This week we have our second member of the Downes Braide association, singer, songwriter and record producer Chris Braide. Braide’s writing credits are an extraordinary catalogue of some of the world’s most well-known, creative and successful artists. Braide has worked with Beyonce, Britney Spears, Lana Del Rey, Sia Marc Almond, Beth Ditto and many, many more. I have worked with Braide before on album covers for DBA but this was the first time we have had a proper chance to sit down and discuss ideas and creativity. I found it amazing the parallels between our two processes, both creative but one audio, one visual. I hope you take as much inspiration from this conversation as I did and enjoy it as much too.

http://christopherbraide.com/

It is difficult to sum up in an opening sentence the many and various projects and endeavours that have made up Henk’s extraordinary career. I first met Henk when we worked on a role playing game called The Black Onyx. I then then designed the logo for the game Tetris, which Henk secured the rights to distribute and which he produces to this day as managing director of The Tetris Company. Since his work in gaming Henk has set up the charity Blue Planet Foundation, which led to Hawaii, where he lives instating the first 100 percent renewable energy state law in 2015. He is Chairman of the Pacific International Space Centre for Exploration Systems (PISCES) which aims to develop an aerospace industry in Hawaii. His enthusiasm and positivity for the future of the planet is inspiring, I always enjoy our conversations about it and this was no exception. I hope you all enjoy it too.

https://blueplanetfoundation.org/board/henk-rogers/

I’m sure most of you here will very familiar with Stephen Fry, whether you are a fan of comedy, opera, classical myths, issues surrounding mental health or the English language Fry has written about or produced documentaries on all of these subjects. Many of you however will be most familiar with his incarnations as Lord Melchett in Blackadder or the eponymous Jeeves alongside Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster, Fry has also acted in films such as A Fish Called Wanda, The Hobbit film series and many, many more. His voice alone is familiar to many people as he narrated all of the Harry Potter books and between 2003 and 2015 he hosted the British television show QI. I could go on but there is simply too much, he is an extraordinary person whose mind seems to know no bounds and it was an absolute joy to hear it at work in our conversation. So please sit back and enjoy the incredible thinker and speaker, Stephen Fry.

https://www.stephenfry.com/

Thijs Van Leer is a musician, singer, songwriter, composer and producer with the most incredible capacity for making sound. If you haven’t heard hime play the flute, yodel or even whistle it is magical sound I urge you to look up as soon as you have the chance. Van Leer is one of the founding members of the rock group Focus, which began in 1969 and has worked with Ramses Shaffy as well as producing solo work. I worked with Thijs Van Leer and Focus, creating their album covers for Focus X, Focus II and the Family Focus Album. In 2008 Van Leer was made a Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thijs_van_Leer

Annie Haslam is an extraordinary vocalist, who trained as an opera singer. With a five octave range she went on to sing with progressive rock band Renaissance before going on to a solo career. She creates beautiful and extraordinary paintings, of which I am lucky enough to own two. Haslam is talented in so many ways, and wonderfully for us, one of those talents is telling outrageous and hilarious stories from her life. It is always an absolute pleasure to talk with Annie, even if it does kick off my asthma.

https://anniehaslam.com/annies-welcome-page/

Steve Howe has been a great friend of mine for many years and someone with which discussing the creative process has always been incredibly inspiring. He is a creative, musical genius and has performed with Yes since 1970. He is a musician, songwriter and producer and over his extraordinary career has worked with Lou Reed, Stone the Crows, was a member of Asia, formed GTR with Steve Hackett as well as creating his own solo albums The Steve Howe Album, Beginnings, Time, Turbulence and many more including ‘Portraits of Bob Dylan’, who he has said ‘brought out the rebel in me’. I have always enjoyed the creative exchange we’ve had when I have designed album covers for Steve and it was a joy to talk to him today. I hope you all enjoy this insight into an extraordinary creative mind.

https://stevehowe.com/

Sonja Kristina began her career as a singer and musician at just 14 and was soon chosen to perform the part of Crissy in the stage musical Hair, where she met the band Curved Air and became their lead singer in 1970. Sonja was at the centre of England’s music culture during the 70s and both embodied and helped shape the sound and emotional character of that time. I enjoyed inhabiting that world again in our conversation, that time felt like the world was changing and was full of possibilities. Kristina is an extraordinary person to talk to for her pioneering spirit, enjoyment of life and her honesty and openness. I could have talked to her for very much longer and hopefully we will have her back again but for now please enjoy my conversation with Sonja Kristina.

https://www.sonjakristina.com/

Geoff Downes is a songwriter, keyboardist and record producer who has worked with The Buggles, Trevor Horn as well as Yes and Asia and has been someone I have enjoyed working with enormously over the years. He is a master of his craft and talking to him about his creative process for this episode was fascinating for me. I am often amazed at the similarities and technical differences involved in creating music as opposed to visual art and Geoff is someone who can explain how he does his work beautifully. He is also someone I enjoy talking to for his openness to share ideas and meander through the creating mind with. As always it was a pleasure and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

https://geoffdownes.com/

I have known writer Mark Stevenson since we met at a launch party for his book ‘An Optimist’s Tour of the Future’. I was lucky enough to get to talk to him that evening and we discovered a mutual passion for the future and it’s possibilities as well as a shared love and involvement with Progressive Rock music. In his books Mark travels the world discussing with scientists, educators, engineers and thinkers about new discoveries, how we all have a better future to look forward to and what we can do to manifest it. This was a fantastically positive and joyful conversation to have, so I hope you all feel as uplifted and optimistic about the future as I did.

https://markstevenson.org/

Iain McCaig is an artist and concept designer who creates characters you are probably all familiar with. Perhaps his best known are Padme Amidala and Darth Maul as well as many other designs for the Star Wars franchise. McCaig has  worked on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Guardians of the Galaxy and much, much more. He is a passionate storyteller, which we discuss in the episode and makes for a wonderful guest in itself. We hope you enjoy this episode.

https://www.artstation.com/imccaig

Dave McKean is an extraordinary ‘creativo’ as he tells us, the Italians are better at describing these things. He is an illustrator, graphic designer, musician, filmmaker, photographer and comic book artist. He’s created the artwork for books by Neil Gaiman, Heston Blumenthal, Richard Dawkins and Stephen King among others. His films, including Mirror Mask and Luna bring together the beautiful artwork and magical storytelling that characterise his work. He is also simply a lovely and interesting person to talk to. We hope you enjoy listening to our recording as much as we did making it.

https://www.davemckean.com/

Steve Hackett is a singer, songwriter, musician and producer who began his incredible career as the lead guitarist for genesis. He began his solo career in 1975 with the album ‘Voyage of the Acolyte’ and went on to form GTR with Steve Howe, which was when Hackett and I first began working together. We often have conversations about the creative process and I have always felt an affinity with his way of creating art and stories through his music so I felt that for our first episode of the podcast we would be able to hit the ground running. As predicted I could have continued talking to Steve much longer and hope to have him back but for now, I hope you enjoy our discussion as much as I did and welcome to the podcast.

http://www.hackettsongs.com/