EXPLORING THE DELTA – A CONVERSATION WITH JAMES ROBERTS

DELTA arrived at a weird juncture in rock history, just when the sheen was coming off the Seattle sound and the spotlight fell firmly back to the UK with the all-embracing Brit Pop. The quintet, hailing from Mosley, sounded more like than they had sprung from Laurel Canyon 20 years earlier. Listening to tracks like ‘Cowboy Raga’ and ‘Make It Right’, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were Californian rockers, not five young lads from the Midlands. They wrote fabulous songs, but somehow, they got lost in all the hoo-ha. A tragedy as they surely could have become one of the great British contenders. By the time their classic early singles began to emerge in the late 90s, they’d already suffered the first in a series of record label setbacks which, whichever way you look at it, did stymie their development. They carried on regardless and at the start of the millennium changed direction pursuing a far more poppier, lusher sound. All Delta records are worth a listen but the two fabulous compilation albums, they left behind them, are especially worthy of your attention, Laughing Mostly and Singularity. If you like guitar bands with a West Coast flavour, you can’t go wrong with them. The playing, the singing, the song writing are all as good as it gets.

I hadn’t played Delta for decades but last summer fellow fan, Colin Hill reminded me how good they were, and I embarked on a voyage of re-discovery to reappraise their records and get to the bottom of their story.

Thanks to Vinita Joshi and Guy Sirman, the Terrascope tracked down James Roberts, the genius behind the band, and he was happy to answer our questions.

NC: Please tell us a bit about your background. Are you and your brother, Patrick from a musical family? What got you started in playing?

James Roberts: Not really from a musical family as such.  We had an Irish dad and so I guess we got brought up with that culture of there being lots of singing at family dos and things like that.  We have an older sister and she probably had quite an influence as she’d have records that were coming out in the late 70’s from the whole punk/post punk scene plus older stuff like Joni, Van and of course the Beatles.  I’d have only been about 9 or 10 maybe but I’d play her stuff and I’m sure it definitely would have played a part in shaping what I liked.  Then when I started secondary school, I met up with Robert (Cooksey) and Simon (Woodcock) pretty much straight away who would later be in the Sea Urchins.  We bonded over similar tastes in music and started learning guitar and playing together so were kind of a band from age 11 onwards really.

NC: As I mentioned I don’t want to dig into the Sea Urchins story but I understand that you got fed up with the ‘mod’ scene and being pigeon-holed as a C86 band? Is that right?

JR: I think the main catalyst for stopping the Sea Urchins was really Simon deciding he didn’t want to do it anymore.  Given myself, Robert and Simon had been playing together since we were kids, I think it felt like it just wasn’t “that band” anymore without the three of us as part of it.  There probably was also an element of shaking off what we felt at the time were the shackles of the Sea Urchins and whatever baggage that carried.  It just felt right to stop and re-group, literally. 

NC: So, Delta was a real effort to move away and play something totally different?

JR: I think musically we were moving that way anyway in the last period of the Sea Urchins.  There’s a Sea Urchin demo we did with 5 or 6 songs that was the last thing we recorded and though I’ve not heard that for a very long time I’m sure it did kind of sound like us morphing into what would become Delta.  I guess most bands evolve and change over time and that would have happened had we not turned into Delta but I suppose the name change did put a bit of a conscious full stop on what had happened before.

NC: Can I ask what made you decide on the name?

JR: We actually took the name from a Crosby, Stills and Nash song, a Dave Crosby composition.  It’s one of their later efforts, from the 80’s maybe I think and though production wise it’s of its time and maybe doesn’t have that classic vibe of their famous earlier stuff there is a beautiful song underneath there.  Plus, we just loved Crosby’s voice, such a pretty singer.   

NC: Was the early line up with you Patrick and Robert a conscious effort to play an American West Coast guitar style rock? Guy told me you covered songs like ‘Down by the River’ and ‘So you Want to be a Rock and Roll Star’ early on?

