The Rye
Billy Nicholson (left) and Thomas Fisk (centre)
I started playing with The Rye in 1989. It was around this time that the band got involved with Jimmy McKenna who ran Durham Street Recording Studios in Hartlepool. He was organising a school’s tour. These were The Rye’s first proper gigs. It was a strange time for me in some ways. In the evening I was playing showcase gigs for record labels, and next morning back to doing my A levels. Sony Music showed interest in signing us, though this cooled off after we set up an ill-conceived showcase gig at The Crypt in Middlesbrough Town Hall. Put it down to inexperience, both amongst the band and our management.
Emma Fisk
We were first introduced to Alex at Durham Street Recording Studios. He later joined us as our sound engineer when the band was on tour.
Emma Fisk
Stephen Hunter (left), Billy Nicholson (right)
Emma Fisk (left), Stephen Hunter (right)
Shortly after finishing my A levels, The Rye were booked as support for Status Que’s tour or Ireland and from there we started touring across Britain as headliners. We also set up our own independent label, BVC Records and released a series of albums. Through a contact with an agent, we also did three tours of Germany between 1994 and 1996. On the ’deadtime’ tour in 1996 we played 22 dates between 4th May and 29th June, crisscrossing the border between East Germany and West Germany. Alex Morris, the sound engineer we’d met though Durham Street Recording Studios joined us on most of our tours.
The bands line up changed more than once after this period. On ‘chance of a lifetime’, The Rye’s final album released in 2000, we had Dave Cave on bass, Philip Sloan on guitar, and Adam Burgess on keyboards. From the original line up, only myself, Billy and Basil played on that record.
The Rye didn’t break up, so much as petered out. We each became absorbed with other projects. I made a decision to do a Music Degree and MMus at Newcastle University between 1999-2003.
Emma Fisk
I was doing all sorts of stuff after completing my MMus in 2003. Playing strings on Field Music’s early albums and tours, Hot Jazz from the 1920’s with Keith Nichols’ Midnight in Mayfair, my own thing with Djangology and more besides. In 2016 I decided to take focus, which is when I formed my current band Emma Fisk’s Hot Club du Nord.
Emma Fisk