Tian Qiyi | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: How cool is that? That is a very interesting interpretation of I Am the Walrus, and I believe we've got both John T. Wardle and Charlie Wardle on with us. Let me get this up here. Hey, guys, can you hear me okay?

0:14 Speaker 2: Can you hear me?

0:15 Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Welcome to the show. I'm excited to talk to you today. Hey, hey, guys. So we've got both John and Charlie with us, correct?

0:27 Speaker 2: That's right. I'm Charlie. I'm That's true.

0:30 Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so before we go any further, too, tell me, how exactly do you pronounce the name of the project? Because I struggled with that, and I was trying to figure it out. But how do you say this? Is it T-N, and then how do you say the second word?

0:52 Speaker 3: T-N, like a trough sound for the Q. But you can say Q.

0:57 Speaker 2: My dad called it T-N-Q-E.

0:59 Speaker 1: And he says it's.

1:00 Speaker 2: Easier to say.

1:01 Speaker 3: So I'm happy with Tian Qi. But Tian Qi, John, can you say it better than I, John?

1:07 Speaker 4: Qi is fine, but Qi, I think, helps people find us. I think when you say Qi, it will confuse non-Chinese-speaking people in itself.

1:17 Speaker 1: That's a really good point.

1:18 Speaker 4: Yeah.

1:18 Speaker 1: Okay. So Tian Qi. Well, I'll go with that. So excellent. Well, listen, so this album. This is pretty new, right? This just came out last month, about roughly a month ago, right? Through Cherry Red Records. And I really like it a lot. It's so interesting. Well, let's start with the obvious question. What is it that brought you guys into wanting to do this sort of reimagining of these Beatles songs? Because it's a pretty ambitious thing to do, right? The Beatles are sort of you know, sacred and whatnot.

1:53 Speaker 1: And so, you know, to take these songs and, and really kind of reimagine them the way that you have, what, what went into that decision? Why did you decide to do this?

2:05 Speaker 2: Do you want to answer, John?

2:07 Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, yeah.

2:07 Speaker 4: I think to be fair, it very much come from our dad, sort of, um, he sort of, he comes to us with the idea really, didn't he? We, um, we just sort of finished songs for workers was, was, just coming to the end of working on a Irish sort of folk fusion sort of project that's not out yet anyway, but just coming to the end of all that type of stuff, he sort of came and said, what did you think about doing a Beatles thing?

2:37 Speaker 2: And at the time, both me and Charlie were sort of like, what, why a Beatles thing?

2:42 Speaker 4: And then it was sort of, to be fair, he was like, well, here's the tracks going, I think they gave us about 20 tracks or something to pick from.

2:51 Speaker 2: It was like, these are the tracks that I'd recommend. The only two I'm going to say you.

2:54 Speaker 4: Have to do is Strawberry Fields and I Am The Walrus. And then the rest of them, he very much let us pick. And then, to be fair, I get why. As soon as listening properly, especially the Harrison pieces, it was like, I get why he thinks this would be.

3:10 Speaker 2: A good idea.

3:10 Speaker 4: And then saying that, it was really fun recording a lot of the tracks and playing a lot of the tracks, mixing, getting stuck in with it.

3:17 Speaker 2: It was really fun.

3:19 Speaker 4: As well as finding out more about the Beatles. It's just a fun project more than anything, I'd say.

3:26 Speaker 1: It's interesting that you mentioned your dad. He was on the show with us, I think it was a couple of months ago now, Of course, John Wardle, better known as Jawobble. And we had a fascinating conversation. He's such an interesting guy. I mean, I don't have to tell you, obviously, his vast musical career and history. Really enjoyed talking with him. So this whole thing came from him. And then, so, I mean, were you guys. To take this on, was it intimidating at all or did you just kind of jump right in and approach it head on?

4:01 Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned that, you know, he gave you a couple songs that he felt were absolutely necessary to include. But I mean, were you nervous doing this or did you feel pretty confident that you could make something great?

4:15 Speaker 2: We didn't think too much. Of course, because it's the Beatles, if you think about it.

4:20 Speaker 4: Too much, you're of course going to get very nervous. Are we pulling it off right?

4:24 Speaker 2: It's the overthinking.

