Photo: Ian Pollard

Throughout his career Tony Clarkin has been closely associated with the melodic hard rock band Magnum. He is the band's songwriter and guitarist.

Although Tony's musical roots lie in the sixties, it wasn't until 1972 that he formed Magnum with long-time musical partner, vocalist Bob Catley. During the seventies they were mainstays at Birmingham's Railway Inn before signing to Jet Records in 1978.

The band's greatest period of success came in the 1980s, with the release of 'A Storyteller's Night' and their signing to Polydor in 1985 for whom they produced three studio albums.

The bands fortunes wavered after being dropped by Polydor, and by 1995 they had announced their farewell tour.

In spite of this hiatus, the core of Clarkin and Catley produced two albums as Hard Rain before deciding to reform Magnum in 2001, this time with Al Barrow on bass and Harry James on drums. Together with longstanding keyboard player Mark Stanway this now forms the current line-up.

The band have produced three albums since their reformation, all well received and all very typical of the band's 'classic' period. 2007's 'Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow" even had album artwork by Rodney Matthews.

In 2001 Tony Clarkin noted that "Since the end of the Seventies, in fact since we embarked on the preparations for our debut recording Kingdom Of Madness, not a single month had gone by in which I didn't work for Magnum, composed for the group, or at least thought of them permanently."

Consequently Clarkin is very closely associated with fashioning the band's sound and - almost exclusively - with the songwriting duties. There was only a temporary respite in 1989/90 when he collaborated with others on 'Goodnight LA'. This was arguably the least popular of all Magnum's eighties albums and resulted from the band's attempt to redefine their sound for the American market.

The band's latest album 'Into the Valley of the Moonking' is due for release in June 2009.

Podcast, edited version of interview first broadcast in May 2009

Album review

Magnum website