Ian Gregson grew up in Wigan, the Lancashire town whose legendary Casino all-nighters made it the capital of Northern Soul, and that’s exactly where the name Mr M & The All Nighters comes from. In 1981 he left the UK for Vancouver, went on to represent Canada at the 1984 and 1988 Paralympic Games, spent decades working in the city’s film industry and, along the way, turned a Northern Soul tribute act into a very personal mix of raging guitar, vintage-style electronics and saxophone.
The new album, Flying High, out November 6, 2026 on Bandcamp, brings together nine tracks recorded with saxophonist Manny Albeury at Adanac Studios, which turns out to be Ian’s living room. We spoke about the Thin Lizzy box set that finally unlocked the single “Johnny Drama”, why Vancouver can feel like an island for musicians, playing live with backing tracks, using AI to make music videos, and the grandson on the way.
🎧 Listen and order Flying High on Bandcamp: mrmandtheallnighters.bandcamp.com
Prefer to read? Here’s the full transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Ian Gregson: Hi, this is Ian Gregson, and you’re listening to Lots of Muzik, right here, right now.
Lots of Muzik: Awesome. Thank you very much, Ian, and thank you for giving us a chance to speak with you about your new album, which is coming out in just a few weeks, right?
Ian Gregson: Yeah, November the 6th we’re releasing it, and then we’re having an album release party here in Vancouver the day after.
Lots of Muzik: Awesome. You grew up in Wigan?
Ian Gregson: Yeah. It’s a little town, an old industrial town, traditionally Lancashire, famous for Northern Soul music and Wigan Casino. And that’s where the name Mr M & The All Nighters comes from. The All Nighters was an event at Wigan Casino back in the day, and Mr M’s was a side room in the venue.
Lots of Muzik: What did music mean to a teenager in the late ’70s?
Ian Gregson: Well, we had everything. We didn’t realize how good we had it back then. We had a music press. I grew up with half a dozen music newspapers you could read on a weekly basis. That was one thing. And we had the summer of punk in 1976. I think 1976 was probably the big year when I started realizing that the music was out there. Thin Lizzy put out Jailbreak, a big album for me, and then Johnny the Fox a little bit later in the year. The music was just all over the place. You had Top of the Pops, you had The Old Grey Whistle Test, just lots of music everywhere.
And it soon became apparent to me that I had two loves in my life. One was athletics, competing in track and field, and the other was music.
Lots of Muzik: Before you moved to Canada, you were already playing working men’s clubs in the north with a cabaret band. What did those rooms teach you that you still carry with you today?
Ian Gregson: Well, anytime I hear any of those tunes we used to play back in those days, I can pretty well sing them off the top of my head. Silly tunes like “Make It With You” by Bread, “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, “Take It Easy” by the Eagles. Just the tunes of the day back then. And the guys I was in the band with are still my friends. I always go back and see them when I’m over there, and we always try and catch up. One’s a guitar teacher, one is playing in local bands, and another one has done quite well for himself. He’s played with quite a few famous British performers. So we always connect, and we’re still connected these days.
Lots of Muzik: In 1981 you left for Vancouver, partly to get away from Thatcherism. What was that decision like, and how did Canada feel when you first arrived?
Ian Gregson: Well, yeah, that’s true. That’s one of the things my dad always used to say: we left the UK to get away from Thatcherism. Turns out it’s quite prevalent elsewhere in the world, not just in the UK.
But anyway, when we first came to Vancouver, it was pretty hard to figure out where the music was. I’d come from a very rich musical environment where there was so much music, and you could travel and see different bands in Liverpool and Manchester. Coming to Vancouver, it felt very isolated. It’s a theme I’ve always tried to work with. I’ve always found that Vancouver, even though it’s geographically connected to the rest of the continent, feels like an island in many ways.
It’s two and a half hours to Seattle. The next big cities are Calgary or Edmonton, going east. And there’s nothing between us and Japan, really. So culturally speaking, it’s essentially an island. People in Vancouver don’t realize it, but I think they do once they start going to places in Europe and the UK, and they realize that coming back to Vancouver is quite a challenge for any musician.
Lots of Muzik: Many people don’t know that you represented Canada at the 1984 and 1988 Paralympics in powerlifting, discus and shot put. What did competing at that level give you that you later brought into music?
Ian Gregson: Well, definitely a motivational factor. The thing is, I was never really a team player, and those are individual sports. You recognize that you’re self-motivated, and to be in those sports you really do have to be self-motivated, because it’s a commitment.