4:25 Speaker 4: To be fair, I think within a week of him saying, do it, Charlie had already sort of had the basis down for With and Without You, sort of turned that one round really quick. He'd sort of had the Erhu part, drones, vocals, everything sort of sorted within a week. And then it was just down to putting bass and drums on. So from there, it really just got quick. I think because in a way, we turned it around fairly quick. It didn't give us enough time to really think, sort of overthink and sort of be like, oh, have we.

4:57 Speaker 2: Done it justice? Have we done this? Have we done that?

4:59 Speaker 4: But we turned it around quick and really just, once it was flowing, it just, everything came very quickly. Okay. Okay.

5:05 Speaker 1: When you say you turned it around quick, how long did it take to do the album?

5:11 Speaker 2: I think two, was it two months, maybe three?

5:15 Speaker 1: Two or three months.

5:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe.

5:16 Speaker 3: And I think, I think a lot of that was mixing. I think the actual recording side was pretty, like, done within a few weeks.

5:23 Speaker 2: Yeah.

5:23 Speaker 3: Because we didn't, we didn't really, I think even the songs which maybe should have taken more, like, Strawberry Fields, which, you know, like, there's that bit where it changes kit.

5:33 Speaker 4: Yeah.

5:34 Speaker 3: And they, what's the story?

5:36 Speaker 2: They mixed two, kind of, tapes together. Two tapes, yeah.

5:39 Speaker 4: They splashed somehow, yeah.

5:42 Speaker 3: Like, for sure, we could have, like, completely, like, I explored loads of different ways to do that, but I think we just removed the key change.

5:50 Speaker 4: Yeah, we couldn't work out how to do it with digital tech, how to splice them together.

5:55 Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.

5:56 Speaker 4: Where it sort of just slowly bends into a different key. We couldn't, we were just like, we'll do it, as well as having the, our mum plays the Guozong, the Chinese harp on that, making her life a bit easier as well, because the way it's tuned, then she doesn't have to retune for each section. She could just be tuned separately. to a comfortable scale and play as well with that.

6:18 Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting. Okay.

6:19 Speaker 2: Okay.

6:20 Speaker 1: And then how did you, how did you choose the songs? You know, you mentioned, you know, your dad picked two of them and said, you know, for the rest of them, it's up to you. I mean, how did you choose these? I assume, you know, because one of you did mention George Harrison and, and his, it's funny, it hadn't occurred to me until you said it, but he, I mean, he really did. He is the one, of the four who most brought that sort of psychedelic element.

6:45 Speaker 4: Right.

6:46 Speaker 1: So, I mean, was, was, were your song choices really heavily influenced by that kind of tilting that way and in Harrison's direction?

6:58 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very much from the sort of psychedelic and Eastern leaning sort of stuff, heavy drones. And I know Charlie's into a lot of the, um, religious, spiritual and sort of philosophical side of a lot of it as well.

7:12 Speaker 2: And I think it was just.

7:15 Speaker 4: Definitely, I think once you're like with and without you, it's like, right, we know what we're going for with this. And then I think it's the, for me, it's the Eastern side and the psychedelic sort of side made sense for what we sort of already were doing in play and how it sort of fits what we allow our sound. And then I know Charlie has some other things looking into as well on that side of it.

7:38 Speaker 1: Sure, sure. And then you guys, did you guys grow up in Liverpool? Is that correct?

7:44 Speaker 2: Sort of.

7:45 Speaker 4: So we grew up in Manchester, which isn't too far from Liverpool, but our granddad ran a Chinese youth orchestra in Liverpool.

7:53 Speaker 2: Okay. So from four, I was four, Charlie was three.

7:58 Speaker 4: We were learning traditional Chinese music with him in Liverpool every weekend. And obviously cause they were in Liverpool, we'd come back to see them a lot as well. So always sort of been back and forth between Manchester and Liverpool growing up.

8:12 Speaker 1: Oh, okay.

8:13 Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah.

8:13 Speaker 1: So you guys were obviously, you know, the, the Beatles were entirely unavoidable for you.

8:18 Speaker 4: Uh, certainly.

8:19 Speaker 1: Um, and, and I mean, in terms of, I'm really curious about how you approach these songs in terms of, um,

8:32 Speaker 1: would you guys already have a pretty clear idea going into the studio what these were going to be? Or did some of that sort of change and grow organically while you were recording them? So I guess what I'm really asking is, did any of these come out really kind of drastically different from what you had envisioned going into the studio? Because like I said, to a listener, it sounds like something where there's a lot of experimentation going on here. with these songs. So did any of them really kind of change when you were recording them?

