Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Howard Jones

Transcript

Howard Jones · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Howard Jones. How are good to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: be talking with you? Well, thank you so much, Bob.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's very nice to be talking with you. Okay, people
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: can't see this, but you're wearing a sweater that says
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: nine thirty. What's that about? Um? Well, I I recently
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: played the nine thirty Club in Washington and I've been
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: wanting to play there for so long. They for some
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: reason could never get me fit me in um and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: so I wanted to get some and they gave us
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: some merch at the end of the night. So it's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a really comfy one. So are you the type of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: person who you know? Bill Wyman was the Stalls, was
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a famous collector. He's still with us, but he sold
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: some of his stuff. Do you keep all them? Because
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you know, promoters are legendary for giving gifts to performers.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: You still have all that stuff? Um? No? I mean
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: this was a very special thing for me because I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: normally I don't I wouldn't take any kind of merch
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: from the gig, but I just thought it was very cool.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It's black and I've always wanted to play there, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: everybody asked me what that means. So actually there was
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: one of the few venues where well they actually did
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a baby merch and one of our one of our
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: crew members has recently had a young baby and my
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: wife Jan bought some baby merch that we got some
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: pictures back today with the nine thirty logo on it. Okay,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: so how extensive is your merch that you sell at
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a gig. Well, we always like to sell music because
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you know, that's the most important thing to me. So
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: so they'll always be like the you c d s
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and vinyl if we've got it, um and uh, you know,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of great T shirts, but it's really important
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: to have the music there. And uh do you personally
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: choose the T shirt or as somebody else do that?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And no, no, I get I do get involved. And yeah,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: we we we always spend a lot of time working
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: on you know, what the designs are going to be.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Are they going to be related to the album or
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to the live show or or just an abstract you
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: know design. So yeah, we spend we spent a lot
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of time. So if I go to the gig, I've
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: seen you, but not recently. I saw you at the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: House of Blues in l A. I believe it was
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: about twenty years ago, but um, yeah, I don't remember
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the merge there. But if I go to your gig today,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: are you going to be at the merge table? Am
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I going to get to meet you? No? Do we do?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: We do a meet and greet before the show. Now.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I used to go out to the table, but I
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: found it difficult because it was lovely meeting the fans,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: but there was quite a lot of drunk people and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: they were trying to grab me. So my view has
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: been like, it's much nicer to have some sort of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: dignified greeting with people and be able to spend some
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: time with them and chat properly. So we do that
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: before the shows. Yeah, so you have these meet and greets,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: do you tend to know personally you're hardcore fans. I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: do recognize quite a few of them, Yes, and it's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it's it's very it's lovely actually too to catch up
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: with them, and you know, have this history that goes
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: back you know, maybe you know thirty or forty years now.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know all of them, but they you know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: they will um, they will make themselves known to me.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: You know, they've written something to me on Twitter or
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: something like that. You know, people can eat you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: they can get holding me through email if they try
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: hard enough. And I try and do one reply a day. Um,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: because I can't reply to all of them, but I
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: choose one and at least one person is happy. You
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: know how many people reach out in a day? Um? Well,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: because I don't reply all the time, I probably get
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: about four or five emails a day. Yeah, and I
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: assume they have to be pretty good sleuth. I mean,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: your email address is not that readily available, correct, Yeah,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: that's right. They have to work out. That's a kid.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Let's let's go back to the point of vinyl. If
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I go to a gig, you you mentioned the vinyl
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: may or may not be always available. Do you have
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: vinyl from every album or do you have specialized product
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: for the tour? What do you got? Um? Well, usually
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the tour is is associated with an album, but not always. Um.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You know, vinyl is so hard to get made now,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: so there's usually this big lag. You know that the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: CDs are really quick to make, but everybody wants final
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: so it's taking us like six or seven months to
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: actually get the vinyl done. I was very skeptical about
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: releasing it on violent. I thought, I thought, we've got,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you know, got away from that, you know, a medium
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that's that's got built in noise, you know. I I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it's not the way that I meant it to be
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: when I'm working in the studio. However, I have become
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a convert to this sound and there's something about vinyl.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's very hard to sort of put your finger on it,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: but it's it's you know, it's got a great sound.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It's not the sound that we originally we're hearing when
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: we mix the record, but it's got another sort of
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: level of I don't know, nostalgic associated with it that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: really I think it's nice on the ear. I think
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it's something to do with the the sound waves being
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: rounded off by the process of making the vinyl. So
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I've become a convert. And now we do vinyl for everything.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And you know, Cherry Red handle my early catalog and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: they're constantly putting out vinyl to go with things that
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: people have never been able to get on viol and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: they absolutely love it. So you know, got to go
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: with the fans. That's what they want. Okay, what kind
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of mic are you using there? I'm using an appert microphone.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: But the reaon I mentioned is I'm usually the identical mic.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I could just see. How did you end up with
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the Hide mic club? Well, you know, I've been a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I've been a friend of Bob Clear Mountains for thirty
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: five years and Betty, of course I've known her for
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: even longer, and she runs the company. And so I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: got this nice little present one day, which and I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: think it's a great sounding mike, isn't it. It's unbelievable.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: The analog compression is one of the great features. Yeah, wonderful. Okay,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: let's go back to the vinyl thing for a second.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So you cut digitally, now, how far back in the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: beginning we're gonna like the humans lib was that kind
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of analager digital? Now that was recorded onto multi track analog?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Although you know we were using UM sampling you know, well,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I say primitive, but I mean it was. It was
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: good quality, but it was it only had like a
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: maximum of nine seconds that you could you could you
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: could um you could actually sample. So so although we
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: were recording to analog, we were using UM. You know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: it's sort of up to nine second seconds of sampling,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: which was good for like snare drum samples, based drum
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: samples and sometimes a bit of vocal stuff to fly
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: around you know, the tape. But yeah, it was it
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was human slop and dream interaction actually were recorded onto
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: onto multi track tape. Okay, a little bit slower. Okay,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: why is there? You know we have analog tape that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: runs you know, fifteen or thirty i p s. When
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you say you can only use nine seconds, explain a
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: little deeper what you mean. Yeah, well, it was the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: it was the very early days of digital sampling. So
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: so this was before you know, you had like Aki
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: sound samplers and fair lights and things like that. So
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: in the studio we had a box I'm trying to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: remember the name of it now, and Rupert Hine and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Steve Taylor were you know, early adopters of of this
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of this of this technology, and so they could root
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: anything that was being recorded on a desk through to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the sample. And so for instance, you know, I would
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: run my drum machines. But we we thought, well we'd
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: like a better a better snare sound, or a better
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: bass drum sound, and so we would be able to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: trigger this this sampler, um, you know from my drum machine,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: uh inputs to to actually get you a better sound
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: through it? Or does that does that sound? Does that
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: make sense? Well? I think that about for the amateur
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: one can understand a fifties sevent But let's go back
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to the beginning. So when did you start to play
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a musical instrument? Um? Well, I started around with seven.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: My My parents were Welsh. They both spoke Welsh and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: so in Wales. You know, they grew up in Wales
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and everyone sings and everyone is interested in music. So
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: it was really important for them to for for for
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: their kids to be able to play an instrument. And
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I was the firstborn and so you know, they got
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: me piano lessons when I was seven. Um. I absolutely
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: hated it at the beginning. I didn't have a very
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: inspiring teacher, but they encouraged me to keep going and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I sort of, you know, ground away at it. I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: got to nine years old and my mother always used
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to have the radio on. So at nine years old,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I I heard this song that I'd seen on TV
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: as well, um, and it was the winner of the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Eurovision Song Contests. It was a song called Puppet on
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: a String by Sandy Shaw, and I heard it on
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the radio and I went to the piano and I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: worked out the tune and how to harm anize it,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and I thought, and that was like this massive turning
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: point for me, um that you know, oh, I can
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: hear tunes and I can bring them to the piano
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and start, you know, playing playing them and trying to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: get the chords right as well. So so from that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: moment on, I was very obsessed, unhealthily obsessed person with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the piano. And you couldn't keep me away from it.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, I should have spent a lot more
