Review Fix Exclusive: Jack Hues Talks ‘A Thesis On the Ballad’ And More

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Jack Hues, known for his iconic work with ‘80s super group Wang Chung, who discusses the Jack Hues and the Quartet’s new album, “A Thesis On the Ballad,” as well as the groups creaive process and goals for the future.

About The Band:

Jack Hues And The Quartet grew out of evenings jamming at Jack Hues’ house in Canterbury with pianist Sam Bailey and various other musicians. They would play through Monk, Miles, Mingus, Kenny Wheeler and a select group of artists they collectively considered great. Gradually Hues started writing pieces too. The band began playing shows, playing many times at the sadly missed Orange Street Music Club in Canterbury. The band gradually evolved to a point where their friend Chris Hughes encouraged them to make an album.

Review Fix: What was the creative process of this album?

Jack Hues: Sam initially suggested my working with Kelvin. Kelvin sent me a book of his poems which lay on my piano for a few weeks. I tried setting various poems but nothing really felt compelling. Then one afternoon I read “Barbara Allan” and I could just hear the music. I sketched it out and then read the next poem in the collection – again the music came instantly and so on. In about 2 hours I wrote all six songs. 

Working with The Quartet means creating space for improvisation so I deliberately left some sections of the songs open ended. “The Truth” is just a set of instructions to the musicians. They create the song anew every time. We performed the songs live a few times before recording them. The recordings were done in my living room in Canterbury with us all playing together.  Apart from “And So” which is entirely live, I spent quite a lot of time working on the vocal overdubs. So the album is a mixture of the “jazz” aesthetic of everything live, warts and all, and the “pop” aesthetic of making the recording larger than life. 

Review Fix: What makes the poems of Kelvin Corcoran meaningful to you?

Hues: I saw Kelvin reading at one of Sam’s wonderful Free Range events in Canterbury. His poetry uses a modern sensibility informed by deep immersion in Greek mythology, a lifetime of reading, sharing life with other poets. He is the real deal. The poems that comprise The Thesis just resonated with me. I could hear the music in them – part modern part folk part improvised part composed. 

Review Fix: How was “An Expanse of Water” written?

Hues: I heard the tempo in the words, the rhythm, I heard C major and got the guitar riff instantly. Then I sort of imposed a song structure on to the strophic verses. It was all entirely intuitive. I just sang the song straight into my phone. 

Review Fix: How is the sound different from Wang Chung?

Hues: It is more “real” in that the parts are all played by musicians and the idiom is acoustic, no electronics apart from some electric guitar on one song. There are no drums apart from one song – the songs are melody and harmony rather than rhythmic drive… I think my DNA is in both projects but the Quartet is undiluted! 

Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone check out this album?

Hues: Because it is original thinking, great playing and ultimately a real musical experience. 

Review Fix: What’s next?

Hues: We have done two more recordings in the “Collaborations” project.  One with Canterbury Rock Band Syd Arthur.  This is a reworking of Beck’s “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”.  The other is with 2 poets, Simon Smith and David Herd and is called “ROTE-through” and it is pretty out there!! We intend to release them both later this year. More immediately we have some gigs coming up: May 3, 4, 5 in Canterbury, Brighton and London and we hope to do lots more this summer. 


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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14225 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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