Joe Donnelly on Caezar and their debut album Time

The deeply emotive music of Caezar has led to critical acclaim for their debut album Time. Caezar brings together a powerful collaboration of two former members of Scottish band The Silencers, Joe Donnelly and JJ Gilmour. JJ and Joe enjoyed great success during their individual stints with The Silencers, having toured with music greats such as Simple Minds, David Bowie, U2 and The Pretenders. Their synergy comes despite never playing in The Silencers at the same time, united by a deep affection for their late friend Cha Burns, guitarist for The Silencers. 

You met JJ at a benefit concert for your late friend Cha Burns, how did Caezar grow out of this? 

Sadly Cha got ill. Even though The Silencers are still going in some form, nobody was really doing anything at the time. I got a call from an ex tour manager, and he told me that Cha was now very ill with cancer. Jinky (JJ), I knew a little bit, but he joined after I left the band so I didn’t know him that well. I went down to see Cha, and he told me that Jinky is planning to do a show to raise money for this alternative treatment that might cure him – of course it didn’t in the end. 

So, next thing Jinky got in touch about the benefit show to put all the people who played in the band back together to do a benefit show in Glasgow. Everybody bought into it, and everybody was in great form. So we came back and did the show, and the tickets sold out in a matter of hours. It was lovely, as you forget that a lot of people still liked the band, and there was a great deal of affection for the band. Everyone came back, and it was a great night. For a lot of us with grown up children, they’d never really seen us play in a band. So, family came, and particularly being in our home town, it was such a special night. 

There was a lot of emotion, and through that process of working with Jinky, we realised we got along really well. It wasn’t really until a year or two later, I said to him - look I think we could work together, we’re very different songwriters. I’m very left field and atmospheric and he’s more of a traditional singer-songwriter. I said to him - maybe we could meet in the middle, we could bring the atmosphere and things I do with your great voice. And it worked! It really worked. 

We started writing songs, but it really took meeting an old family friend of mine – Touraj – a big Silencers fan and music maniac like myself. I bumped into him in Windsor one day, and he said “are you still writing songs, can I hear them?”. He really liked them, and said they were thinking of starting a label within Vertere Acoustics, and asked if we’d be interested in being the first artist to release an album on the label. I said I’d be delighted, so it gave Jinky and I a target and a goal – it wasn’t just writing for the sake of it, so that really got us focused on getting songs finished. 

Touraj then introduced me to Miles Showell at Abbey Roads, and it really blossomed from there. That’s how it really came into being – quite organic and working with friends. 

Pictured: Joe and JJ, We are Caezar

Can you tell me why you chose the name Caezar? What do you hope to convey with your music?

There’s two reasons, first and foremost my Dad loved music, and there was a great singer Romano Caezar, and I remember listening to him when I was younger. The second reason is Jinky and I are both very big Glasgow celtic football club supporters. Celtic were the first British club to win the European Cup of the Champions league in 1967. Their captain, Billy McNeill, was such a big majestic man that they called him Caesar. Coming from Scotland, and with the divide between Celtic and Rangers, we changed it to a z because we wanted Rangers fans to come to the show! The main reason is because we’re great Celtic fans, and we tip our hat to the great Celtic team, and the great Celtic captain.

I understand that the music behind Time was inspired by your emotions following the loss of your friend Cha Burns, can you tell me more about this?

It was a very emotional write. The lyrics for Time were about all of us growing up in Glasgow as very working class boys. In our generation, we come out of the new wave punk thing that happened with Sex Pistols, The Clash etc. It gave us a bridge. I love David Bowie, Roxy Music, and we used to go and see David Bowie. We never dreamed of being up there and doing something one day – that was a million miles away. So punk music and the energy of punk music gave us a bridge, to step over that bridge and realise we can do this. So the song Time and album title, is about working class boys with dreams and ambitions. 

Getting back together at the show and chatting to the guys, there were a lot of great memories, and we wouldn’t change anything. It was all boiled up. Jinky worked on the lyrics, it was really based on all of us trying to achieve a  dream in Glasgow and a life in music which we all did to a certain degree, and still are, which is lovely!

Whilst it must have been a challenging time for you both, was writing and performing this music cathartic or helpful?

When performing at the benefit concert, we were all there for Cha. Being Scottish we’re quite an emotional people. When music is involved we are such a creative force. Music should make you feel different, especially when you’re doing it with a group of friends, and when you’re creating something from nothing. 

When we got back together again, we realised we did have something lovely. Bands fall in and out of love with each other, and we all did that, but cathartic is a good word – if there was any baggage everybody just left it at the door. It was all about being there for Cha, and hoping at that point that we could raise a lot of money in the evening. The main reason was to raise money to help him with his treatment, but sadly it never worked. Any funds raised went to his immediate family after he passed away. 

If it wasn’t for that show you and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking. It’s nice that way. Jinky and I joke when it’s going really well, we joke that maybe Cha is looking down on us and giving us a bit of inspiration and a G up. 

He’s never too far away, when we play guitar parts we say – that really reminds us of Cha. He was a great talented musician, and very creative. We were very lucky to share a stage with him. 

Did the emotions around Cha influence the songwriting for this album?