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: time out playing football with my friends and stuff like that,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: but I was in there banging away on the piano.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: But of course, you know, I guess it paid off
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in the end. It certainly did. But let's okay, you're
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: playing the piano. It's an analog instrument, and you came
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of age with all these digital innovations, etcetera. When did
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you start experimenting with since and drum machines, ettera. And
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: what was the interpiration? Yeah, well, there's a few things.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And when I when I think back, I mean the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: first band I was in It was a band called Warrior,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and this was when I was still at school, and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the drummer in the band was a bit of a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a kind of electronics whiz, and he actually made me
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: a synthesizer from from a kit that they had um
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: they'd had in an electronics magazine. I can't remember the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: name of it, but he actually made me a one
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: oscillators synthesizer that I could play, you know, in the band.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And so I was like, what, wow, this is amazing.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And I'd seen Keith Emerson at the Island White Festival
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy when I was I was too young
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: to be there, but I managed to call my parents
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: into letting me go and saw Emerson with his huge
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Moog modula and the sounds that were coming out of it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It's just absolutely blew my mind. And I kind of
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: that was it. Really, that was the turning point. I
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: think I wanted to be involved in this new way
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: of making sounds and this exciting way of of generating sound,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you know, and being a keyboard player that was gonna,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you know what, I could eventually start to afford anything
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: resembling what Keith had um, you know, I would be
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: i'd be there. I used to hang out at the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: local Hammond Organ's shop in high Wycomb on on a
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Saturday afternoon and sort of go in there and they
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: kindly let me mess around on the on the Hammonds
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and so that was a huge thing for me. I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't possibly afford one of those instruments, so my my
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: parents got me a Larry Heritage um which which they
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: got on HP and then we borrowed a Leslie from
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the drummers parents house and we used to take it
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: round to gigs. Can you imagine this beautiful piece of
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: burning so that's meant to be in the home and
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: we carted it around, you know, all these horrible little
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: gigs that we that we were playing at the time.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so that was me and my obsession with keyboards. Really. Okay,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: let's go back, so at age seven you start playing
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the piano. How old are you when you get infected
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: by the cnd Shaw song? I think I was. I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: was nine or eleven or something like that around that time, yeah,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I think. And then when did you start playing in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: being to start working with people live? Yeah, um, well
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I think I played in my very first band. I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was in Canada because my parents had emigrated to Canada
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: twice in fact, and they came back twice. So the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: second time we were out there, I was at high
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: school and I was invited to be in a band
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and they got hold of a fox Continental for me
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to play, and I played some covers like how So
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the Rising Sun by the Animals and just one or
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: two gigs before my parents decided to move back to
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the UK. So, um, it was really that that. That
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: was the first time I ever sort of played with with,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you know, other electric musicians. Okay, just hold one second there.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: How did they know that you played? Were you like
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: known as the piano guy? Well, yeah, that's a good,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: good question. I during lunchtimes, during my lunch break at
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the high school, I used to get used to go
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: into one of the classrooms where they had a piano
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and start playing, you know, because that's my thing, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: an audience would gather around and that's how they got
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to know. Um, it became a bit of a thing
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and you would play. Did you also sing at the time. No,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't sing at the time because I never thought
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: of myself as a singer, although I sang as a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: child and my parents were both singers, not professionally even
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you know, because they loved singing. Um. There was always
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: music and I used to we used to do Beach
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Boys covers my my brothers and I had three brothers
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and we used to do that, you know, do our
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: best with it with with Beach Boys harmonies when we
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: were really young, when we didn't have any instruments. Um.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so I did sing any behind. It was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: never on my radar to be the singer, you know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That sort of came much later. Okay, let's go back
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to the Beach Boys. Were you singing the Beach Boys
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: when you were in Wales? Yes, yes, you know. One
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of the things about our childhood was that I don't
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: know what if the tradition is still there now, but
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: when we used to visit our grandparents and our uncles
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and aunties, we it was kind of expected that you
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: would do you were, you would do a performance. You know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: they would usually have a piano, so I would play
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the piano and then my brothers would join with me
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and and sing harmonies together. So it was you know,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you kind of it was performing as a natural way
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: of life really, so I kind of think that's the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: way it should be, really it. I love that organic,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the way that music is just part of life and
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: you you learn how to sing, you learn how to play,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and then you go around to somebody's house and you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and you do it for them, you know. I mean
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: it's kind of got blown out of all proportion now,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: you know, big stages and stadiums and things like that,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but that's that's the way it was originally. Well, you know,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you would just gathered together and listen to somebody play
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: or listen to somebody sing. Okay, were you a big
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: beach boy? You know? Um, I was at that age.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: We we were. We were hearing the the um you know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the surf era of the of the beach brobs. So
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you know, on the beach we used to sing um
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: good vibrations. I don't think we were quite up to
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: up to doing that. But it was much later that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I in my life that I realized the genius uh
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you know of other beach boys and I was, I was.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I was a late comer. I was a late coming
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to it, but once I got there, I was like,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: oh wow, this is just so great. Yeah, but what's it?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: What's it like being in Wales listening to surf music.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in the East Coast of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: American Connecticut and I would hear the songs from California.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Sounded like a dream. I wanted to go out there,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: being the surfing culture. But you were in Whales. So
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: what were these songs meaning to you? Yeah, well, I
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: guess you know, it's not so far off really well,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: because well, as you know, you think, Wales is a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: land of song and choirs are everywhere. I remember when
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I was living in Cardiff, I went I used to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: go to a local church where they had concerts on
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and there would be like the Morriston Orpheous Choir there,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you know, hundred piece male voice choir singing, and it
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: just was just part of you know, I didn't you didn't.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't think anything of it at the time. I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: realized now how amazing that it was to have that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: input into my life. Um, and you know, singing was
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: was you know, if you go to a football match
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: or a rugby match, always the Welsh quiet um. You know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: crowds sing so beautifully. They're not only saying that, they
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: harmonized as well. It's a kind of natural ability and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: so hearing the Beach Boys. Really, I guess was oh yeah, well,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you know that's them doing it. But you know in
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the Sunshine in California. Okay, So you were born in
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five the Beatles hit in the UK and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: sixty two in American sixty four. Were you conscious of
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the arrival of the Beatles. Oh yeah, I absolutely was.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I mean my mother listened to the radio all the time,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: so that's what we were hearing all of that. Um,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you know, coming through the radio, and the Beatles were
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: huge in our family and in my life. Um and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: this you know, way before I could I had a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: record player or I could afford to buy a record. Um,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it was yeah, massive, massive influence. But but
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: all the all all those sixties contemporaries of the Beatles
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: as well, you know, Freddie and the Dreamers and the Tremolos,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, I I'd be hearing it, you know,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: constantly and getting very excited. And I'm so glad that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: my mother was a keen radio listener, you know, so
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: because we didn't have any other means of recorded music
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: in the house. Um, so coming through the radio was
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a big deal. Okay, Needles just say, there was music
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: before the Beatles, but in the US was palpable. There
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: was a youth quake, as they put it. Everything blew up.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: There was the Beatles, There was a British invasion and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: ultimately the San Francisco scene in psychedelia, which uh UK
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: had a huge part of. There was traffic, etcetera. Was
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that just music or could you feel that it was
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: really a scene? Into what degree were you dedicated to it? Um? Well,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I I think I was probably too young to be
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: being able to acknowledge any kind of scene, you know
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: what I mean? You know that you don't have any
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: previous with it, you know, you don't you don't have
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: any historical references before that. And but it felt to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: me like the Beatles were young men, you know, not
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: that much older than than you, that were like living
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: through history and reflecting the changes in society with their
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: music and with the clothes they wore, and the and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the films they made and the album artwork and the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: clips that we used to see on you know on
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the TV um you know when they when they when
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: they recorded you know, what is all you need is love?
