**IT'S ROCK N ROLL BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN PERSAD by George O'Donnell**
Dan met Leo at a London college in the nineties and the pair clicked instantly through their mutual love of guitar. According to Dan, “I’d been a guitarist, in and out of bands for a while before that, so we used to spend entire evenings just jamming to a bit of Floyd or Stone Roses. Leo soon formed a band with me and we regularly playing our own material on the local circuit around New Cross and Deptford".
Butler went on to become a highly acclaimed playwright for the Royal Court theatre, the Almeida and the National Theatre, winning awards for his work such as ‘Made of Stone’, 'I'll Be The Devil' and ‘Boy'. But whilst Leo was on the up, Dan had a harrowing setback and went through a tough period; “I had a stroke and had to quit music, and other less interesting stuff for a while,” he reflects. However Persad was not perturbed and after recovering was keen to get back into producing and performing.
The offer from Leo to write a rock opera together for the Royal Court Theatre in 2011 was just the project he had been waiting for. The pair wrote and composed ‘Alison’ together in just two months. Dan says that the clash in writing styles between the pair actually helped the writing process; “It’s always been quite interesting to me that me and Leo have pretty different writing styles, it always marries up into something unique and wonderful. I’m from the Hendrix/Clapton school of axe-men where he’s one of your more Waters/Barrett kind of songwriters, and trust me, it works!”
The first two ‘pilot’ shows at the Royal Court a great success, as Dan confidently exclaims; “The entire audience were properly up for some serious rock’n’roll, which is indeed what they got! We proceeded to put on the most kick-ass spectacle the Royal Court has experienced since they first staged the ‘Rocky Horror’ back in ’73!”
The show itself certainly isn’t ‘Mamma Mia’; it is the tale of a girl called Alison’s meltdown after a break up and is raw, intelligent and brutally honest storytelling.
For gig audiences, the show is unconventional as the hour and a half set of live tunes tells a story, and uses actors, props and staging even in the smallest of venues.
For theatre-goers, the show is unconventional in the sense that there is a play with an onstage four-piece band, and the music is a fantastic blend of different genres that showcase Leo & Dan's incredible talent.
Dan’s brothers Joseph and Nathan Persad play the bass and drums respectively in the band, and it is that fusion of storytelling and music that drive the creative process.
“The whole point" *says Dan, *"was to incorporate a live band performing on stage as a story unfolds, so the band were at all times involved in the drama. Live music was always to play an integral role in the storytelling".
Following the Royal Court premiere, Dan and Leo then rewrote and extended 'Alison!' and took it to the nationally renowned King's Head Theatre in Islington where it played throughout September 2012 to great acclaim.
*"Gig of the week: my well-known weakness for sensation was gratified yesterday when I went to see playwright Leo Butler and musician Dan Persad's rock opera, Alison!, performed late night at the King's Head in Islington. This is an impassioned and exciting story about a young woman on the skids. Yes, breaking up is hard to do. It's loud, it's thrashy and the lyrics and storytelling are first class. it's good to feel the throb of live rock music during a theatre show. And the cast was great: Clare Cathcart, Roger Evans, Rhydian Persad and Lucy Edge. Oh glory. Please guys, keep this show alive." * ALEKS SIERZ, theatre critic & author of 'In Yer Face Theatre' and 'Rewriting the Nation".
In the Summer of 2013, Dan & Leo & the Band recorded the studio album of ALISON! A ROCK OPERA.
And in April 2014, ALISON! sold out London's Spread Eagle Theatre for a weekly run of shows . Then, in January 2017, Dan & Leo released their second album "THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS OF THE 21ST CENTURY". Of the album, Dan explains *"It's been a labour of love for the last three years.
It's very different to Alison! - a lot darker, more political -, but it's probably the best thing we've done so far". *
There is also the new EP Talk to the Trees, featuring some very lively dance and rock tunes, and a third album in the works, alongside a revival of ALISON!, and a brand new rock opera for 2018.
(C) George O'Donnell, 2017.
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