JR: Yeah, we were definitely quite heavily into a lot of that West Coast stuff around that time, Love, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds.  I’m not sure there was ever a “let’s sound like that” moment but you can certainly hear its influence coming though, especially in the early Delta period.  We certainly did cover ‘Down by the River’ sometimes at gigs, it was a good tune to jam out and mess around on and I think we used to maybe use it for the occasional encore.

NC: And Patrick moved from drums to (mainly acoustic) guitar?

JR: He did.  Patrick really started finding his own feet in terms of song-writing around the time Delta started and he wanted to express that which was great.  He really didn’t however fancy doing that sat behind a drum kit, think he thought it might all be a bit Ringo, Act Naturally!!  So, he insisted he wanted to get off the drums so he could do his tunes.  It took us quite a while to court Bird, who became the drummer, as he was in another band at the time but we finally tempted him.

NC: Can you tell us a bit about the influences at work here?

JR: It was a real mixed bag.  I mention earlier the whole West Coast thing which we did lean into a bit in the early days but there was old garage/pysch stuff, country rock, punk, Burt Bacharach, ELO and stuff like Nirvana that was hitting around that time.

NC: Have to admit I am a sucker for the sound you got as I am a guitar nut!!

JR: Thank you!  I guess a lot of that is down to Robert during the early Delta stuff and him clanging his SG through his Vox amp.

NC: Wasn’t Silvertone interested in signing you alongside Sonic Boom and Whiteout?

JR: I think there was some interest from Silvertone although I think that was maybe around the late Sea Urchin time.  My memory is sketchy but I have in mind that they somehow got Simon’s home phone number and called him at some point.  I can’t recall how it played out other than we didn’t sign for them.

NC: Tell us briefly about the Che 10”: This was the Delta debut waxing? Am I right in thinking most of the songs ended later on the ‘Singularity’ comp done for the US market?

JR: The first Delta release was 'Sugared Up' which was a 10” single that came out on Che.  There was then much later the Singularity compilation album on Elephant Stone records which had most of the subsequent Delta singles on it.

NC: I know you have had bad luck with record labels. Without straying into libelous territory can you tell us about the deal with Acid Jazz/Focus?

JR: I’m still not actually sure what happened with Focus!  I think Focus was meant to be a bit of an “indie” offshoot to the main Acid Jazz label and we signed with them and they were a really good bunch of people that we were very fond of. The problem was it turned out they weren’t able to actually release anything which we came to realise later!!  We did record for them, some demo stuff and there was a single, “I’m getting Darker” that we made which never got a proper release though I think it did leak out as there were copies people got hold of.  I really don’t know what was behind the issues with the label releasing stuff but it dragged on and we felt stuck for that period.

NC: It must have been a very frustrating period for you – I can’t imagine. I heard AJ did a showcase with you at the Blue Note with Gabrielle that ended in a very chaotic drunken debacle?

JR: Yeah, that was a rubbish evening, best forgotten………..

NC: So how did those singles come out as I love all of them?

JR: We have Guy Sirman to thank mainly.  Other than that first single which Vinita at Che was kind enough to release, Guy put everything else out on his label. It was all as and when he could afford to stick us in a studio for a day or two but it gave us an outlet to get stuff out there.

NC: I think ‘All My Life’ was the first Delta 7”? Somebody told me I should buy it ‘cause it sounded like Moby Grape – wasn’t disappointed, it’s beautiful. And love the cover with the swallowtail butterfly.

JR: Yeah, it’s a pretty cover.  Our friend Jason did the artwork for it and lots of our other stuff too.  It’s a decent song too I think, one that I’m still fond of.  It was meant to be a love song to a person you’ve not yet met but you’re waiting for………..which sounds pretentious as hell now I write it down……..

NC: ‘Gun’, the next single is probably the most psychedelic thing you did – what was it like recording it – all the distortion/feedback/freak out stuff at the end is a killer!

JR: It was a fun one for me as that was something Patrick had written and sings so I could just focus on playing which I enjoyed.  I think, if my memory serves me well, it’s me banging out the main riff/hook with Robert then playing off that and doing his thing and, as you say, both wigging out a bit at the end.

NC: Really like ‘Make It Right’ the next one – the wah-wah guitar is terrific.