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: You know? I was remember watching it on the on
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the TV Live as they were doing it, and it's like,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: it's the most exciting thing you could ever imagine. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: it was. It was amazing actually when you think about it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: When I think about it, to grow up with them
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and and their development, and you know, the influence they
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: had on me and my my schoolmates and everything like that,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you know, wearing loon pants and you know, going down
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to Carnival Street to buy clothes and you know, it
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: was like it was so massive. Um. But you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I guess looking back on it, you realize that massive impact. Um.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: At the time, you know, you don't really have any
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: reference bot you just think, oh wow, music is the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: most exciting thing ever in the world, and these guys
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: are the best at doing it. Um. You know. Well,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is, if you're in the UK,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: people tend to look down on Liverpool, Lions and Scousers.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: What was that like? Was there any fascination with Liverpool,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the fact that the ban came from there another band?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: You know, because I hadn't really traveled very much around
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: my own country. I mean, I've been to Canada twice
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and I think one of the one of the times
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: we actually sailed from Liverpool, you know, because we went
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: by boat. But I never sort of thought of it
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: as geographic guard. Just always thought of it as they
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: were in our country, they were of our country. I
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: didn't even think about Liverpool or accents. It was just
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you know, the the the British and yeah, you know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't analyze it any further than that. Do you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: speak Welsh? I can? I can pronounce Welsh and I can.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I can. I can read it and and and and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: pronounce it. I can sing in Welsh, but I don't
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. My parents, my parents spoke Welsh
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: at home, but they didn't teach us because they wanted
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to keep a secret language. Actually that was one thing
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: that was one payoff of it. But the main reason
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: was they thought having to language with languages would be
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: an impediment for us. And of course we know now
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: it's really good to learn more than a language when
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you're young, but we they they held that back from us. Yeah.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And what was their history? Were they always you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: long lineage and uh Wales or what did they do
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: for a living? Yeah? Well, my mother was was was
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: born in Swansea in a very very working class family.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: They lived in a tiny house. She had like six brothers.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: She was the youngest and the only girl in the family.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And her father worked in the in the local toy
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: factory in uh, you know, it was a factory worker
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: down in dan in Swansea. My father came from a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: farming background, parents very so poor that they had to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: send him to live with his grandparents because they couldn't
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: afford to keep him at home with the other two
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: children that they had. So so my father was brought
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: up by his grandparents and they were very keen for
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: him to do well, you know, with his with his
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: with his studies, and he and he and he did
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: very well at school and he ended up going to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: university and going to university in Swansea, and that's how
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: he met my mother. And so my father, from a
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: very poor background, ended up with a good education. And
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: my mother was a very wonderful, wonderful, wonderful woman, just
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: full of love for everyone, and everyone loved her and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: so she she they made a great team, you know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: they uh. And my mother was very ambitious for her
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: children and did everything she could to help us get on,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you know. And what did your father do for a living.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: He was He was trained as an electrical engineer and
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: he did various um jobs during his life. He taught
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a college UM. He was involved with computers when he
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: when he came to Canada and worked for the government
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: on computer programs UM and then when he came back
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to the UK, he was a teacher and math teacher,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and then when he retired he helped my mom run
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: off fan club. So yeah, so were you addicted to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the radio. Your mother was listening, but we were listening
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to Radio Luxembourg Radio Caroline. Absolutely, yes, I was. My
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: My father bought me a little transistor radio and he
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: had one of those little ear pieces. I used to
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: fall asleep listening to Pirate radio and I used to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: go in and out of phase and it was a massive,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: you know, thrill, and it felt like almost clandestine to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: be there, you know, in your bed when you should
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: be asleep, but your yours. You've got your little transistor
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: tucked under the pillow, and you're listen. You're listening to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: all this great music, you know. And what kind of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: student were you? Um? Well, I I think I was.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I was very competitive. I I I wanted to be
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: top the class when I was young and then something
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: happened when I came back from Canada the second time,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I kind of lost interest in school and I started
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: to become a little bit of a disruptive person in
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the class. And you know, I wasn't big and sporty
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: or anything, but for some reason, the kids used to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: sort of look up to me, so if I did something,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: they would also of like join in with me. I
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: feel terrible now we did some terrible things to the teachers. Um,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it just didn't hold hold my
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: own dress any more, you know, the work. And so
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that's when music really took over. And that's something that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: could get so excited about and could put like massive
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: amounts of energy and time into. And you know, I
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: studied classical piano lessons. I I got to grade eight,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: which is the highest grade you you know, you get
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in the UK. And then you know, I was four
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: hours a day practicing. You know. It was I don't
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: recommend it, but I just it was one of those
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: things I had to do. I just had to do it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And what did your parents say, Well, they just encouraged me. Really.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, although I was one of those kids that
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, almost like had a built
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: an agenda from the from a very young age. I mean,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: we came back from Canada two highway come and you know,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I had no friends. I had to leave all all
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: everything I was had going there, you know. I just
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: joined the band, had a girlfriend, and it literally got
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: ripped away. And I came home and we didn't even
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: have a piano. And I said to my mom and dad,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I said, if you don't get me a piano, I
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: will die, you know. And I mean, and in a way,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I know that sounds very dramatic, but but actually it
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: was true. It was there was a part of me
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: that would that would wither away, you know. And bless them,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: they the very next weekend they went to Oxford and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: found this piano. I think it cost a hundred pounds
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and they got a high purchase agreement on it and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it was delivered by monday, you know. And you know
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: it's a quite an old piano. But it did the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: job for me, you know, and I'm always so grateful
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: for them for that, you know, because they did. They
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: really they really responded to my my despair. Okay, how
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: old were you when you went to Canada both times?
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And what were your parents motivation to go to Canada
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and come back. Um, well, I was nine when we
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: went first first of all, and I came back when
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: we were eleven, and then we uh, then we left
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: again when I was about twelve and a half to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: go to Canada and came back when I was fourteen.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So the motivation was, you know, my father was he
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: was restless, and he wasn't happy doing the job he
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: was doing, and he saw Canada as a real chance
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: for something new, and he took the brave decision, you know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to take the whole family. And I mean there was
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: four kids, m and he went out first, and then
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: we followed on the on the boat, you know, and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: then of course he he felt the same. Then when
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: he got to Canada, he wasn't happy there, so he
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: come back, he wasn't happy again, and you know, we
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: went out again. So you know, at the time, I
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: suppose I I was angry with him because you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: he was taking me away from all the things that
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: that I loved and then my friends. And but now
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I think to myself, well, he's very made these bold decisions,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you know, to do monumental you know, disruption to the family.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: But he did it, you know, and I I am,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I can't you know? It was it was it was
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: kind of the making of me in a way. I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: had to be independent and not rely on um others
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: to keep myself in a good place. Okay, so you're
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: playing a band for a couple of dates Canada, you
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: come back. What's how do you get a girlfriend so fast?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And what's the next step in your musical career? Well?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: So okay, So so I'm back in the UK. My
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: parents get me the piano and it's really then, um
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: that I start to you know, I get really into music,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and and people were trading albums at school, you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Vil of course, and bands like Broke oharam Um, you
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: know led Zeppelin and um, you know the Beatles and Stones,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and so I was, I was. I was always looking
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: at to go to shows and gigs and in high
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Wick and there's a place where the high weakn Town
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Hall where they had lots of bands playing. And there
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: was a place in Aylesbury Friars where even more exciting
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: bands used to play. So I'd be I'd be doing that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: And then I met an American guy who was at
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the school I was in, and he played guitar, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it was very keen to former band. And he had
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a house that had a facility for us to be
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: able to room, for us to be able to you know,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to to to play. So I used to take a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: long bus journey every Sunday down to his house and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: we UM and I had a Honer pianet, which is
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a kind of you know, a keyboard with pickups inside.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I used to put it through a vox a C
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: thirty am and I used to use a wid Wi
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: pedal with it and distortion and I could actually get
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: it to sound pretty much like a you know, highly
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: amplified guitar at some some sometimes. And so we had
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: just a whale of a time doing this music. I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: was writing this ridiculously complicated music that lasted twenty minutes
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and it took forever for the other members of the
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: band to learn. But bless them, you know, they did.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: They kind of enjoyed it, and so I I was.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: It was entirely instrumental um. And we played youth clubs
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and we played local halls, and we actually played in
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: our school, and you know, it was like so exciting.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: It's like the most exciting thing you could ever do.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: How could I ever want to do anything else? You know,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it was it was just it was brilliant. Okay. So
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: do you read music? Yes, yeah, okay, you have lessons?