I was able to transfer that into music when I started Mr M & The All Nighters, which began as a Northern Soul tribute band around 2007. In the first five years I must have gone through 40 or 50 people in the band. It wasn’t a fully professional thing. It was semi-pro, and people got paid when I got paid. And it was a big band: a horn section with three horns, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and a female singer.
Keeping that going through the ups and downs was a bit of a challenge, but I was highly motivated, and I really felt like it was on some kind of path that only I could steer through. That’s basically what it’s been: that self-motivation, that self-drive, is what got me through some pretty interesting ups and downs over the years.
Lots of Muzik: In 2014 you met saxophonist Manny Albeury. What clicked when you first played together?
Ian Gregson: Well, Manny’s been a very interesting character in my musical associations. I know a lot of people in the Vancouver music industry, but very few of them have clicked with me in a way that lets us make music together.
My first venture into recording was with the band I had at the time. There were six of us, and it was so challenging to wrangle six people into doing a recording. I thought, well, the future isn’t going into a studio and trying to get six people together. The future is working on my own skills with Logic, the instruments that come with Logic, the MIDI and USB instruments.
Then Manny came along and he just fit. He’s such a forgiving personality. And with my recording skills, we could get things done in two or three takes at the most, sometimes just one. He just rolled with it. He’s 82, so he’s got a lot of patience, shall we say. It just happened with him.
Lots of Muzik: As I was preparing for the interview, I read that what started with a few songs has become around 50 tracks. At what point did you realize this was more than an experiment?
Ian Gregson: We did a couple of songs, and then it just turned into… well, I’ve got a whole slew of songs I’ve been recording over the last 12 years or so, so I started digging them up. We released a single at the end of September, “Johnny Drama”, and that’s a song I actually wrote back in 2014. It had just been sitting on the computer. I’ve always gone back to my songs and said, “Oh, I can tweak this, I can do this better.” Then Manny came along with his saxophone and I said, “This one will sound good with a saxophone.” So we added a saxophone part, I tweaked some of the rhythm parts and the drum parts, and it came together as a song.
And I thought, well, there’s no point leaving it sitting on the computer. I might as well put it out into the world. It turns out people still remember who Johnny Drama is, even though he’s from an old TV show, Entourage, all about the film industry. I identified with his character, having worked in the film industry here in Vancouver for many years. And the song is actually based on a Thin Lizzy tune, “Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed”, so it has that funky vibe to it.
That’s the model of what we’ve been doing, although we’ve done some brand-new songs as well. We’ve got about 50 songs in the tank that Manny and I have recorded, so we’re definitely going to be putting out more.
Lots of Muzik: I have to say that the funky vibe on that song was particularly cool. I love funk music, I was really into it, and for me it’s the best song on the record.
Ian Gregson: Yeah, Thin Lizzy were interesting that way. In later years, just before they broke up, they were looking more at a heavy rock, heavy metal vibe, when John Sykes joined the band. But in the ’70s they put out some pretty funky tunes on a couple of albums. They weren’t strictly a funk band or anything like that. But I’m a big Curtis Mayfield fan. He’s been a big influence on me.
And the local funk scene in Vancouver is actually pretty good. There’s a guy here called Henry Brown, who I think is a nephew of Jimi Hendrix or something. He’s a good friend of mine, and I really like what he does with his music. So I love that soul-funk vibe, with the Northern Soul influence as well. And then you have a raging guitar, and that’s where Thin Lizzy comes in.
Lots of Muzik: Flying High has nine tracks. How would you describe it to someone hearing Mr M & The All Nighters for the first time?
Ian Gregson: Well, it’s kind of a split. I’m still contemplating whether I’m a singer and guitar player, or more of an electronic kind of guy. It’s split between both. Many performers have done that, right? There are people with lots of instrumental tracks on their albums, from Zappa to Ultravox. Lots of bands have put out instrumentals, and I don’t see why people can’t do that anymore.
I like playing guitar. And I like the symphonic side, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, the big early-’70s electronic stuff. I love that. Ultravox is a good example, because they really have both guitar and electronic keyboards.
So I try and mix it up. The key is to connect what’s in your head, through the skill of getting it onto the computer, and then get it into people’s ears. That’s where the real skill is. I think I’ve had a pretty good learning experience getting the music onto the computer and making it sound decent. But the challenge has always been getting it out into the world and into people’s ears. That’s why I got hold of my publicity team and said, “I’ve really got to take this up to the next level.” And it’s working out.
Lots of Muzik: When you decided to make a record, did you go in with a clear vision, or did the album reveal itself as you went?
