Mike & The Mechanics have returned after a long break with a new album and with Andrew Roachford the voice of the new band.
Roachford is well-known to Australians. His songs ‘Only To Be With You’ and ‘Lay Your Love On Me’ are still daily staples of classic hits radio. In the US he may be known for the 1989 hit ‘Cuddly Toy’.
Mike Rutherford is comfortable putting Roachford’s past into Mike & The Mechanics present.
“We will drop in a number,” Andrew Roachford tells Noise11.com. “We are doing ‘Cuddly Toy’ in the show. It was a big hit for me here in the UK. It is a moment in the show. We’ve done ‘Only To Be With You’ as well”.
Rutherford semi-retired Mike & The Mechanics after former singer Paul Young suddenly died in 2000 from a sudden heart attack. “I thought it was an end of an era, which it was,” Mike Rutherford said. “We started back up about six years ago. Andrew came in and wrote some songs, then Tim Howar. That was about six years ago but we didn’t have any new material so we started on ‘Let Me Fly’ about two years ago. We added some co-writers like Clark Datchler. It was fun to do actually”.
Mike & The Mechanics have been around for 34 years. Genesis lasted 31 years yet the Mechanics are still referred to as Mike’s “side-project”.
Rutherford thinks the “side-project” tag is ridiculous. “I agree, because at the time I used to do Genesis and The Mechanics at the same time and it kind of worked. It’s now been a long time, over 30 years, and it’s a nice body of work. It’s nice coming back with this new line-up for the last five years. We’ve toured a lot but the new album has brought us together quite a bit”.
Mike & The Mechanics ‘Let Me Fly’ is out 7 April 2017 through BMG.