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: When you were playing four hours a day, were you
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: also taking lessons? Yes, yes, oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, okay,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and doing the exams, you know, the music exams. Yeah.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: And at what point do you start to sing? Well,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't until much later that I started
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to sing because although although now that's really interesting you've
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: asked that, because with the band that the band warrior
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Um evolved to get more sort of older musicians because
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: my friend, my American friend, left to go back to America,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and so there was a singer in the band, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I knew a poet who wrote these very verbose poems
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that basically were pros. They didn't have a rhyming meter
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: in them at all. But yet I set them to
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: music and it was so difficult, and I always think
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: that really helped me to develop my own style of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: you know, setting words to music. So I would I
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: would write the vocal melodies for the singer in the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: band and um, but never thought of myself as a singer.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm a keyboard player. I'm I'm Keith Emison,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you know, that's that's who I want to be. UM.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't mutually. I you know, went to music
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: college UM and did two and a half years studying
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: now you know, with a great piano teacher, and then
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: came home and there wasn't anybody around who could sing
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: my my stuff. So I thought, I'm going to have
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to do this. I'm gonna have to sing. I'm just
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: gonna have to do it. I'm just gonna have to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: bite the bullet. And I never thought of myself as
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: a singer. I thought, well, somebody's going to have to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: do it, so it's it's going to be me. And
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I think I carried that sort of insecurity about my
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: scene for a long time. I don't have that anymore.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I've got over it now. But in the early days,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, I have to do it
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: because now there's nobody else there. But I was kind
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: of glad that I did because it was a big
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: part of my my life. Okay, so the band with
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the American was called Warrior. Yeah, okay, you leave after
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: two and a half years at music college because because
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I I was desperate to get on and do my
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: own music. I mean, I didn't know how I was
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: going to do it, but I was. I was absolutely desperate.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I mean I played in bands while I was in
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Manchester up at the college, and I did sessions on
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the local radio, um playing others of you know, contemporary
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: music like you know Stevie Wonder and stuff, every twenty
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: minutes during the night from two a m. To six am.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I do a song every twenty minutes, UM. And it
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: was just it was a legal requirement that you had
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: a life life musician. Um so. But it was fantastic
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: for me because I got to experiment with recording. Because
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I had a little recording studios. I used to bring
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: in synthesizers, sometimes used to bring in friends to do stuff,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and we used to I can't of you know we did.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I did the covers, but we also started to experiment
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: with my own music, and you know, I've got even more,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you know. And then also the brilliant thing was I've
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: forgotten about this is that I had access to their
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: music library where they had literally thousands of LPs and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I could go in there in between doing these little
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: numbers to go and listen to Billy Joel and listen
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to surfs up, you know, and and discover music that
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to buy myself. And so it was,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it was, it was a really cool thing to do.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: But I just got this thing, I'm never going to
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: be a classical musician. The place was full of these
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: genius musicians. Um, and that's not going to be me.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to write my own music
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and do my own thing. So I took the bowl step,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: left college and I went back to live with my
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: parents and got the first job that anybody offered me,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: which was working in a factory rolling surrand rap to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: earn you know, to earn money. And yeah, okay, so
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: how long did you rolls ran rap and what were
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: you doing musically? Yeah? So I think I was there, Um,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: I think I'm so for at least two years, two
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and a half years. And so what I was doing
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: was was, you know, there was a local recording studio
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: forward track recordings too, so I was able to afford
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: to go in there late at night, you know, because
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I was at work during the day. And I started
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to write some songs and record them with a local
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: guy called Derek Tim's who was who was the engineer,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: and you know sort of experimented with things. I mean,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't quite know what to do. Finally, UM left
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: home to go and live with my my my then
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: girlfriend now my wife, Jan and we moved into a
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: bedsit in High Wycomb and you know, we scrimped and
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: saved until we could afford to get a mortgage on
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: a on a small, tiny little house in a quite
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: a rough area of town. And at that point I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: had room to then think about how I wanted to do,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, my music. And I used to give piano
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: lessons after the after the you know factory, and I
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: was at one time I had sixty students, but hardly
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: well less than half of them came every week. Um,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: but I had a room where I could start saying.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: One of my students lent me a drum machine. It
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was called a Bentley rhythm Ace. It's very primitive, like
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: one you'd have with a you know, electronic organ, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I set some of the beats running. I started playing
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the piano with it, and I thought, wow, this could
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: be this could be great. You know, you've got the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: drummer there. With the drum machine, I can play along,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: and so I thought, I can do like a sort
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: of electronic one man band. Here. I get some synthesizers,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: use the drum machine, a little sequencer, UM, and maybe
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: nobody's ever done this before, you know, I thought, wow,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: this is really exciting. Sorry, I went about doing that. UM.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I got a couple of since that I brought up
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: in Denmark Street. One for base, one for the lead lines.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: There were mono since and then I had another keyboard
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: that you know, our pegge add stuff. Then had a
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: little twelve notes sequencer. So it was all very manual.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I had to set everything up before a gig. But
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I started to get gigs. I would play anywhere, and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you know it's hard for any musician getting a gig
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: in it. So we would phone up pubs and say, look,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: we'll set up the stage a little stays in the corner.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: We'll bring lots of people, they'll drink loads of beer
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and you'll, you know, you'll be really happy. And this
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like a regular club gig. I couldn't possibly
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: approach anybody in London. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: ready for that. UM, and we started to build quite
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: a following, you know, with people coming to those little shows. Um,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: people started to start traveling with us. We arranged coaches
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: so they could come to gigs because gigs always wanted
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you to bring your your own audience, you know, so people.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: You know, we used to get sixty coaches filled with
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: people from high Wacker. We travel around the countries. I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: think our record was three coaches for that when we
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: played the Marquis in London, so so and it was
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: It was great because it was such an organic development
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: of the of the sound, because I'd be working away
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: in my front room and then in the evening I'd
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: be out playing it to people, you know, brand new
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: stuff and developing concept of the electronic musician, you know,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: playing live. Okay, it was all original material. When you
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: say we, who was we? Well, it was all It
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: was all original material. I never played anything. The only
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: cover I did was an in La game by O. M. D.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Which I loved so much. Um. Yeah, So when I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: say we, you know, I had to be helped by friends.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: So friends who did sound for me, um, friends who
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: helped me move the gear and then eventually Jed, who
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: was was the mine you know who I saw in
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the audience. He was a friend who danced in the audience.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I thought he should be on stage with me. Let's
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: create characters two to go with the music. So that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: so that, you know, we have something visual going on.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Because I'm a keyboard player, you know, I'm fairly static. Um,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: we need some visual things. So jed was that we
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: got some TVs, uh, and a friend made some video
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: tapes that we could show on the TV. So we
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: had kind of an audio visual alternative, you know, cabaret
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: almost type type thing with it, with all this with
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: all this new electronic music, it was such fun. We
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: had such a great time doing it. And um, it
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: was like there was no fear, you know, he just
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: went out there and tried something new every night. It's
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: just great. I did love those times. I mean, I
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: know how hard it is to gain an audience. Who
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: is managing the audience, who is ordering the coaches, who
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: is spreading the word. Yeah, well my my, my, my
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: wife jan was was organizing the coaches. I didn't have
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the confidence to phone up pubs and say, you know,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: will you have me playing there? So I got my friends.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: My friends do that. So I was I had this, Um,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: you know, a great group of friends who who helped
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: me to do it. Yeah, I mean, and we kind
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: of did it together. And was there any money involved?