9:06 Speaker 4: I don't think too much. I think because in a way the melody side was already there. So we knew going into it straight away what the melodies would be. But then I think we still kept, it was a bit more.

9:20 Speaker 2: Remote working than how we usually do it.

9:22 Speaker 1: Okay.

9:23 Speaker 4: But we very much kept the sort of got either the melody or a drone or something there to play to, and then would just go and play. I'd just have a little bit of a basis, a little bit of structure of what I know I need to do, go in, record the drums, and then our dad would come, just put a bass line down, and then Charlie then, knowing what the melody would be, knowing what space he's got left to then play with the who and the mooring curve, he'd then sort of know, right, I need to do my vocals there, and then I'm going to do whatever instrument part there then from there it was probably like the editing and the mixing side with with delays reverbs things like that that's probably where then it might go off slightly but we didn't come in too much like this needs to sound like this this needs to sound like that sure because it felt like if even if we did that with the beatles it's never going to probably get to what you want it to sound like, or it's never going to sound like how they've done it.

10:18 Speaker 4: So it was very much just come in with freedom and play and then take it from there.

10:24 Speaker 1: And then working with your dad. So did, did he play all the bass on the album?

10:32 Speaker 2: Yeah.

10:33 Speaker 1: And what was that like?

10:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, every track he played bass.

10:37 Speaker 4: Okay, okay.

10:38 Speaker 1: And what was that like working with him? Because, you know, obviously, you know, he's your father. You grew up with him. But then in the studio, does it still feel like, like, is he dad in the studio? Or is it more like, okay, he's one of our peers now. when he's here in the studio with us, he's, he's a fellow musician and we're doing this project together. I mean, I'm just curious because, you know, I'm a musician, but I never had a chance to make music with a family member. I'm curious what, what, what that's like and how the, is the family dynamic still present when you're in the studio with him?

11:11 Speaker 1: Or is it just like, no, he's, he's, he's our, uh, he's a fellow musician, uh, and he's doing the baselines on the album. Like, like what's that like working with him?

11:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you sort of switch off from that family side, even without realising, but you have to. Because he's very honest as well. If he didn't like something or he just felt it weren't working, he'd say that. He wouldn't hold back or anything. He'd treat it just like he's treating working with a random person for the first time or working with other collaborators he's worked.

11:42 Speaker 2: With over the years. I don't think he treats it as a family thing. We have our family time and all that's separate. And of course... We are family, so.

11:51 Speaker 4: Me and Charlie might be able to speak to each other differently compared to if we were speaking to someone else. Charlie might be able to come over, sort of have a word with me, wind me up a little bit, and then I'll wind him up.

12:01 Speaker 2: We'll mess around that way. But yeah, so me and Charlie, we're brothers. We'll argue, we'll fight.

12:07 Speaker 4: But when he comes in, very much he will sort of, he'll just treat it like he treats very professional, sort of like, not sure about this, not sure about that, try it this way.

12:17 Speaker 2: Do this, and he'll guide it that way.

12:19 Speaker 4: Sure. And I think you end up sort of still family, but you'll switch off and treat it like, treat it proper.

12:24 Speaker 2: I think that's the way he'd say it.

12:25 Speaker 4: It's all got to be dealt with proper and sort of detached from that side of things. It's doing the music and the music's the ultimate goal. Focus on that. And then family time's family time. That's set for it.

12:37 Speaker 1: That makes sense. And then, so what is, so the inverse of that being, what if you have to, like, was there ever a point where maybe he played something that you didn't feel was quite working for the song? I mean, and, and did that ever come up? And then you have to, you have to approach that with him. And if so, is that intimidating because he is your dad and now you have to say to him, I don't, I don't think this is quite working. Did anything like that come up during the recording?

13:04 Speaker 4: To be fair with this one, no. But I wouldn't want to be the one to ask. If it did ever come.

13:10 Speaker 2: Up, I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him, oh, I'm not sure about that. Right. But if we did, no. I'm pretty sure he'd take it well.

13:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. That's good. do you, I mean, do you plan to work with him more in the future? Are you going to do more projects together? Or like, I guess what's kind of the future trajectory? Because obviously, you know, you guys, well, you can, I mean, you know, you're the sons of jaw wobble and you grew up with all these different influences. So, there's so many different directions you could go, uh, in the future. And, and you're, you know, you're obviously both very talented to pull this off.

13:46 Speaker 1: So, I mean, do you plan to do more with him? Are you going to do your own thing? What, what, what's kind of the, the future after, uh, after this album cycle, do you think?

13:55 Speaker 4: Uh, well, I think it would be a bit of both going forward. We still very much do our own duo stuff as well as work with him and other people as well. Uh, we got a jazz covers thing, which Charlie can, talk about because he's doing well oh sort of talking on that one oh cool that one's coming out uh i forgot the date so i'll let you take over charlie.

14:19 Speaker 3: Yeah we've done it we just released take five i'll cover take five but i mean the whole thing for that project not dissimilar from the beatles project um and i think that's a i think i touch on adding to what you said about harrison john with the eastern thing and the psychedelic thing i think if there's one thing which unifies all of our project there is a spiritual leaning to all of it um like even songs for workers or even red mist there's always that kind of that i suppose it comes with the eastern thing as well but then just mine and john's natural approach to to life as well is probably quite spiritual but i know religion's been a big thing for my dad as well it's got him off drinking turned to buddhism so i think that like it's in the there's a spiritual thing within the family um but the jazz one i would say it's our first solo project So obviously we're very excited for it.

15:08 Speaker 3: The last three projects we've done with our dad, which have been very helpful. We've had more or less control over, especially Red Mist and Song for Work. It was kind of like our work and then our dad would put bass on it. Whereas The Beatles was maybe the other way around. I'd say it was more of John's and my dad's where they'd go to the studio and I'd just overdub.

15:27 Speaker 2: My job is pretty simple.

15:28 Speaker 3: It was just learn the melody. And then there were some songs where the melody was a bit different, like Strawberry Fields, whatever. anyway sorry i'm rambling but for the um for the jazz one uh yeah it's all kind of like take five reimagined uh playing spiritually i mean my um i i think the the thing with a sound and even though like when we say we record we record it in six weeks that's not like a i've just watched a netflix documentary on boeing where they're just um putting the planes out like super quick no safety limits and it like they lose the quality right um and so it's not i think um what I try and think and I think John agrees with me on this is when I'm practicing I'm practicing like relentlessly to improve my voice to improve my technique to whatever but when you're recording you have to kind of try and forget it otherwise you won't release anything you have to kind of like trust the practice that you've done and when it comes to record or even show time it's time to kind of like just play instinctively otherwise you you mess up you make mistakes but yeah so the jazz I think the jazz one's probably musically the hardest I've pushed myself John maybe you'd agree I think compositionally um rhythmically i'd say it's maybe more let's say the beatles project is like their songs and that's a different thing like you're approaching a song and you're approaching

16:41 Speaker 3: a composition you have to find your own voice within that whereas with these with the jazz project it's improvisation it's um you're finding your voice in a more instinctive way from like um yeah, which, which is, I would, at least for me, it's like much, much more difficult from a musician, musical perspective.

16:59 Speaker 2: Um, so, uh, so yeah.

17:02 Speaker 3: I'm very excited for the jazz one.

17:03 Speaker 4: Yeah.

17:03 Speaker 3: And then I think we might do the, the Irish one was a collaboration with our dad. I think that'll probably come out early next year or sometime next year. Um, yeah, next year we're planning on releasing even more. So, um, so yeah, loads of stuff to come.

17:17 Speaker 2: Yeah.

17:17 Speaker 1: I'm very, I'm very curious to hear that project actually.

17:20 Speaker 2: Yeah.

17:20 Speaker 1: That'll be, that'll, that'll be very interesting. Um, Um, do you guys have any plans to, or maybe you already are?

17:26 Speaker 2: I don't know.

17:28 Speaker 1: Do any of these, um, does any of this material from the album get performed live? I don't know if it's even, I don't know how you would even necessarily pull that off, but I'm, I'm really curious. I mean, do you guys play these songs, any of these songs live from the album?

17:44 Speaker 2: Some of the, uh, we do, uh, what's it tomorrow? Never knows. Oh, That one we can pull off as a duo.

17:51 Speaker 1: Oh, wow.

