In 2022, 3’s Robert Berry, Saga’s Ian Crichton and Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler released their debut record as Six By Six. But were the prog supergroup able to recapture that magic on the highly anticipated follow-up, Beyond Shadowland? Berry told Prog about the challenges, inspirational artwork and orchestral arrangements behind their “difficult” second album.
Whatever you choose to call it – ‘difficult second album syndrome’ or ‘sophomore slump’ – it remains a hovering spectre for bands who created cracking debut records. Whether caused by a lack of suitable songs or a psychological dread of writing inferior fresh material, it has debilitated many an artist.
Six By Six, the power trio formed by Robert Berry, Saga’s Ian Crichton and Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler, were unable to dodge that fear when constructing Beyond Shadowland, the follow-up to their universally lauded self-titled debut in 2022. “It’s something that’s hard to explain and it is a little bit like writer’s block,” considers Berry, seated in his home studio.
“First of all, we didn't want to disappoint ourselves. In fact, I remember Ian sent me a couple of guitar ideas as we started the construction of our first song. I did some things on it, sent it back to him and he goes, ‘Oh, this isn’t as good as the first album.’ I replied, ‘Well, you haven’t worked on it yet, so of course it's not.’
“But he still felt it wasn’t coming across. That song became a bit like a baseball. We threw it back and forth a little bit more and it finally became Spectre. That’s an example of a track we weren't originally happy with – but now it’s one of our favourites.”
He continues: “It really was a little bit of a struggle for two or three months, just to feel like we could move forward and equal or top the first album. One of my big rules is that it’s easier to fix an idea than to get one. I just go for it and then you can work on it. This album was a lot harder than the first one. It’s easy in one sense, because all three of us have a lot of ideas and those ideas flow out.
“But when you combine them together and make a piece of music, it has to have a magic that we’re excited about. There was a little bit of a struggle to get there on this one, but it eventually clicked. I think we took the pressure off ourselves once we finished the first couple of songs.”
Berry recalls he had concerns as to whether the debut would prove to be a success, and admits to a certain level of astonishment that it was so well received. Central to that concern were his experiences with musicians in previous projects, whom he’d envisioned would make perfect writing companions.
“I’ve tried a bunch of different things to make that chemistry work,” he says. “Let’s take GTR – Steve Howe and I had chemistry when we were writing, and it was great. But with the other guys that were involved, it just didn’t click. I was the lone American, the new guy. I felt that grey cloud come down. That should have been a dream band for me.
“With Six By Six, Ian has always been in Saga, so I was thinking, ‘What’s this going to be like?’ But it was sort of magical. I hate to identify what makes it that way; I’m not sure that I know. Some things work and some things don’t.”
Ian’s guitar is always different… if I changed that way, people would say, ‘You can’t do that; it’s awful!’
The material on Beyond Shadowland hasn’t merely relied on the template of impeccable, nimble melodies that infiltrated its predecessor. The tracks Sympathise and The Arms Of A Word possess an unexpected raucousness that also infiltrates other songs. Adding weightier tones was their main ambition – even if that perhaps meant less space for Berry’s keyboards.
“We didn’t want to make the same album twice in a row,” he reasons. “We wanted to make it heavier, with bigger guitars and stronger drums. I learned from a few greats, like Alan Fitzgerald, who played in Night Ranger. You wouldn’t really know there were keyboards in Night Ranger in a lot of places.
“So on this album I learned how to fit it in. I put the keyboards in the background to fill in but not interfere with it being a guitar album. It was my desire to show off this great guitar player who I’m fortunate enough to play with – more than he’s ever been shown off before.
“What people maybe don’t understand is that, on a normal song, you may have verse one then verse two, with the guitar being the same. Not with Ian: the guitar is always different; he never repeats himself. How he does it I do not know, because if I produced an album and changed it that way, people would say, ‘You can’t do that; it’s awful!’ But Ian has these great ideas and works on them. He’s a taskmaster and hard on himself. By the time we get it done, he shines. It’s the same with Nigel. If we didn’t have his anger on the drums, we really couldn’t do what we do.”