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, now we uh we used to sell
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: cassettes that I used to make myself one by one
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: at home and just to pay for petrol and and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: actually to you know, buy food. To be honest, we
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: were it was like, you know, so much with Jan
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: was working at the tax office. I was working in
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the factory, so we weren't earning a lot of money,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and it was all going on funding the you know,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: funding the music. I mean there was one and then
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: one of the jobs that we did was I did
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get out of the factory because I
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: needed more time to perhaps go up to London and
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: see a n R men or whatever that was. I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: didn't even I didn't know anything about the music business
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: at zero. Um. So we were out one night, We're
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: doing this fruit and vege round and a drunk driver
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: hit the front of the van. The van rolled over
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: my wife Jan. She was trapped under the van. I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: was inside the van and was unharmed, but Jan injured
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: her back. She was in hospital and with the money
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: that she got from the insurance of the of the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: driver she wanted to give to me to buy since
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and so I bought, you know, my first Jupiter eight.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And it was a big moment because we both could
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: have be and killed that night, and I thought, there's
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: nothing to lose here. You know, your life maybe over,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: you know, um, in the next hour, the next day.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: So just go for it, you know, go for what
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: you really want to do. Don't hold back, don't have
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: a plan b just go for it. And that really
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: did change and we things really started to move after
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: that because there was this new real commitment. You know,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: there's no time to waste, let's get going. And it
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't very long after that. Well there was quite a story,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: but um, you know I did. Things started to move
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: for me until what happened. Um, well, you know I
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: was I was sending out tapes to everyone and getting complete.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You know, we we still have all the rejection letters.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: It's fun to eat them. Um. All of publishers, all
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the labels big and small, just said no. Except one
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: one guy, um from Stiff Records, and his name was
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Paul Conroy. He was the I think it was that
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: he was marketing there. But he came to see me.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I was playing The Nag's Head in high Wickham and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: he brought Dave Robin Robinson, who was the m D.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Stiff was not a good fit for me really because
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: it was you know, Elvis Costello madness. You know, I
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: suppose you could say, you know, more hip, cool, cooler
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: acts than I was I was ever going to be.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: And but Paul came came to the gig and there
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: was there was some sort of row on the way
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: home with hit with with him and Dave Robinson and
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: his wife. I think there was well, there was a
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: heated exchange and and Paul said, let me out of
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: the car. Now we missed out on Depeche Mode, We're
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: not missing out on this guy. So Paul's commitment was
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: just incredible. And so I was lined up to sign
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: to Stiff. So I was playing a gig in London
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: and I was going to be signing the contract after
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the show, and so the contracts were there. This is like,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: this is my big break. I'm actually going to sign
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: a record deal. And Paul comes in and he says,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: don't sign it. Don't sign I said, what are you
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: talking about. I've been waiting my whole twenty eight. You know,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I'm already sort of past sell by date for a
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: young artists. He said, no, I'm I've just been offered
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: this job with w E A h with with Rob Dickens,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: m D and Max Hole and A and I said,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I want you to come with me to w A.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: What an amazing break to have, you know, And I'm
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: so grateful and they so I was there kind of
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: first signing, so they were absolutely determined that we were
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: going to have success together and we did, you know,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: right from the first single. Okay, a little bit slower
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: you signed the deal? To what degree are the songs written?
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: How do you end up involved with another lyricist? You know,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: did these songs just spontaneously happen or was there a
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: lot of input from Paul and other people? Now that well,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: the songs we were there, you know from all my
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: ho of little gigs I was doing. So the first
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: album was really ready, you know, it was it was
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: it was what I was playing live. And we just
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: needed to find the right person for me to work with.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: And I think it was Max Hole's idea for me
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: to work with Rupert Hind And what a brilliant move.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: That was because Rupert was the perfect person for me
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: and absolutely wonderful man. And Steve Taylor, who I still
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: work with now. Um yeah, it was, yeah, it was,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: it was, It was. It was so excited because I,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the first single, it was a bit of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: a struggle to record and um, you know it there
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: to get other people into sort of fix things. I'd
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: never been in a proper studio before, so I couldn't
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: really add much to it all a while said you know,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: this is what I do, this is what it sounds
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: like live. Um. But anyway, it it came together in
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the end, and it took forever to go up the charts.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I think it took three or three months to go.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Came in at number hundred and six. I think it
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: was actually you're you probably know more than me about this, Bob,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: You're an expert at those sort of figures. But it
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: came in a bit disappointingly, you know, hundred and six,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: and then crept up the charts every week. It's just
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: a few places, a few places, and at any point
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: they could have lost it and it would all have
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: been over. But it kept going, kept going, got top
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: of the pops, and that was it. The floodgates opened
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: and the single ended up at number three, you know,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and we kind of never looked back from there. Really. Okay,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: when the record was finished in the studio, did you
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: think it was going to go up the chart? Um?
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I had. I had no idea. I I liked to
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: think that it would. I had no confidence that it would.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: But I remember um listen listening to Radio one and
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: they had this thing all round table where they reviewed
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: new singles, and it was going to be the first
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: playing of one of my songs on the radio. So
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I was like kind of excited but also terrified. And
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Gary Newman was on the panel, and and and and
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Gary said, oh, I think it's great. I think it's
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: going to be a big hit. So it's like Gary
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Newman is saying that, So so that was I hope
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: he's heard that story because I really want to thank
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: him for it, because it gave me a big boost
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: at the time. It was great. And how do you
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: end up working with lyricist Bill Bryant. Well, Bill was,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: you know, a friend from from the old days, and
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: you know he is very committed to sort of you know,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: philosophical ideas, which was very much in tune with me.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: So he used to give me like, uh, you know,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: sheets of paper with ideas, you know, not really sort
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: of formed poetry, and then I would we weave it
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: into a song. And so there was several tracks on
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: that first album that he had a big input with
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: with you know, with the lyrics. Yeah, and the single
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: was the whole album done when the single came out?
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Or was the single released in moving up the charts
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: while you were still cutting the rest of Humans lib? Yeah? Yeah,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Well the new song was released, and because it took
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: so long to go up the chart, Um, it was
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: good in a way because we had a chance to
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: find the right producer for me, which was Ruper, you know,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: with Steve Taylor doing the engineering. And so as it
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: was getting to do A three, I was in the
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: studio with Ruper and we were we were recording what
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: could be the next single, which is what Is Love?
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: And it was incredibly exciting because it felt like, you know,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: what is Love was going to be you know, this time,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't start at number hundred nine with we would
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: probably be getting airplay straight away. So it was really
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: exciting and I think the energy really um got poured
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: into the album and it was made really quickly. I
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: think it was six weeks it took to do it
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: completely and mixed and everything, and there was a lot. Yeah,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: it was just excitement energy around it all and that
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that gets embedded in the music, you know. And I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: think it was again you know, for me, I've never
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: never recorded a record properly with anybody. So Rupert and
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Steve were We're teaching me how to make records. And
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: it was a fantastic education. It was like, you know,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a university course in the studio. It was just amazing
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: watching them at work and the way they thought, and
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: the way about structure and about placing sounds, and you know,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: it was and Rupert at this great way of making
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: everything fun. You know, it wasn't like a dreary. He
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: would never let me do more than four takes on
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the vocal because he didn't want me to get forward
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: out of my mind. It would be four takes, that's it.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Comp those four and that's it. And that always worked. Um.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: And you know, like very spontaneous performances, nothing labored um.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, all this amazing experience that he had,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: so I gained so much from that. Yeah. Well, my
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: favorite song on the album is Hide and Seek. Can
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you tell me about writing and recording that? Yeah, I remember,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: you know, in our little house in Green Street, coming
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: down one Sunday morning and having this idea for a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: heartbeat rhythm, and I sort of programmed it into the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: A to eight drum machine, you know, Dum dum, doom dum,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: and this song just came. You know, it's it's that
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen to me very often, but this one, it's
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: sort of what came preformed. Um. And I I've been
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: reading a lot of um philosophical works about the you know,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: the Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy coming together, and it
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: very much you know, the idea M Watson wasn't it.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I can't remember his first name. I think it was
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: an English philosopher who had gone to live in California. Alan, Sorry,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Alan Watts, that's right. And I was reading a lot
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: of reading a lot of that, and and he was
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: talking about how you would describe God to a child,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: and he was saying, you know, um that you know,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: telling a story of of of God deciding that he
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: would lose himself in everything, and so you you had
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: to find him. And the fact is that that or
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: he or she you know, you know, um, And so