Ian Gregson: No, it came about quite organically, just from working with Manny, my sax player. As I said, we thought we’d try a couple of songs and see how it went. And he said, “Well, I’m free on the weekend. Let’s keep recording.” It just built and built and built. Before we knew it, recording basically over the summer of last year, we ended up with a whole bunch of songs. And that’s where we’re at now. We just want to put those songs out into the world.
Lots of Muzik: What was it like working at Adanac Studios? Did the room or the people there…
Ian Gregson: Adanac Studios is what you’re looking at right now. It’s a bit of an in-joke. It’s basically my living room studio. I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife, so I can do what I want in my own house.
Lots of Muzik: You’re so lucky. I can’t say that about mine.
Ian Gregson: Yeah, some of the girlfriends I’ve lived with were like, “Why are all these cables all over the floor? This is a living room, not a recording studio.” And I’d say, “Yeah, okay, okay, I’ll do it.” It’s interesting that way. A lot of my songs are based on relationships I’ve had, and some of those songs have actually been released. I have quite a bit of material on Bandcamp from before I started working with Manny, so I’m trying to get that out into the world as well.
Lots of Muzik: The record moves from hard-rocking guitar tracks to chilled, atmospheric pieces. How did you decide the running order? Did you want it to flow as one journey, or did you not have that in mind?
Ian Gregson: I didn’t really think about that too much. I knew some songs have a vibe that’s a bit more introductory. But I’m not putting it out on physical media, vinyl or CD, yet. It’s strictly Bandcamp, so people can jump from one track to another. I don’t think the order makes a lot of difference.
We’ve put out two singles now: “Johnny Drama”, which I mentioned, and the new one, “I’m Not Scared”. They’re very different from each other. One is more of a rocking, funky tune, and the other is strictly an instrumental with a lot of atmospherics. It’s just what’s in my head, and that’s been the key: what’s in your head needs to get out into the world.
Lots of Muzik: Is there a song on the album that started as one thing and ended up somewhere completely unexpected?
Ian Gregson: No. Pretty much once I get it down on the computer, that’s it. Most of these songs were constructed and written with the saxophone, the guitar and the keyboards in mind. That wouldn’t be the case if I went back to an older song, and “Johnny Drama” is like that in some ways, because when I wrote it back in 2014 I never thought I’d have a sax player on it. So it depends on the song. But the fun part of working with a sax player is that adding a sax changes the dynamic of a song greatly.
Lots of Muzik: Which track was the hardest to finish, and which one came together almost by itself?
Ian Gregson: They’re all pretty much the same. Once I get on a roll, it just keeps going. “Johnny Drama” had been sitting on my computer for almost 12 years, so it had a different life from a song I’d just put together for Manny and myself, and adapting it needed a few things.
The funny thing about that track is that the original Thin Lizzy tune that inspired it has a fairly complicated drum beat, and I could never quite match it while keeping the same vibe. Then the record label released a box set of Thin Lizzy demos, and that song was on it. The demo version made it much clearer what they were doing with the drums, because it was essentially a demo and wasn’t overproduced, relatively speaking. There were no vocals on it, so I could pick up the beat, the bassline and all the parts much better. That’s when it really came together. The box set came out sometime last year, I think. It’s like something that just sits percolating on your computer for years and years, and you never know when it’s going to be ripe for picking.
Lots of Muzik: These days the new generations are on Spotify, listening to singles more than albums. If a listener only has time for one song from your album, which should it be, and why?
Ian Gregson: Well, it depends what they’re into. The two songs we put out as singles are quite diverse. That was a suggestion from my publicity team: put one song out with a certain vibe, see how it does, then put another out with a different vibe and see how that does. Because they’re so different, the reaction to them has varied, and it’s been very interesting to hear people’s feedback on both.
Lots of Muzik: Are there any plans to play these songs live? And how do you translate those layered studio arrangements to a stage?
Ian Gregson: Very good question. We have an album release party here in Vancouver on November the 7th, the day after the release. I live in what we call a co-op here in Vancouver, and we have a hall with a capacity of about 150 people. It’s just going to be Manny, my saxophone player, and me. We’ll basically transfer my computer arrangement, which is right here in front of me, over there, and use the backing tracks without the saxophone, the guitar and the keyboards.
I actually do a live-streaming show every Sunday from here in Vancouver, and I’ve been doing it that way for many years, long before COVID, when a lot of people started live streaming. So I have the confidence to do it with backing tracks, and that’s the way we’re going to do it. I’ve seen a lot of musicians say, “Oh no, you can’t use backing tracks,” or “You can’t use AI.” But I’ve never found that to be a problem for me.
