A quick Q&A with a Rialto frontman Louis Eliot. By Tom Hodgkinson

Louis Eliot has been rocking from an early age. He grew up on the bohemian Port Eliot estate, home to the Elephant Fayre, and picked up a guitar when he was young. In nineties London he formed the bands Kinky Machine and Rialto. In the noughties he retreated to Cornwall with his young family, went solo and recorded songs like the sublime “Country Life”.

It was Louis who encouraged us at the Idler to set up an area at the Port Eliot festival, successor to the Elephant Fayre, which we did roughly from 2007 to 2017. It’s now sadly defunct. For the last fifteen years or so, Louis has played guitar live with Grace Jones. Now he’s recorded a new album with his old band Rialto, out in April. Neon and Ghost Signs is a dark disco-influenced collection of tunes, some, though not all, concerning a middle aged man searching for kicks in London town, and waiting for Ubers.

Tom Hodgkinson: Hey Louis.

Louis Eliot: Hi Tom.

TH: How long did this album take from first idea to final product?

LE: People say you have your whole life to write your first album. It’s been another lifetime for this one. Nearly 25 years since the last Rialto record anyway. The majority of the songs that made the cut were written over the last three or four years and demoed at my kitchen table, before going into the studio and re-recording bits and adding more real instruments. We did that in short stints of two to three days, sometimes with long gaps between, due to other commitments or the studio being busy. Tam Johnstone, who co-produced it, doesn’t like to work on the same project for more than three days at a time. Not having anyone tapping their watch gave me the chance to write some new things along the way which I felt were needed, once the album started to take shape.

TH: What have you learned from playing live with Grace Jones for so many years?

LE: To let the groove in. To enjoy moving to the music on stage more too. I feel looser than I used too. I’ve let a broader range of influences in than on previous Rialto recordings and some of Grace’s darker disco elements have rubbed off and found their way on to this record.

TH:. Why did Rialto get dropped twice by the same label?

LE: I like to remember we had to get signed repeatedly in order to get dropped repeatedly so we were lucky in that respect! The boring truth is that a new boss took over at the label. He dropped us, so we signed to another label, which was then bought by the original label. So it was hi/goodbye again. We were actually on four different UK labels over the same amount of years. It was like getting drawn into a painfully slow game of hopscotch, when you really just want to walk down the road.

TH: Are we to understand from the lyrics of this record that you no longer want to live a country life?

LE: Ahh the rural phase. I know you’ve been there too. That coincided with having small children. Have you noticed how some men grow a beard and longer hair when they start a family? It was an extension of that I think. Your focus is on building this unit and what’s going on outside of that is less important and things like sleeping in a tent for no reason suddenly become appealing. I’ve got brilliant memories of that time, but the kids have spread their wings now and I’m loving being back in the city.

TH: What was the first single you bought?

LE: It was a novelty reggae song about Muhammad Ali called “Black Superman” (by Johnny Wakelin and the Kinshasa band) which I got secondhand from a friend. I don’t recommend listening to it. It will stick in your head but you won’t want it there. I think he does an impression of Ali in it. Very 1970s. Actually it was produced by the same guy who did “Kung Fu Fighting”, which I also liked. But that was so ubiquitous you didn’t need to buy it.

TH: And first gig you went to?

LE: We queued overnight for Bob Dylan at Earls Court in the hot summer of 1976. People were sleeping on the pavement. My mum had a VW camper with a Calor Gas ring and copious amounts of lentil soup for the other hippies. I wasn’t bothered about going to the gig as I was 8 and hadn’t really “got” Dylan yet. Lots of other memorable ones; Hawkwind, The Undertones even Frank Sinatra and there were some great hippie festivals, as they used to be called, like the Polgooth Fayre in Cornwall, which was a precursor of the Elephant Fayre. The first big gig without a grown-up around might have been The Specials at The Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park in 1980. I was a big fan of all that 2 Tone stuff. I also went to see Funkapolitan upstairs at the Wimpy in Notting Hill Gate around that time. There were cool looking youths dancing on the tables. It felt very DIY and happening and I wanted to be doing stuff like that.

TH: You had a close shave health-wise a few years ago – what happened and did it affect your outlook on things?

LE: If I’d got to hospital a few hours later it would have been fatal. It was quite traumatic and took some months to properly recover. I think hindsight creeps up on people gradually as they get older, but when you have a close call like that your mortality is suddenly right up in your face and that made me assess some things. Clichés like life’s not a rehearsal were resonating deeply! That was liberating and despite being physically very weak in this Spanish hospital bed, I felt determined and optimistic about what could lie ahead. It made me want to switch off the autopilot and take hold of the steering wheel more. Most of all it made me grateful to be alive.

TH: What’s on the the horizon?

LE: Rialto have an album called Neon and Ghost Signs out on 25t April. We’re playing the Scala in London on 14 May. It’s a venue I’ve wanted to play for a long time and it’s a former picture house. I named the band Rialto because I thought an old cinema would be the perfect venue for the music, so there’s a nice link. We’ve also got some instore shows at Rough Trade and other vinyl/CD shops the week the album comes out, and gigs with Supergrass. Then a tour with Sleeper in the autumn. I’ll be playing guitar for Grace as well, including a run in America, ending up at the Hollywood Bowl in June.

TH: Are you the oldest swinger in town?

LE: Not by a long shot… But I will be.

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