Fritz McIntyre

It's a tight, clubby set, and further proof of the band's stage confidence. With Fritz using just the one piano, his crucial role becomes even clearer. But one has real fears for its safety. "I had a Yamaha KX88," he admits, "and I battered that up as well. It's at home, now. You press a key, and it doesn't come back up any more. It just lies there. The action's dead. I think I'm actually wearing me hands out at the same rate. It's hard to play that many gigs with that kind of dynamic style without putting that much physical effort into it. I don't think about it; it's just the same way as cello players get certain injuries from playing cello, and violinists get neck injuries. I've noticed a few niggling things, nothing major - but that's over a year of touring. If it's an up-tempo song, I try to put as much into it as possible."

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

"To be honest, I haven't found the right keyboard. I'm still looking for the right keyboard, but the Roland A80 is a good, sturdy keyboard. Particularly for someone who doesn't bang it as much as I do! I've had to replace it."

"My house is full of all me old keyboards. I never get rid of any of them, because they become so precious. The synthesis changes, you can't get hold of them and they become valuable antiques. And some of the sounds on them are great, that's what I keep them for. Every time I want to record something, I've got the sound. Even the DX7, with all the noise that it gives off, it's got some great sounds. And nowadays you don't even have to make up your own library, you can just send off for sounds."

"I also have a regular old Atari running C-Lab Notator version 3.1, which is very common, very useful. When I'm sequencing I basically just go into record, put down a complete idea, and then go through and clean it up, and build it from there. I'm not supposed to be intelligent enough to use a computer, but I look at it this way: if they can work for me, they can work for anybody. It's not that I can't understand how to access all the programs, it's whether I want to. If I go too far, then I lose the playing side of it, which is the feeling that comes naturally to me. If I became an engineer in my free time, and spent so much time doing it that I stopped playing, then obviously I will have changed my abilities, and eventually it would make it harder for me to play - something you've got to keep doing."

"Also the Oberheim Matrix 6. I have been getting my own collection together of modified analogue keyboards. They sound richer because of the dirt - that's what everybody's been learning. Not that I'm against digital sounds, I'm just aware that you need a bit of dirt. The real world's dirty..."

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"

Fritz's rack (from top): Furman PL8E amp Roland M240 24-channel keyboard mixer - TX816 x 8 channels; D550 L/R; Korg Wavestation A/D L/R; guitar L/R; Kurzweil L/R; Quadraverb returns L/R Marshall 9001 guitar pre-amp - "Fritz plays guitar for the first two numbers on the main stage" Samson UR4 UHF wireless receiver - "for the guitar" Alesis Quadraverb - "just for the keyboard monitor mixes, mainly to recreate things from the albums, like delays and choruses" Audio Architecture Function Junction Korg Wavestation A/D - "for a few string things and pianos" Yamaha MIDI rack Kurzweil 1200 Pro One expansion module - "the main piano box. I call it the Kurzweil Crapscreen. I'm not a great lover of manuals, and I was trying to find the contrast control for this screen, and I couldn't find it anywhere. You've got to lie down and look upwards at the screen. So I do most of the editing on a Mac (Powerbook 180), through SysEx" UPS power backup Yamaha TX816 - "for some of the older sounds from the first two albums"