John Etheridge Interview & Masterclass

Soft Machine’s John Etheridge talks David Mead through the band’s inner workings and reveals what it’s like to be the six-string driving force for one of the most legendary of British jazz-fusion outfits.

- David Mead

Soft Machine first appeared in the mid-60s as part of the Canterbury scene along with bands such as Caravan, Gong, Egg and Henry Cow. Initially, they were seen as part of the psychedelic movement and contemporaries of Pink Floyd, often appearing at London’s infamous UFO Club and other progressive underground hotspots including The Speakeasy and Middle Earth. They even supported Jimi Hendrix on his North American tour in 1968. The band has seen a few guitarists pass through in its lifetime, including art rockers Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers, but most notably fusion guitarists supreme, Allan Holdsworth and the man joining us today, John Etheridge, who first joined Soft Machine in the mid-70s.

The Softs officially came to an end in 1984, but rose again in 2004 under the name Soft Machine Legacy; but with their latest album, last year’s Hidden Details, they’re back to being known simply as Soft Machine. We’ll be the first to admit that all this sounds as confusing as the average Olde English family tree and so we’ll leave it to Mr Etheridge to clear matters up for you.

“We’ve been going since 2004,” he tells us. “So, in a sense it’s the same band that made Live Adventures in 2009 and Burden Of Proof in 2013, which came out as Soft Machine Legacy. People kept saying, ‘Why don’t you drop the ‘Legacy’?’ It was like, ‘Hmm…’ so we finally went, ‘Okay, let’s call it Soft Machine.’ Because it is Soft Machine.” Everyone clear?

Speaking of the latest album John continues: “So, technically, it’s the 50th anniversary of the first Soft Machine album, which came out in 1968…”

How do you view the legacy of Soft Machine, 50 years or so down the line?