FA: I've listened to the album a few times now, and from my experience drummers are people who like to have a bit of freedom, to improvise and hit things hard. Your
style is very different - very precise, very controlled which goes with needing to keep a tight beat for the dancing. But did you ever feel restricted in your drumming by the style of music
you played?
MH: Yeah, you do find with that side - Ballroom or strict tempo you are restricted with what you can do. But as I said, with my Dad being a dance teacher, that's
what I was brought up with. And obviously when I was younger in bands that were more than just keyboards and drums, like a five piece band or something playing for a dance, I'd always sit
there with the drummer and they'd let me have a go sometimes, and that's how I learned. I'm self taught, but I have played everything - Jazz, Pop and Rock, I've done it all. It's always
good to let your hair down a bit!
FA: And are you still playing now?
MH: I still play now, but not touring so much now, not since I stopped playing with Malcolm. But there's a keyboard player called David Last who plays the same sort
of thing that Malcolm and I did, and I play with him, but it's not so much touring now as one-night bookings. I've also done a few recordings with him too.
FA: So are the records, the recordings made for people to play at their own dances, or were they made as merchandise, giving people a reminder of a night out.
MH: Maestro, the record label are specialists in strict tempo dance music, and the records and cds are designed for people to have their own sequence dances, and they still
produce all that kind of music.
FA: I did find a flaw though - my copy of the album was well played, and skipped in places. Surely that would have caused problems.
MH: Yeah, that would put them out of sequence!
FA: My copy also has a sticker on the front, as it was previously owned by Brenda from Barrow-in-Furness. Is sequence dancing a peculiarly British thing?
MH: No, not at all. In Australia, they have sequence dancing too, but the CDs go all over the world. (side note - I've since noticed a lot of sellers on eBay have copies
of Malcolm Wilce Duo CDs on sale from the USA....)
FA: I have to ask you about the sleeve notes - they were written by Terry and Ethel Grundy, who I see are still active and running their own tea dances in Cannock. How
did you know them?
MH: Well, they used to run their own dances in Birmingham, and they had all the records that we'd recorded. In the early days, what we used to do was ask someone we'd
worked with and who'd used our music in their dances to do the write up for us. But Terry and Ethel we met at Butlins when we used to do the dance festivals, mainly at Bognor Regis
& Minehead and they were the MCs there. We run dance holidays ourselves now in places like Bournemouth, Paignton, Dawlish and so on.
FA: So there's still a large enough following for the Sequence Dancing movement
MH: We're well placed here (Weston super Mare) as people aren't that willing to travel more than an hour or so, plus we have the ballrooms down here. You
wont find so much as you travel north. But I think we had the best of it. There are still people playing this music, but a lot of the sequence clubs aren't around any more.
FA: Do you think that's a demographic problem, with this being an older person's social activity?