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: that that that god entity was in everything and surrounding everything,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: and that to me was very much linking Eastern philosophy
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: and Western philosophy at the same time. And you know,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I hope you find it and everything. It's the chorus
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and so you know, that's very much about about that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: theme that that you if you, if you look around you,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: all the answers are there if you if you really
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: open your eyes to what's going on, Um, the answers
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: are right in front of you. And yeah, so that's
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: why this song came from. Really us. How did you
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: end up on an electurer in the US? And you
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: do have a relationship with Barb Kraus, now, yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: well it was it was to do with Bob. Bob
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: came over to London, and you know, because I could
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: have gone with any of the you know, the three
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: companies won his electric so I think that I think
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: they all wanted me, but Bob was the the guy
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: who you know, I mean, he really impressed me, and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: he was so full of life and such a big character,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: and he convinced me that they would do a great
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: job for me, and they did, they really did. Okay,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: this you're considered part of the group of the English
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: New Wave, and certainly that coincided with the explosion of MTV,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: which leads us to videos. At what point did videos
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: come into the picture? What was your experience there? Yeah, well,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: videos for me were right right for the beginning because
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: new song, you know, we're starting this new era. Everyone
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: was doing a video and the new song video. I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to be involved in the you know, in the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: narrative of it because yeah, because you know, I'm very
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: involved in my in everything to do with my music,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: I want to be very involved with the video. So
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: we thought we'd doing almost like autobiographical video of me
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and Jed, you know, being in the factory. Um it
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't a surround rap factory. It was that, you know,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: it was we found a pickle factory and we're bursting
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: out of the of the factory, jumping into a Rolls
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Royce and driving off to you know, price sunny future.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: But also we go into we go into a school
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: as well, and you know, you know, trying almost like um,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: you know, cause anarchy in the in the classroom. Um,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: sort of mild really, you know, taking you know, making
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: fun of the of the teachers and standing on the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: desks and then you know, and then running out. You know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: we're running out of the school with the kids. So yeah,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: so it was really good fun. It was such good
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: fun making videos. It was done in a day. It
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: didn't cost sadly anything. Um and you know that was
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: what you know, we thought, you know, we're making this
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: for MTV and and it was great. It was going
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: to be shown, you know. So um yeah, I'm so
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: glad that I've got the chance to work with visual
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: side of things, because you know, you have to think differently.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: You have to think about what it looks like, you
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: have to think about clothing, you have to look think
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: about narrative and what you stand for, and it sort
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: of expands that are creative process. Really, I loved it. Okay,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: what's it like suddenly being in the Maelstrom You go
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: from nowhere to having multiple huge hits. Yeah, well it was.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. I don't think
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: anybody could be prepared for that unless you were brought
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: up in a celebrity family. I suppose you might understand
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and then probably would put you off for life ever
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Um, it was just that I
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't go anywhere. When I tried to go into town,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I got chased by you know, thirty thirty teenagers. I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I had to sort of hide away. I mean,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I was it was it was a shock because I
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't living in London. I was living outside. And you know,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: I think in London you can you can, you can
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: be known and sort of walk around the streets and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: find like you kind in New York or l A
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: or somewhere, but but not not in not in High Wycomb.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: And it was it was a shock, but it was
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: incredibly exciting at the same time because you were doing
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the things that you dreamt that you may be able
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: to do one at some time, being on a TV,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: doing great gigs, doing big gigs, you know, meeting people
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: that you never met before that you'd put up on
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: a pedestal and you know, I mean just going to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Top of the Pops and seeing all the bands and
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and and saying a load to that. I mean, it
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: was just it was fantastic. So that on one side
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: is things are never going to be the same because
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: overnight everyone knew who you were so you. And also,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I was quite recognizable all the way I
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: looked and dressed, so I wasn't going to be able
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: to hide that very easily. So your freedom gets taken
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: away a bit in one way, but then a whole
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: new world opens up. Now. I was very lucky because
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I had my friends around me at that time, you know,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: a jan Um and people who did my sound and
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: people who did my lights. You know, they've grown up
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: with me. They'd seen me come from nothing, so I
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: had them to help me stay grounded as a person.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: And you know those people, Most of those people ended
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: up doing Madison Square Garden with me, you know a
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: few years later, and I'm really proud of that and
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: that the same team was still still with me. And
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: I think they protected me from losing my mind, which
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I think can happen. What about the temptations, Well, you
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: know I've got my jan you know, my my lovely jan.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So I I was not I was not on the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I was not looking for a relationship that really helped me.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I used to drink, but I used to
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: drink before I got famous. I you know, I have
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: a few pints down the Bann the pub not anything
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: of a problem. I'm not interested in drugs, so I
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: didn't really have that side of it. We didn't live
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: in a drugg area in the High Wyke Um particularly,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: I wasn't in London and New York, so I think that, yeah,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: I just didn't go that that way. And I think
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: because I was older, I got signed, So maybe I've
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: got a lot of that out of my system, you know,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: before before before that struck. And when did you see
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: any money and what did you do with it? Well,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: they said they told me that I recoup my advance
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: with the first single, so isn't that amazing? Um? And
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: also my manager, David Stops made sure that I owned
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: my own publishing right from the beginning. I was administered
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: by Warner Brothers, but it was owned by me. They
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: didn't own a share of it. And I'm eternally grateful
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: to him for that. You know, he knows that I've
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: told him so much because it's it's because I write
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: everything myself, so so it's it's it's really important that
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: you you've got something, through good times and bad that
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: can fund what you really want to do, you know,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: with your with your career. So just fantastic. But that
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: and then you know, I could afford to make really
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: good videos with great video directors, you know, because the money,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the money was coming in. Um and then
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so so I've kind of been very
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: very fortunate in that in that way. But I come
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: from a background where you know, we never had any money.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: So I don't think that ever leaves you. You know,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: you you always I want to be careful, you know,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: want to be careful. Have you know, make sure that
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: if something, if something goes horribly wrong, that you've got
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: to be of a backup. You know that you because
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: I couldn't exactly go back to working in a factory
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: now you know, wouldn't It was not going to work,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: so um, so make sure that you you know, take
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: you know, make sure that you have got back up.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Do you still own your publishing? Yes? I do. Yeah.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Would you ever sell it? That's a really good question
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: because I've thought about it quite a lot, because I
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: get why people towards the end of their career, end
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: of their life consider it because they don't want to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: land their kids with a massive problem or you know,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: of administering you know, your your legacy it's not you know,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: it's not theirs, it's it's yours. You're handing them a
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: bit of a problem. And I think that a lot
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: of my you know, I've had this conversation with a
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: lot of my contemporaries about, you know, why they would
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: consider doing it, and I think, you know, in the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: next few years, I will, I will think about it, um,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: but it would. The reason for that is to make
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: it simple for my my kids. And how are revenues
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: from publishing these days? Yeah? Well, that that good because
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I still get played on the radio pretty much as
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: much as I've always been forgetting savings. Can you just
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: live off the income of your songs? Yes, yes, that's fantastic,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: comfortably do that. Yeah. Okay, so you have this huge
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: success on the first album, How inhibited are you about
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: going in and making a second record? Are the songs
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: already written? You have to write on what? Well? I
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: was absolutely terrified about writing the second album because I
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: had the songs the first one, I had nothing for
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: the second one, and and I was working literally every
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: day in some capacity, promoting in the studio, doing TVs,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: and it even included like being going to children's hospitals
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and on Christmas Day, you know, to it was literally
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: every day. So where how the hell am I going
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: to write? And you I was terrified because it taken
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: me so long to get to the point where I
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: had a record deal and I had some success. I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: didn't want to blow it. You know, it's like, oh,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was scared. So I thought, well,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to write on the road. I'm
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: going to you know, in those times between the sound
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: check and when you go on stage. I'm going to
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: have to be writing wherever that is. So I got
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: this twelve track recorder that I could that my road
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: is set up for me in in every in every
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: dressing room, and I would write, you know, in the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: afternoon after sound check, and gradually got together some songs.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: And it was interesting because because you're on the road,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: it's all very exciting, and you're playing to these massive
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: audiences and they're loving it, you know, so it's wonderful feeling,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and so you can draw on that energy and put
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that into the music because often, you know, I found
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes in the past when you're when you're writing a
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: new records, you're at home, adrenaline is not flowing you
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: can be quite introspective and the music won't really be