17:51 Speaker 4: Sort of get the bass looped and then we can do that. Charlie's got, I forgot the name of the pedal, but it's amazing. He can set a drone off, have it sort of separate, revert everything off the air and then play.

18:05 Speaker 2: On top of it.

18:06 Speaker 4: And yeah, we've tried it. Is it with and without you? We tried a bit and it sort of crops in and out. That's probably the two. We might look at putting another one in, but those two from the album, when we're doing it as a duo, because of the loop, they're the only two we can pull off well, I'd say. For the others, we're always trying to find a way to bring them in.

18:31 Speaker 1: Right, right. And what about... I mean, is there any possibility of a volume two? Because obviously the Beatles have so many... There's so much material that you can draw on there. I mean, is this album... Again, it's called Mystic Liverpool, the Beatles' psychedelic songbook. Is this kind of it, do you think? Or have you thought about doing maybe a volume two in the future?

18:52 Speaker 2: I don't think either of us have even thought about that yet.

18:56 Speaker 1: Yeah.

18:57 Speaker 2: If it comes up, it'll come up. But I think, to be fair, we've been.

19:01 Speaker 4: We were just in a session with our dad and Mark Leighton Bennett. He plays drums with our dad in the Invaders.

19:11 Speaker 2: It was just percussion everywhere. Even Charlie ended up having to play percussion on some of the tracks.

19:16 Speaker 4: I think we ended up with over six hours of recording on that last weekend.

19:22 Speaker 2: We've got the jazz thing coming out.

19:24 Speaker 4: We're already working out dates to start recording our next solo project after that, probably in the Windsor time.

19:31 Speaker 1: Yeah.

19:32 Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a lot happening. Yeah.

19:35 Speaker 1: That's good.

19:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. So if it comes up again, yeah, we'd definitely do it. But for the.

19:39 Speaker 4: Next sort of six months, I'd say definitely not right now for the next six months.

19:44 Speaker 1: Your plates are very full. That's a, that's a very, very good thing. So I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. Um, Um, so, uh, we'll let you guys go in a moment. I was thinking about, uh, at the end of the segment playing strawberry, strawberry fields forever, uh, your, uh, your interpretation of it. And, uh, I really, I really love it. It might be my favorite from the album, but, um, guys, thank you so much. Uh, of course, uh, Charlie and John Wardle, uh, from, uh, uh, uh, uh, TN, uh, key.

20:12 Speaker 1: That's probably the best I can do with the pronunciation, but, um, but, but, but for people looking online, so it's spelled, it's two words, T I A N and then Q I Y I. Um, where's the best place to go online? Is there, is there a particular place online that's, uh, that our listeners should go to, uh, to keep up with everything that you guys are doing?

20:33 Speaker 3: Instagram's the best I think TikTok it's so hard to communicate on TikTok like it feels like it suppresses anything when you actually try and speak to someone like if it's a video you're playing or something it can get out but we're on TikTok Instagram X I'm not too active on so Instagram but you can find our music everywhere Spotify YouTube Apple Music Amazon wherever you want to listen to it you can.

20:55 Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful. And I encourage people to check it out. And whether you're a diehard Beatles fan and you just want to hear somebody's reimagining of the songs, or maybe you're a casual fan, but you're just really curious, it's a very, very interesting album. Again, it's called Mystic Liverpool, The Beatles, A Psychedelic Songbook. And Charlie and John, thank you guys so much. We're going to let you go and I'm going to hit that track. I'm going to play your rendition of Strawberry Fields Forever.

21:18 Speaker 1: But thank you both for joining us. And we'll definitely, you know, you've got a lot of new music coming up, so we'll definitely have you back in the future. And I really enjoyed talking with you guys today. Thank you so much.

21:28 Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.

21:29 Speaker 4: All right.

21:29 Speaker 1: You got it. Take care. Bye-bye.

21:31 Speaker 2: All right.

21:31 Speaker 1: That is Charlie Wardle and John T.

21:34 Speaker 2: Wardle.

21:35 Speaker 1: And the project is T-I-N-K-E-Y. Again, I'll spell it for you. T-I-A-N and then Q-I-Y-I. And the album, Mystic Liverpool, the Beatles' psychedelic songbook. Let's play another song from this. We might sneak a couple in, actually. I think we'll have time. But this is really interesting. Again, this is their reimagining, if you will, of the song Strawberry Fields Forever.