Mark Gardener on the Ride reunion and Beady Eye and The Stone Roses

DiS: Has the recent announcement about Beady Eye splitting up accelerated the reunion?

Mark Gardener: I can’t really answer any questions about Beady Eye but I can say that these shows have been in the planning for quite some time. It certainly made life easier for Andy Bell because he was looking at continuing whatever Beady Eye were going to be doing. But at the same time, Beady Eye being together or not had no bearing on us doing this.

DiS: So it was always going to happen regardless?

Mark Gardener: Yes. It was always going to happen. When The Stone Roses got back together I remember thinking maybe we should do it. For a good few years after we split in 1996 I thought that was it for Ride. I pretty much disbanded my entire live rig. I sold a couple of guitars to Andy actually. At that point I was solely concentrating on studio work such as production and mixing. I also love doing soundtrack work which I’ve gone on to do. But at the same time I’ve also missed that feeling of playing live. I’ve missed the guys. We’ve got on great for years. It feels like completely the right time to do this now. We’re really buzzing about it. We want to do it but I also think a lot of people have demanded it in a way too. We are aware of that. Especially in this day and age with social media and stuff. I think you’d have to be living in a hole to not be aware of it! I really like the fact I’ll never have to answer that question again because I have known for years. I also like the fact loads of people that were too young to see us first time round will get a chance to see us properly. I didn’t really think about that before and I do now. Also, loads of people who are older but may have missed out will get that chance. We’re not coming back to play new material although I can’t imagine us getting together and new material not happening. It’s just a natural process that when we get in a room that will probably happen. We know what people want to hear and we’ll be giving it our all. We’ve all grown as people. I understand a lot more about sound because I’ve been in the studio for all this time and Andy’s been on the cutting edge of massive shows for over a decade, so we can bring that kind of knowledge to make these performances louder and even better than it was back in the day. That’s another necessity for it to happen and us to feel good about it. We’ve got to feel it’s going to go up another notch. We’re all in good shape. In a lot of ways I feel in much better shape now than I did in my twenties. For various reasons I have to say. There are escape reasons I was using then because it was pretty full-on existence wise. The Creation Records era and all the partying that went with it is quite well documented. I’ve come to realise you can’t buy that kind of relaxation zone. Getting stoned out of your mind isn’t so great really.

Via Drowned In Sound