Voodoo Johnson casting their spell

Jimmy Page, Brian May, Bruce Dickinson . . . when rock legends of that stature are sitting up and taking notice of you, you know you must be on to something special.

Such is the case with Midlands/Shropshire-based five-piece Voodoo Johnson who have been making a name for themselves on the Birmingham music scene and beyond with their noughties-infused take on the classic rock giants of the past.

Voodoo Johnson trace their roots back to a previous band, Polarian, fronted by Welshpool-based lead guitarist Carl Gethin, who won Total Guitar's Riffathon competition in 2005 judged by none other than Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Queen's Brian May.

That encounter eventually led to a shake-up which saw a new name, Voodoo Johnson, and a new singer Kev Bayliss enlisted. He and Gethin working on the songs which would make up the bands 'II' EP and which led to them being played by Bruce Dickinson on his BBC Radio 6 Rock Show.

The Iron Maiden singer's endorsement, "Fans of Aerosmith and Zeppelin really should these guys out", saw the buzz around the band increase, and that rose further with the release last year of a further five-track EP, Into The Red, and support slots and festival appearances with bands including Motorhead, Queensyrche, Terrorivision, Hawkwind and Duff McKagan's Loaded.

Although they are often likened to a "British Aerosmith or Guns 'n' Roses", singer Bayliss insists: "I don't think we're really trying to model ourselves on those. What comes naturally with Carl is he just loves the great riffs and obviously he's a great fan of Slash, but we love Audioslave, and Carl's a big fan of Monster Magnet and Queens Of The Stone Age.

"There's the Led Zep thing, a lot of people think we sound like them, I think we're influenced by them but we want to sound different," adds Bayliss, who hails from Tamworth, Staffordshire.

Voodoo Johnson are already enjoying a busy year, with a support slot with the reformed Gun in June being followed by an appearances at Guilfest this month and more gigs to look forward to including the Bulldog Bash, Cambridge Rock Festival and Hard Rock Hell II, a series of headline dates and then the recording of the band's first full album due to be released in 2010.

The band, completed by Carl's rhythm guitarist brother Paul, drummer Dave Barker, from Welshpool and bassist Rich Bellamy, from Telford, will be heading into a Cardiff recording studio in November with a

whole bunch of new songs they are currently working on.

Although he's a little coy about exact details behind their plans for the album, Bayliss says: "There's some stuff going on in the pipeline that we'll announce probably within the next month or so. But the main plan at the moment is to get this album recorded and it'll be released next year, hopefully. but there should be some really good songs on there.

"I think the stuff that we've done so far on 'II' was the stuff that Carl had pre-written, wheras now we know what we can produce and so we're writing for each other and keeping each other in mind a bit more now and so there's an organic process. Now we know our sound and which direction we're heading in and so it's going to be a great album."

Bayliss is the band's lyricist, responsible for songs including the spit-in-your-face anger of Bad Habit to Voodoo Johnson's biggest moment, Dirty Angel, a sprawling epic about temptation on the road during a motorbike trip to the States.

"I think I've got a couple of issues," he laughs when questioned about the stories behind those songs.

"A lot of the stuff I've written so far has been about relationships. Dirty Angel is actually a story which led to my divorce and I think Bad Habit is maybe about being with somebody you shouldn't have stuck around with."

The other skill that Bayliss brings to Voodoo Johnson stems from his previous job as a graphic designer for a video game company. The striking, maniacal voodoo figure that graces the band's artwork is Bayliss's design and one that he is showing ultimate faith in by having it painfully tattooed on one arm!

"I think you've got to have a few tattoos if you're in a rock band haven't you!" he says.

As he looks ahead to a hectic year on the road and in the recording studio, Bayliss says: "We're still developing and I think we seem to have moved quite a long way in a relatively short space of time and a lot of people think we're a lot bigger band than we actually are.

"We haven't got years and years of experience and confidence on stage. I don't got flying around on a trapeze or stuff like that and there's no pyrotechnics. We know we've got great songs and we know we can perform and we're getting really good reviews on the way that the EPs were put together and the way that we sound on stage.

"What we've got to look at now is chilling out when we do get on stage and just make sure that we really enjoy it and we don't look like something that's fake because we don't want to come across as something that's a constructed Guns 'n' Roses . . . we just want to be ourselves.

He insists: "I really, really want this. It's something I've wanted for a long time, while I was doing the graphics thing. It's all or nothing on this.

"There's a lot happening, we're very busy, but we're really enjoying it. We all get along so well, which is the main thing. I think I speak to Carl more than I do to my gilfriend at the moment!"

* Check out Voodoo Johnson at myspace.com/voodoojohnson

Words by Ian Harvey

Photographs by Samantha Knight - www.myspace.com/samography