Lots of Muzik: I was about to ask you: what do you think of AI music? Are you into it? What are your thoughts on artists using it?
Ian Gregson: Well, it’s such an undiscovered country, to use a Star Trek reference. I use it right now, but I don’t use it to create music. I’ve already got my own music, I don’t need it for that.
What I have done, just this weekend, is put out a video for “I’m Not Scared”. In the same way that Logic or Pro Tools in the home enabled musicians to bypass a process that may have been a roadblock for them, putting a video together the way I just did with AI over the last week or so got me past what had definitely been a roadblock. There’s no way I’m going to put out $30,000 for a video. I don’t have that kind of money. But spending $40 a month on a Grok account allows me to do things I just couldn’t do before, and that’s what it’s about. I know it’s controversial at the moment, but of course recording at home with Logic and Pro Tools was controversial too.
Lots of Muzik: Streaming was also controversial.
Ian Gregson: Every technology you can think of was controversial when it first came out. The horse-drawn carriage companies didn’t like the motor vehicle when it came out, you know?
Lots of Muzik: Now we have trucks and cars and flying cars and whatnot.
Ian Gregson: Yeah. There’s always a bit of a kickback against technology, and it’s how you use it. One of the things I really like to do with Grok, which is the one I use, is throw my lyrics into a video. I can create a video with my face, with a band. I just put in a photo of me, and it takes that photo and runs with it. Then I put it on TikTok. In the past I’d never even looked at TikTok, but once I started creating these AI videos, I thought maybe they’d have some resonance with the TikTok crowd. They’re not huge numbers, but people are looking at them. So that’s one step forward, I think.
Lots of Muzik: I’ve got to watch that video. I’m going to look for it.
Ian Gregson: Yeah, I’ll send you a link.
Lots of Muzik: Thank you. Before we wrap up, something more personal. You just found out you’ll be a grandfather in March 2027. Congratulations!
Ian Gregson: Thank you.
Lots of Muzik: Related to that, what do you hope that grandchild hears in your music one day?
Ian Gregson: Well, it’s interesting, because I’ve got two daughters, and neither of them is a musician or particularly athletic. So they haven’t inherited the things I’ve been good at over the years. You never know. It’s such a random thing with children, and subsequently with grandchildren. It’s a family dynamic that is yet to be explored, shall we say.
Lots of Muzik: Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?
Ian Gregson: I believe it’s a boy, yes.
Lots of Muzik: Your first one, right?
Ian Gregson: Yes. And I have daughters, so it’ll be interesting to see how that works out.
Lots of Muzik: Nice. And finally, where would you like Mr M & The All Nighters to go next?
Ian Gregson: Well, we’re going to put out more music, for sure. I don’t see it as a live gigging, touring operation. I’m very much into putting the recorded music out there and seeing how it goes, and maybe playing occasionally, once every few months or so. I do like going to local jams. That’s where I have a lot of fun. But yeah, we’re just going to keep putting out more music, putting it out into the world, and if people like it, I’d love to hear from them.
Lots of Muzik: Awesome. Well, Ian, thank you very much for your time, and for giving us the opportunity to interview you. If you’d like to say something to our audience, go ahead.
Ian Gregson: I’d just like to thank you, Antoine, for taking an interest in the music and in the personality behind it. It’s always appreciated. Thank you for that.
Lots of Muzik: Thank you very much, Ian. Have a great rest of your day.
Ian Gregson: All right, thank you very much.
Lots of Muzik: Okay, bye-bye.
Ian Gregson: Bye-bye.
🎧 Flying High by Mr M & The All Nighters is out November 6, 2026. Listen and order on Bandcamp.
Flying High by Mr M & The All Nighters. It comes out November 6, 2026, on Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
- This Glowing Soul
- The Scorpion
- Happiness Is… [redux]
- The Thinnest Air In The Room
- Johnny Drama [vocal]
- Glory Holz
- I Don’t Believe It
- I Don’t Believe It
- I’m Not Scared
The total is about 47:12. Tracks 07 and 08 have the same name, so check whether one is a different version.
Band members
- Ian Gregson: band leader and founding member, vocals, guitar, keyboards and electronics
- Manny Albeury: saxophone
Personnel
- Ian Gregson: writing, arrangements, drum and rhythm programming, recording and production in Logic
- Manny Albeury: saxophone
- Studio: Adanac Studio