JR: Thank you.  I think we were probably channelling a bit of Neil Young when we recorded this one as it has that kind of feel about it and Robert did do a fab solo on it with the Wah guitar going on.  I like the way he leaves it hanging a bit at points, it works well.

NC: The CD version has one of arguably the best numbers from this phase of Delta, ‘Cowboy Raga’ – incredible energy. Twelve string guitars? Wow!

JR: I’m not sure if it is 12 string or not!!  Robert and I are both doing picky stuff through the song and I have a feeling it’s just those two guitars chiming against each other that’s maybe giving that kind of 12 string sound.  I could be wrong……

NC: Also, it’s one of the few songs which you co-wrote with your brother Patrick. Can you tell me a bit about your songwriting processes – thematically they seem at least lyrically different to those Patrick writes. Patricks are darker/stranger especially when we get to songs like ‘Cuckoo’ and ‘Elephant Man’.

JR: Patrick did have his own style and I think you can generally easily tell what’s a James or Patrick song even without the voice.  I guess he did have a tougher edge to a lot of his stuff than perhaps my songs had but then there are some real tender ones from him too.  We both tended to write stuff on our own pretty much to completion and then deliver it to the band as a full song.  There’s maybe one or two that came from the band just playing around and then turned into something but more often than not we’d both turn up at a rehearsal with something close to fully formed for the band to then work through.  Even the few that Patrick and I co-wrote would have been one of us getting so far on a song on our own, not being able to finish it and then handing it to the other to try complete.

NC: The Laughing Mostly compilation that eventually came out of outtakes, demo's singles seemed to redress the bad years with Acid Jazz? It got excellent reviews. I love it!

JR: I have mixed feelings about it really.  I do really like a lot of the songs on that record and because it was all demos it’s all pretty much live recordings, one take stuff which gives it a bit of an edge.  It’s just a shame at that time we weren’t in a position to actually record an album properly.  There’s enough in there to make me think a proper album release around that period would have been something worthwhile but, it stands up I think and shows where we were at in that time.

NC: And the title was another Crosby quote, right?

JR: Yeah, well spotted!   I nicked it from ‘What’s Happening’ which was a Croz Byrds tune.  Laughing Mostly is actually one of those final Urchin demo songs I mentioned, the only one to subsequently get resurrected, I think. 

NC: What happened next? Did you consciously decide to change the band sound? What happened to Robert?

JR: I don’t recall there ever being a conscious decision to alter the sound.  Robert did leave the band at that time and did his own thing musically.  I think him leaving probably had the effect of forcing the general sound to change to a point.  I guess Robert was what you’d think of as a proper lead guitar figure in the band up to then and so that brings a certain dominance of that coming through on the songs he’s playing on.  Once he left, I certainly wasn’t a like for like replacement as a guitarist, I just couldn’t play like that and had a different style.  I think that meant that those spaces in the songs that perhaps Robert would previously have filled became different, me doing my noodling picky guitar thing and Louis on keyboard.  Plus, as I said on one of the earlier questions, you do kinda just change a bit as you go as a band without really noticing it happening, it’s only afterwards if you look back you notice a bit of an arc that you went through.

NC: Tell us about Louis R Clark who joined the band on keyboards? I believe his dad was a key member of ELO? His joining created a huge change in how you sounded.

JR: Initially Louis just played on a few songs, he was kind of like our special guest keyboard player who featured on certain things.  Over time though he became a permanent fixture and that certainly altered the dynamic of how we sounded and gave us new options.  Louis was (is) a proper musician, not like the rest of us just meddling along as best we could.  Louis would write arrangements and orchestral parts and play different instruments and all of that stuff.  His dad, also Louis, was involved with ELO doing string arrangements and keyboards so our Louis was a real chip off the old block……

NC: 'Slippin’ Out' lent more towards the Beatles/Badfinger/Idle Race-Jeff Lynne poppier sound? It seems like a transitional album but it did really well, didn’t it? 9/10 in NME etc. How did you get involved with producer, Lenny Franchi?