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: really event to going out there, you know, being extravert.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: So writing on the road, although it was very hard
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: to do because you have to be disciplined about it. Um,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: it was. It was really grabbing some energy from those
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: from those gigs in the evening, you know. It was
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: really amazing. And then I used to make cassettes and
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: then going on a tour bus and play it to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: the band and say what do you think you know,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: and like to try out in front of my uh
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: my band. So yeah, I managed to do it somehow,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: and you know, despite all those all those difficulties and it, um,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it turned out okay. So you do the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: second record also successful. How do you end up leaving
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: uh Rupert and end up going with a Reef? Yeah? Well,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean I were going to be completely
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: honest about this because you know, looking back, I thought
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: for a start, I should have should have had a
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: conversation with Rupert and Steve about this because we'd had
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: just massive success with this, you know, with the with
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the first two albums, and why would you want to
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: go you know, we we'd loved each other, you know,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: we had a great time making the records. Why would
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: you want to go with another producer? But I suppose
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: for me it was like the record company had suggested
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: are Iff and he had just worked with Skritty Polity,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: who one of one of my absolute favorite bands of
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: that era. I just absolutely loved what what they did,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: and I loved what, you know, the the unbelievable legend
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: you know that Aeric Mardin was and his was um
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: you know, had brought to their music. You know, it's
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: like I'm from that, I'm from that place. So it
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: was so tempting to to to to get have a
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: new experience, you know, and I'm a young man. I
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: want to learn as much as I can from people,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: and so I got really really excited about that, and
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: it was it was great working with Eric and he
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: was wonderful. And my only tinge of regret was that
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't give him more control of the help because
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: I just must be I must be control free. Really,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: I just want to you know, it's just working with
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: this man who's like got a lifetime of experience of
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: making some of the greatest records ever made. Make sure
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: that you give that person a chance to do his thing,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and I I think I could have done
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: that more. But there we are. You know, you're a
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: young person. What you do benefit of hindsight? And did
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: it kill your relationship with Rupert? Oh? No, absolutely not, no,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. We we we we stayed absolute lifelong friends.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: I mean I was. I was with him two days
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: before he passed away, you know, when he was on
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: his on his deathbed and I was there and I
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: was talking with him. Well he couldn't really hear me
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: by then. But um, all through my life, Rupert has
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: been there and he's been a supporter of mine. He's
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: been executive producer, he's been year leader, and he's always
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: been he was always it was always there for me.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: It didn't affect it at all. And what one incredible man. Okay,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: so no one is to blame. Is on the second
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: album with Rupert, but the hid version is with Phil Collins.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: How did that come together? Yeah? Well, the original version
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: on Dreaming to Action and it's quite stark, you know,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: It's got these really brutal drums, a bit of piano,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: and it's it's stark and I love it. I but
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I did think that the song, you know, I'm I'm
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: I'm a radio guy. You know, as I was telling
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: you from the beginning, lots of bands didn't want to
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: be on the radio. I did the radio. You can
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: listen to the radio anywhere. I mean, it's what I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: grew up with, you know. So I thought, we I'm
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: sure we can do a version that could be played
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: on the radio. And so we tried. We tried at
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the farm yard, you know, you know, we gave it
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: another go and it didn't quite work out, and so
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: I kept going with the idea. You know. It was
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: instigated by me um and I think I even played
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: it to Bob Krasnow in his office once and I said,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: you know, because they he still had a piano in
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: his in his in his office and I played in
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: the song as I really think this could work at radio,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: and he said no, no, he said, you know, it's
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: a it's a B side. Man. Um. I kept still
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: kept believing in it. So I got to know Phil
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: through doing Princess Trust things and charity stuff. Really got
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: on well with him. We had a great time together.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: And so David approached him and I think the record
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: company as well, to see if he would be up
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: for it, and he loved the song, recognized what he
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: could do with it, and we did it in two weekends.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I brought Afro Dizziac, my backing singers down
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: to seeing I programmed up at two bar pattern for
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: him to play drums too. I persuaded him to sing
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: on it, um and it was just fun. It was
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: really fun making it, you know, because it was so quick.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: It's just the piano part was done in one take.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: Um and yeah, it just just came together. It was brilliant,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, Radio really really liked it, so I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: did get I mean, the only thing I'd say is
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: that as big as it as it was not, people
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: don't know that it's me because it was quite different
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: to everything else I've done. So but you know that's
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: my job now is to connect that those two things together.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: What did Grass now say when you came back with
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: the finished product, Well, you know, he's he's he was
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: very he was very pleased. He was very pleased. I
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: don't you know, yeah, oh yeah, I guess you were right.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: So then you end up producing yourself. M Is that
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: because you're a control For you to say now I
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: want to be in control, Well, you know it was.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: It was to do with you know, I built a
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: studio at home. I've got young children now, so I
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: didn't wanted to be at home more. You know, we
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: used to take the kids when we when they were
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: very little, on the road, but I wanted to be around.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: So I had studio and I had all the time
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: in the world to, you know, to work on stuff.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so I felt confident that I could do that.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that was a bit misplaced. I
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: think it's always good too to have someone else giving
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: you another opinion and guiding you through. I think that's good.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: So I didn't really have that, so but you know,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: still did, okay, I think. So how did it end
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: with you in the major label? Yeah? Well, yeah, I
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: mean there was a five album deal come to the
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: end of it, and I was kind of hopeful that
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: they would want to continue with me because I absolutely
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: felt that I tons more to to give, and no
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't want to, So I mean, in
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: a way, it was you know, I was devastated at
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: the time. I thought, this is the end. I'm finished.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: I won't ever make a record again. I will now
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: drift into obscurity. And nobody will ever want to know
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: about me again. I was very I was really depressed
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: actually because it is what I I wanted to continue
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: and I love the people that I was working with.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: It's not like I had a bad time with the label.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: These are people I really liked, and I know a
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: lot of artists don't have that situation. But I had
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: a great time. They were great for me, to me
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: and for me. Um. But it was good because six
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: weeks of depressure and I thought, hang on a minute,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: this is the best thing has ever happened to me.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: I can now become an independent artist because the tools
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: were starting to become available to us. The internet was developing.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: You could contact people yourself. Um, I booked a tour,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: I made an album really quickly, got it out, made artwork. Boom.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I was off and it was a whole
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: new adventure where you could be I say, in control,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: because you're never really in control of everything, but you
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: can lead the direction of your career in your life.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: What about the lack of reallyal success and reached that
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: a major label can give you? Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Well I knew that. I had to say, you know,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have that, UM, And it was a new era.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I was now in dialogue with my fans,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: and it was it was really about you know, really
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: looking after them, UM, new new albums, new material, you know,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: great touring, UM. And it was about and I think,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: you know, there really is a place for that. I think,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're starting your career, it's really absolutely
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: brilliant to have a major label firing on all cylinders
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: for you. But then when you you know, when you
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: want to really sort of follow your own course and
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: not be in that game anymore, it's great to be
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: independent and really sort of think about that relationship with
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the fans. As you're growing up and getting older, they
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: will be to what's going to be relevant to them.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: You're not going to be writing pop songs for you know,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: for pop radio now you're you're you're going to be
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: writing songs for people who are having kids and going
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: through breakups and struggling with you know, with money and
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: stuff and and and problems and that everything that comes
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: with growing older. So that's not really material for you know,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: for young people and stuff. So it really fitted for me, UM.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: And I've been you know, I've been. I've been. I've
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: been really happy to Uh how did you end up
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: in the restaurant business, Well, you know, I've been. I've
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: been a vegetarian since I was twenty one, so that
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: was that's a big thing for me. Um, there's never
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: anywhere to eat. So David, my manager, David Stuffs, and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: I decided that we would open a restaurant and crazy
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: mad idea, I mean, and in New York as well,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: where we don't live, you know. Um. So we had
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: this idea that we would get amazing chefs, the menu
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: would be so exciting that it didn't matter if you're
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: a vegetarian or not. You would love the food. And
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: there's a bar there, there's a jukebox, it's great art
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: on the walls and all those things. We did, you know,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: and it and it, and when it worked, we had
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: fantastic people coming down. Lou Read, Madonna, Michael J. Fox,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: the British bands were coming over from the UK to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: play in New York would come down and we fulfilled
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: all all that stuff. But we we we did lose
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of money. Um, and the place almost burnt
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: down to the ground as well. So I think it
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: was two and a half years. It lasted and and
