I got sequestered into percussion a few times and I kind of liked playing the sign airs.

When I first got them, I hated them with a vengeance and I still hit them.

So I thought, if I hit them hard enough, I'll break them so I won't have to play them anymore.

But then I just worked out a way to enjoy it and just smashed the shit out of them.

And I had a guero in one song, which was different.

But no, I didn't mind.

I knew there's going to be a lot of tracks without guitar, so, no, it didn't bother me.

And then from Ariel Melton, she asked, I read you had a combined degree in physics and psychology.

You could have chosen many careers.

How come did you get to choose music?

Obviously, you mentioned that briefly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, the guys that taught me physics, I was never going to be as good as them.

Didn't really want to be them.

But music is such fun.

It's the best job in the world.

If you can make a living at recording and touring, I highly recommend it.

Absolutely.

And then Beavedrinkler asks, during your tenure, what was your favourite tour and least favorite tour and why?

That's a hard one.

I like the warriors tour because I thought the image was great and there was quite good stuff in it.

The first tour was kind.

I always feel that was the best because we didn't know what to expect.

And the Wembley gigs were amazing, apart from the sadness involved with it ending.

And there was never a worse tour that I can't think of any tour I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

So that doesn't exist.

That's good.

Well, for me, I was going to ask, was there particular songs that you just enjoyed playing the most?

Was there ones that you were like, oh, this is.

I die, you die.

No, we have glass.

Me.

I disconnect from you all the.

The old.

As a guitarist.

Yeah, yeah, I like those.

Awesome.

Well, that is all my questions, though.

Russell, thanks so much for your time today.

It's been amazing.

I could talk to you for hours, but it's so good to hear from you and just so finally, then, what are you up to now and what can we look forward to next, aside from Dramatis as well?

Well, I'm concentrating completely on the dramatists album at the moment, so that will be the next thing that comes out.

And hopefully I'm looking at record deals because I probably won't do it on Bandcamp.

I'm going to talk to Jerry Red, see if they're interested and any other companies out there I'll consider, but hopefully in the next year it should be out perfect.

Well, I know that everyone is going to be very excited to hear that.

When it does, I hope they like it.

I'm sure they will.

Well, thanks so much for your time, Russell, and thanks for appearing on electric friends.

Okay.

Cheers, mate.

Cheers.

Russell Bell there.

Thanks so much to Russell for appearing on the podcast.

I look forward to whatever he does.

Next, whether it's solo, Jamatis or otherwise.

So thanks for listening to electric friends, as ever.

If there's anyone in particular you'd love to appear on the show, perhaps you even have an in to help me get in contact with them, or to just say hello, or share with me or Newman fans stories for me to share in future episodes, please get in touch.

I'm on newmanpodcastmail.com.

or you can find me on socials, Hewman podcast on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok.

Plus, you can listen to past episodes and watch the video versions of my interviews on YouTube.

And please give the podcast a rating and review when you can.

It makes a huge difference.

And of course, share with your fellow humanoids for now.

Have a good one, and I'll speak to you soon.

Electric Friends a Gary Newman podcast racing.

The tracks by a musical pioneer pioneer.