AT THE tail end of 1989 Chris Rea released Road To Hell, a concept album of sorts with a much harder lyrical edge than his previously known AOR/pop incarnation.
As suggested by its suitably apocalyptic title track, the album was inspired by the endless traffic jams Rea had experienced, particularly on the M4 Motorway near his home outside London. Road To Hell clearly struck a chord with a new generation of road-weary, gridlocked commuters battling their way into Thatcher's London. It was to be his biggest commercial success, providing him with his first ever number one and a seventy-six week residency in the album charts.
Now, ten years later, Rea, a self confessed auto-junkie, has returned to the same theme with Road To Hell Part 2. Though he describes it as taking up from where the last one left off, he is quick to point out that this is not some kind of marketing cash-in on the success of the original Road To Hell.
"I've always said that I would do a sequel when there was enough material in the can," he explains. "It's just a coincidence that it happens to be ten years since the last one. I'd be on a hiding to nothing if I just tried to replicate it."
To be fair to Rea, Road To Hell Part 2 isn't just another collection of like-minded songs linked by an automotive theme. The musical backdrop this time around is far more ambitious than its predecessor, incorporating "cutting edge" sounds including snatches of sampled hip-hop, drum 'n' bass and ambient elements. Indeed, apart from the familiar slide guitar meandering through it the first couple of minutes of the opening track and first single 'Can't Get Through' sounds nothing remotely like a Chris Rea record.
"I wouldn't be Chris Rea if I made every record off some kind of commercial graph," he insists. "There's no point in trying to sound like everyone else. I like modern music. To me there's not much difference between a drum and bass feel of a hip-hop record and a drum and bass feel of a classic Memphis, Muscle Shoals or a Detroit rhythm track. One of the fascinations of the new technology is putting the slide guitar of an old Robert Johnson riff and making a loop and putting it on a song."
Another difference this time around is his changing attitude to cars and how they are perceived by motorists in general
"One of my friends told me recently that he got home from work twenty minutes too early! It completely knocked him sideways - he hadn't finished listening to his usual radio programme. So what did he do? He sat outside in his driveway until the show was finished. His wife and kids were waving out the window wondering what the hell was going on"
"The perception people have of their cars has changed dramatically in the past ten years," he adds. "People are much happier in their cars for a start. Even basic models are more comfortable and they have better sound systems. They're really self-contained capsules of private transport. Traffic jams are inevitable but people are beginning to accept it rather than than fight it. That desire to go from A to B privately is a part of the human psyche."
What about the damage to the environment which inevitably follows in the wake of an increase in road transport?
"I think the cars are environmentally much better and they'll continue to be so. In the future you'll have more cars and less fuel emissions," he responds.
For his own part, Rea confesses that he no longer tears up the M4 in a high powered Ferrari as he did in the past.
"I'm driving a far more sensible Volvo these days," he says "People who know me wonder why I'm driving what is definitely not a high performance car. My philosophy is the guy in the most expensive car has to put up with those looks you get at the traffic lights. You know the kind people saying 'look at that fucking dickhead who does he think he is?' I go motor racing and that's where I take out all my aggression. On the public highway I've learned to relax and chill out. I listen to GLR, a radio station here in London that makes life on the road a joy - almost." n
* Road To Hell Part 2 is released on Warner Records. Chris Rea's new website is at www.roadtohell.com