“Robert Fripp listened to us in the bath, so we asked him to play”: Dave Bainbridge on Iona

In 2011 Celtic proggers Iona released seventh album Another Realm , which turned out to be their last LP to date. That year co-founder, guitarist and keyboardist Dave Bainbridge – who’d later work with Strawbs , Lifesigns and Circuline , and recently began revisiting Iona’s music – offered a lightning-fast roundup of his prog world.

Iona have kept a low profile over the last couple of years. What’s been going on?

In 2008 we had a year off from doing any gigs, and for various reasons we were considering whether the band should carry on. Our singer, Joanne Hogg, had had two children and so she was very involved with being a mother; and before that she’d had quite a serious operation on her spine and neck. It was touch and go as to whether that would affect her voice.

Thankfully that all worked out fine. But all these things make you question what it is you’re supposed to be doing. In 2009 she was back in full flow again writing all these amazing songs. So we both felt that as there was definitely a new album there, we should continue. It’s been great since then.

This is the first album you’ve done without uillean pipes player, Troy Donockley , who’d been with the band almost from the very beginning. What caused the split?

Troy was getting really busy with all of his other projects, including producing for Barbara Dickson, and his involvement with Nightwish was taking up huge amounts of his time. So we were finding it quite difficult to find spaces where we could actually do gigs and all be available. It wasn’t a shock, really. I suppose it had been developing since The Circling Hour (2006), where we’d felt maybe we didn’t share the same vision in a spiritual sense.

Do you think the Christian beliefs underpinning the band’s music have hindered your career or erected barriers to those who don’t share your viewpoint?

We’re sometimes described as a Christian band – although we try not to describe ourselves that way, because as far as we’re concerned we’re just a band who happen to be Christians.

There’s a difference between religion and what Jesus came for. Religion tends to require things of people and impose rules and regulations, and Jesus was against all that. The people he was most angry with were all the religious authorities doing that kind of thing. If anything, our lyrics are about being hindered by religiosity and the need to escape from it.

Over the years we’ve had loads of people from all beliefs and no beliefs come to see us. It’s a really diverse audience. It’s not like we go to a gig to preach – we go to a gig to have a great time. If people connect with that, great; but it’s not a problem if they don’t.

A lot of the lyrics are about waging battles, and there’s the sword-wielding figure on horseback charging forth on the album cover. Who is Iona at war with?

We’re not at war with anyone – honest! The cover obviously connects with the theme of the album and a track called White Horse . The battle being referred to is in the spiritual realm; that there might be forces beyond just what you can see in the day to day world that have an influence on what happens. So the battle is more metaphorical than actually physical.

Some of the photos we took for Another Realm are just amazing. Obviously you can’t do something on the scale of the old gatefold vinyl sleeves any more, but within the constraints of CD packaging we wanted something that was quite impressive.

How has technological change impacted on Iona?

The royalties from CD sales used to make up a huge amount of income for a band like us. That’s just almost completely disappeared. If you let it, I’m sure it could get you down a lot – but I don’t. For me, music is more than a commercial enterprise; it’s something that I’m compelled to do, and to get the music out there. One way or another it’ll happen.

From that point of view, gigging is much more important than it used to be because that’s where we sell most CDs. We’re also getting new audiences, the next generation down. Because there’s so much easy access to all these different kinds of music, younger generations are discovering all these diverse forms of music.

You released your solo album, Veil Of Gossamer , in 2004. Is there anything new in the pipeline?

Yes – and it’s definitely got more progressive rock influences. I guested on Soulful Terrain’s last album, Astoria , and also on the new one, which gave me a chance to do some Hammond organ and Minimoog solos – the kind of things I used to love doing before Iona. A bit of a guilty pleasure, really.

Jon Lord is one of my heroes, as is David Sancious , who had that trademark Minimoog sound. I’m going to incorporate some of those things into my solo material – but hopefully not in a way that sounds too retro.

Robert Fripp played on two early Iona albums. How did that come about?

Nick Beggs used to be in the band and he knew Fripp’s wife, Toyah Willcox . We found out that Robert often listened to Iona’s music while he was soaking in the bath! So we asked him to play, and he said yes. We gave him the keys of some of the tracks and he then just improvised for about two hours. It worked brilliantly.