Not that the album is simply awash with fiery, juddering prog. Mellower moments are carefully placed to add impact to muscular riffs, including Only You Can Decide, which was penned by the Saga guitarist.
“Ian sent me that guitar part and it was finger-picking kind of stuff,” recalls Berry. “I didn’t use it and the album was all but done. I was sitting back doing the mixes and thought, ‘We really need a cracker to cleanse the palate.’
I don’t know how I keep writing things that are positive without saying the same thing over and over!
“I began to wonder if Ian’s idea would work. So I pulled it out, I started singing and it was beginning to work. I told Ian that I was using the guitar part and he said, ‘Leave me some space – I want to do a solo in there.’ We threw it back and forth and it became what it became.”
Pursuing the desire to create more delicate moments, Six By Six engaged with an orchestra in Budapest. That resulted in the mixing of three tracks into a medley, which appears on the vinyl edition of the release. “That was really important to me,” says Berry. “It starts off with a string quartet, who perform part of Only You Can Decide, then goes into Spectre, and finally Titans. I’m so pleased with that.”
It’s also apparent that enormous care was taken with the lyrics. For many acts, words are merely an afterthought, carelessly stapled on to the end product. Throughout his career, with previous bands Hush and 3 (with Keith Emerson), Berry says he’s always tried to focus on positivity, penning uplifting and even motivating lyrics that enhance the music.
“I do like the positives; I don’t know how I keep writing things that are positive without saying the same thing over and over! I’ve always tried to accentuate the positives about how you can improve or enjoy your life. Although, on this album there are a few things that are a little negative. One Step is basically about somebody that did you wrong. You know: ‘Every move you make, you are hurting me.’”
You really can’t trust what you read today, especially with AI… but there are places where I think we can find some truth, even if it is just intuition
The Arms Of A Word includes a thought-provoking lyric that hints at the modern peril of cancel culture, where a careless spoken idea can have dire consequences. Lines such as: ‘Just one small mistake and judgement comes alive in cultural suicide’ indicate Berry’s intentions. But it also deals with the ever-frustrating and ubiquitous clickbait that infests many online news feeds.
“There’s always something there that’s designed to titillate,” Berry says. “Maybe somebody would say, ‘Here’s Robert Berry with our new interview and he was talking about killing somebody.’ That’s the headline, where people think, ‘Why is this singer talking about killing?’ Then you read the article, and of course it’s got nothing to do with killing people.
“So that’s also what The Arms Of A Word is about. You really can’t trust what you read today, especially with AI, and you also can’t trust what people say with words. But there are places where I think we can find some truth, even if it is just intuition. It’s just harder to find. That’s the good thing about the likes of Prog magazine. You’re talking about things that people love. It’s what people want to hear about and what makes them happy.”
Adding to the band’s appeal is the artwork that harks back to the halcyon days of progressive rock. Both Six By Six album covers were designed by Rob Fowler and contain an identity that’s akin to the association between Roger Dean and Yes or Hugh Syme and Rush. “When I was in college, Rob used to have a band called Savannah, and we’d also play together in my band Hush.
“He majored in art at college and he’s always done all of my band posters. He’s just so into it and he’s all over everything to do with music and what makes it go. When I asked him for an album cover for the first release, he really thought about it and came up with the strange little guys in the sidecar. As soon as we saw it, we loved it immediately.
Nobody knew we were even a band; we just released the album – and that was us coming out of the shadows
“I think Rob felt the same pressure on the second album as we did, because so many people just loved that first cover. I remember that he sent over to us this beautiful cover, which he’d given a working title of Beyond Shadowland. We really liked it, and thought that was also a great title for the album. There’s a lot of detail – you can even see us in the background. Those words meant a lot to us because when we started out, nobody knew we were even a band; we just released the album – and that was us coming out of the shadows.”
But this isn’t the end of Six By Six. After two albums in as many years, Berry admits work has already begun on their follow-up. “I’ve also spoken to Rob about the third album. It’s something that I’m so excited about; we’re already thinking about how that could work out.”