The Caezar project wouldn’t have happened without that evening. About Cha, it’s a bit of a legacy for him. 

Pictured: Mastering Guru, Miles Shell at Abby Roads Studio

Can you tell us about the recording process, and your experience working with the Mastering & Cutting Engineer Miles Showell of Abbey Roads Studios?

It’s a little story about the chance meeting with Touraj in Windsor that day. Now our kids have grown up we don’t see each other as much. Touraj rang me after and asked what I was doing Sunday, and asked if I fancied going to Abbey Roads. I said – who wouldn’t want to go! I’ve worked in a lot of studios but I’ve never been to Abbey Roads. He said he wanted me to meet someone – when we walked in Miles was working on an Amy Winehouse album Back to Black, remastering that. 

We started chatting, and Miles had all this vinyl stacked around the studio. He asked Touraj to pick out The Silencers’ vinyl Scottish Rain. Mastering engineers usually scratch their name in the middle on the vinyl. I’d never met Miles, and he asked Touraj to read out the name - it said Miles Showell. So he’d mastered a song I’d recorded thirty years ago and I never even knew. He’s worked with Pink Floyd and Beatles stuff, and Simple Minds. He said that this was one of his favourite songs ever - I was really humbled!

Miles said - I’ve heard the Caezar demos and I absolutely love it and I want to work on it. So I said “fill your boots”! Miles said they were good songs and that it would sound great. Miles is a lovely guy. These were just the demos, so we went up to Scotland and recorded it properly. We’re going up to Scotland to the outer hebrides to work on a second album.

Is there a reason for recording in Scotland, is it important to you?

Yes, we use a lot of musicians, a bank of stable musicians that we know and trust. They know what we’re doing, they get it. Covid, as for most people, slowed things up a bit, so it’s taken a bit longer. In some respects it’s a positive thing. We had most of the album written pre-covid, but the world shut down for a couple of years so it gave us time to revisit those songs and think “are these good enough?”. 

We’re proud of the first record, but we want to make a better one! We want to show we’re not a one trick pony. So we dismantled it and put it back together in different ways. We usually record just outside Scotland, but we felt that place was coming to an end, the setting wasn’t right. Jinky knew of someone who worked in a studio in the Outer Hebrides and we sent the album up, and he loves it. 

It’s a residential studio, and I think it’ll be good for Jinky and I to be kind of locked in. You’re at the end of the world, there’s no distractions you’ve got to get stuck into the work. We’re really looking forward to it, and we’ll take our thermals and our woolly hats! I like winter feeling albums.

I imagine the environment will be quite inspirational?

Yes, it’s incredible. It looks like the end of the earth, really beautiful. I’m really looking forward to it.

Do you find that your time with The Silencers influences your sound as Caezar? Have there been other significant influences or changes to your sound or musical expression such as the celtic influences?

There’s a touch of The Silencers in there, but that was a different time. I learned a lot in The Silencers from Jimmy, Cha and Martin. Martin and I were school friends as well. It was an apprenticeship – you’re learning. I’m really proud of it, it definitely had a sound, and I think Caezar have a really specific sound. I don’t know many people who get to play in two groups with their own specific sound, there’s a touch of The Silencers but I’d say we’re a bit more grown up, a bit more atmospheric. 

The latter part of The Silencers was starting to move that way, and I think we’ve just taken that on ten steps further. Sometimes I can hear the bands I liked such as early David Bowie and Pink Floyd. We have a specific sound – atmospheric. There’s a song in here that is quite “Celticy”, and if we’re going up to the highlands we might get a fiddle player to play on it. Jinky has written a lovely melody, and may change it from a piano to traditional Celtic violin. 

When we get in a room together things happen really quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if we get some new songs when we’re back up there. When we finish working in the evening, we’ll get the guitars out and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get a little gem. I like a song popping up late in an album. Every artist thinks the newest thing is the best thing! Jinky and I have no qualms about writing songs, we don’t really get writer's block. We really want about 8 songs, we feel like people’s attention span isn’t what it used to be, so we’ve worked that down from forty songs! He’s got his favourites, I’ve got mine, and some compromises. The song and the music is the most important thing, at the end of the day – the feel of the album.

Caezar supported Simple Minds at Blenheim Palace, and Audley End, this summer, can you tell us about this gig and about your long-standing relationship with Jim Kerr?

The gigs were great, I said to Jim “we’re on your coat tails again, you’d better be careful”. I don’t think he’s worried! The first thing to say, when we’re invited to shows, we’re friends and we can’t remember life without the other one in it. We've known each other since the age of 3, they adopted me unofficially and I went to live with him full time. However, if we were rubbish we wouldn’t get these gigs, he admires and likes what we’re doing.

We really enjoyed it. We’re not intimidated by big stages, there’s a lot of space in Caezar. When you play with a lot of space in big arenas it just feels massive. I’ve also known Charlie since we were seven, so it was like a school reunion! We have a right good laugh, but we’re serious on stage. 

Time was recorded on Vertere Records at Beetroot Studios, Airdrie, Scotland by Stuart MacLeod and Mastered and Half Speed Cut By Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London.

Time can be purchased from Vertere Acoustics