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: we had to finally close. But I like to think
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: that it helped the cause of more vegetarian places or
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: vegetarian food being available, you know, after that, and that
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: we sort of maybe helped us to push that idea
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: forward with people that it could work, you know, and
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: it could be great, fantastic, yummy food. Yeah. So yeah,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I don't regret it, um, even though it probably would
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: have been a better idea to buy an apartment in
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: New York. Okay, have you consistently It's hard to tell
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: from the outside, have you consistently played music, made music,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: gone on the road or once we hit the nineties
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: and the turn of the century, where's were there a
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: few years or when you stepped away and said, lean,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something different. Now get perspective. Mm Um,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: there was There was definitely a time, um, and I
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: think you're right, you know, during the early nineties where
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: I just felt nobody really wanted to know at all
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: about me and my music, and probably some of my
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: contemporaries as well would be in the same position, um.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: And the eighties were so poorly regarded in high fluting
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: so or as as a you know, it's not a
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: particularly great decade of music, but which obviously I I
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: disagreed with, but it was the sort of common feeling
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: UM and you know, it was it was a time
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: of reassessing everything and I thought, you know, I didn't
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: do so many shows. I you know, nobody wanted to
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: put you on, and you know, yeah, it was, it was,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: it was. It was a bump in the road absolutely, UM.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: So that I think he was to you know, go
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: back to my roots, which I went. My roots were electronic,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: you know, generated music, and so we did this crazy
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: UM tour where we played the sort of almost like
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: big pubs around the UK, and we did it all electronically.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: It was different every night. We had lots of UM
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: sampling going on, and that Robbie was out on the
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: mixing desk is actually in the band now, but he
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: was out on the mixing desk doing all kinds of
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: sound manipulation and so a lot of experimentation was going
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: on and we used to record it and make c
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: d s on the premises that night to sell to
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: the people. So they actually got CD that with artwork
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: generated from the gig before they left the venue. We
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: couldn't always fulfill all the orders, so we had to
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: send them on. But we may be one of the
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: first people to do that because we were doing it
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: with like conventional CD burners. We weren't doing it with
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: industrial levels stuff, you know. Um, And so it was
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: just thinking, you know then, and really that's the roots
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: of where I've got back to today, was that, Um,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: we just kept incrementally making things better and developing a
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: kind of hybrid between electronic music and great playing. And
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I think that's where, you know, where we've got to now.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: But it was it's sort of reinventing all that stuff. So, yeah,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: it was it was it was a it was a
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: you know not it was a weird time for us
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: during the the nineties, but you know, it gradually started
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: to come good. You speak about the denigration of the Elias.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Although I'm a big fan, you've gotten a good number
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: of negative reviews. Now, that was a different era where
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: people now it doesn't even apply guys, you know, without
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: a date and skinny jeans judging everything. But how did
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: but how did you handle that? Oh? I didn't handle
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: it very well. At first. I realized I mustn't read
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: it because it was poisoning me, you know, because I
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: had so much abuse. Really it was um. You know,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: the bit that hurt most was that I was manufactured
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: pop star and it couldn't have been further from the truth.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: You know. It was a totally grassroots lead thing. You know.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: I I started playing in the most humblest places and
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: build a following um that wanted to follow me around
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: around the country. And I was doing something that nobody
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: had done before. Yeah, and uh so it was hurtful.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone said, Howard Jones doesn't need to turn up
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: to his shows, just sends the gear and his roadie
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: presses the button. You know. The the level of kind
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: of ignorance about what we were doing was like gross.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: But and then there was this whole thing about anything
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: that was involving synthesizers was had no soul and it
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: was soul less music. Um, it was mechanical. And you know,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: as I absolutely fight that I had, the Musicians Union
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of me, um, to ban me
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: from being in the Musicians Union because they said I
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: was taking work away from musicians. It was like every
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: front you're being attacked. And then at the same time,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: the fans and people who loved the music were just
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: you know, loving it. And I used to get really
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: annoyed that people would right off the eighties as a
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, as a as a terrible decade for music.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: But I used to say, well, hang on a minute,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: aren't you writing off a whole generation of people at
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: the same time. It's like that actually loved that music.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: Of course, you know, things have changed now and I think,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it has become recognized as as yeah, great,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: it's a great exciting time for for music and very
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: diverse as well, and so that's great, But but you know,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: we did have to go through that period of yeah,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: bumps in the road. Yeah, there's it's part of life
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: in it. So how did you meet Jeanne and what
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: made it sustain? Okay, so, jan we've been together for
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, fourty five years or something like that.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: I was best friends with her brother and he was
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: the one who enabled me to go to the Isle
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: of Wight Festival in always be grateful to him for that.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: My parents wouldn't wouldn't have let me go unless he
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: had been there. So his young sister, jan Um I
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: got to meet through him, and she wanted to have
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: piano lessons, and so I taught her to play the
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: piano and she actually got to grade five, which is
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: you know, she's quite good really, and um, so obviously
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: we weren't going out or anything at that time. But
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: then I went to music college, came back, she went
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: to college, and then we we met up and that
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: was it. We we we moved out into our own
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: bedsit places, one room room and built our lives you know,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: from there, from nothing. Really it was it's a great
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it. Really, you know, we literally
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: had nothing and we just at a great time. You know. Um,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: we we've always had each other as support. And you know,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: I'm I am an artist, and I am subject to
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: the you know, the you know, the criticisms and the
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: and the ups and downs that you get when you
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: stick your head above the parapet and you say, oh,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: listen to my music, you know, and obviously there's going
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: to be people that I don't like you doing that.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: And and so having somebody like jan who always grounds
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: me and reminds me of what's real has been like
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: it's been the joy of my life. You know, whatever
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: may be going on around I that the real joy
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: has become has come from our our relationship. Okay, you
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: also played Live Aid, which was such a big deal
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: at the time, but it has become absolutely legendary, iconic
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: on the level of the original Woodstock. How did you
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: end up being on the show and what was your experience. Well,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: I missed out on being on the single do they
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: know It's Christmas? Feed the World? And I really felt
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: that I should have been part of that. I sort
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: of raise my hand and said, I need to be
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: on this. I really want to be on this. It's
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: such a great thing. I missed out. So when I
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: heard about Live Aid, I said to David, you know,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: we have to get in touch with Geldof and let's
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: say that I will do anything to be part of
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: this because it is such a great thing to be doing.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to save lives with this. It's
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna be brilliant, and I want to be
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: part of it. I want to throw my weight behind it.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: And Geldof, you know, it's very pragmatic, he said, you know,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: you you you you've to be on it. You've had
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: to sell a million albums in the last six months,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: and I at that time in my career. That's that was. Yes,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: so we we we had shows on the on the
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: west coast of the of the U S. I flew
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: back to London with Afro dizzyact, my three backing singers,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it was, it was. It was just such.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: I met, I met Diana Um, I met David Bowie.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: I hung out with McCartney and Linda McCartney. Linda took
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: a picture of me and Paul. I got to do
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Hide and Seek, my favorite on. I mean, there's so
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: many things that happened to me that day. It was.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: It was. I can remember all of them, and it
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: was just brilliant. Flying in the helicopter, a copter with
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: members the Queen Um, David Bowie, knowing who I was
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: and knowing that I was doing pretty well in America,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: performing outside a cappella with with the girls appetusiac Um
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: to two people, one of them was towns End and
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: one of them was David Bowie. I mean, all these
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: stories that I these people that I thought I would
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: never meet. I mean, who was the first band I
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: ever saw when I um in Canada going to a
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: proper concert and you know, having towns End standing in
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: front of you listening to your music. Was that's it's
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: just great? I don't know it was it was I felt.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: I feel really privileged that I was a part of it.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: And with regard to feed the world, do they know
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: it's Christmas? I invited Midsyear to tour with us this
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: summer and we were trying to work out what song
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: we should do together, and I said, can we do
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: you know, feed the World? Because he hardly ever does it?
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: You know, he wrote that with with Geldorf, of course,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: and so I got to do it. I got to
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: sing all the parts I I. You know, if you
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: wait long enough, all your dreams have come true. Right. Well,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: I hope that's true. One of my dreams will be
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: able to talk to people like you bridge that gap.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: How did I want to thank you so much for
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: taking the time to talk to me, Well, thank you,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: Bob the legend that you are for for doing this
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: interview with me. I really really appreciate it. And it's
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: a love to do an in depth thing like this.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed your your podcast with Darryl Hall. I
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: learned so much from that. I learned so much. It's
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: so it was very inspiring, so thank you for having
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: me absolutely until next time. This is Bob left, set
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: H