JR: Slippin Out was a really good time, we really just had fun together making that record and I think that comes through.  I guess it was transitionary in so much as I mention earlier with Robert leaving, Louis featuring more etc.  We were really pleased with it, we’d finally got to record our first original album after so long and I think we did great job, it’s something we were proud of and it did seem to land well in terms of reviews.  Lenny got involved through Guy who knew him, a really lovely guy.

NC: And it did get you a deal with Mercury/Universal?

JR: I guess it must have helped with that, it wasn’t too long after Slippin Out that they approached us…..

NC: Again, it seems the label didn’t know what to do with you. Guy suggested they wanted the next Oasis!

JR: I’m not sure if they didn’t know what to do with us as such, they were just your usual big label and so obviously wanted something that they thought was going to sell so were probably always a bit keener on some of the songs than others.  I guess that’s always the way with those characters…… 

NC: But it did get you a day at Abbey Road Studios and a chance to work with a full orchestra which must have been a thrill?

JR: Oh yeah, a great day.  Every Beatle nut’s dream obviously.  We’d already got the album recorded so we just got to sit in Studio 2, having a few drinks listening to a 40 -piece orchestra playing over a few of our little tunes.  Crazy!!  For poor Louis it was a little more fraught however, he’d written all of the orchestration and so was there having to actually conduct this accomplished orchestra.  It’s fair to say he was more than a little nervous but he did great.

NC: Can you clarify what happened when ‘Hard Light’ was completed? Did Mercury actually release it because of course you got dropped and it eventually came out as another release on Guy’s Del l’Orso label?

JR: The record was finished, we were just gearing up for single and album releases and having conversations with them about all of that and then they pulled the plug.  What we heard was a change in management had happened somewhere in the label structure and they wanted a general change in direction for the label.  I don’t think it was just us, I think they had a bit of a clear out generally.  The silver lining on that particular cloud was at least they allowed Guy to put it out on his label rather than it all going in the bin. 

NC: The 10”, ‘This City is bigger than both of us’ again on Del l’Orso. was the final Delta release. Any comments? Did you play any final shows? Was it a conscious decision to end Delta? You had gone as far as you could?

JR: Yeah, that was a good song of Patrick’s and a decent note to end on, I guess.  There wasn’t an intentional final show that we put on for that reason and I’m not quite sure what the last gig actually happened to be.  It didn’t end with any bad feeling between those who were in the band at that time, I think we all just felt it had become a bit of a grind.  We just caught up over a few beers one evening and had a chat about it and agreed, yeah let’s pack it in.  I think probably most of us thought in the back of our minds we’d maybe drift back together after a bit of a break but we didn’t.  Still good friends and catch up every now and then.

NC: Very briefly about ‘Everything You Know is Right’: Richard O’Donovan at Universal gave Guy some money for you to record some solo songs which were then beefed up with orchestral arrangements by Louis and other instrumentation – sort of heading towards Scott Walker/Richard Ashcroft territory? Also, very John Lennon-ish vocals!! And it got 9/10 in NME!!

JR: I guess I had a bit of an itch to scratch once Delta had finished.  Partly whether I could do something decent without the support of the band and also wanting to try something a little different musically.  I went in to the studio and just got the basics of each song down with a few guitar and bass bits added on top and Louis came in and did a bit on a couple too.  I then gave it to Corin Dingley who Guy knew and just asked him to play with it without direction from me, I wanted that involvement from someone from a different musical background.  Corin layered over all of his stuff and it sounded interesting, it was still me but not band me which I think was what I wanted.

NC: What happened then? I understand that you very sensibly always kept your day job – well done! Do you still play/write? Does Patrick still play also?

JR: I just got on doing life really.  There wasn’t any decision to not do music stuff anymore and I still might if the urge takes me. I had a couple of kids and raised a family and time just moves on and before you know it, you’re 20 years down the line.  Neither Patrick or I are out there playing in bands or anything like that at the moment but the guitar is still leaning up the wall and music is still a big part of my life.

James Roberts was interviewed for us by NIGEL CROSS, with many thanks also to Vinita Joshi and Guy Sirman. Produced and directed by Phil McMullen, (c) Terrascope 2025