Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Rod Argent

Transcript

Rod Argent · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Barbed Left Podcast. My
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: guest today is Reman with the Magic Mean Yes what
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: origin himself? What are you doing? Pretty well, considering Bob,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: considering what we've been through and you know, and and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the frustration of not being able to work as much
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: as we want to. But there we are, okay. So
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: have you coped with a lockdown? Well? I have to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: say that the first two months I was really enjoying because, um,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'm here with my wife. I've never spent a spring
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: since we've been in this house, which is in the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: past six years, and it's in the most beautiful setting,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and I've never had the chance to share with her,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you know, everything coming out in wonderful bloom and walking
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and being able to spend time with her. I've always
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: been on tour somewhere, which is fine in itself. But
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for those first two months, it was like a justified
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: holiday and something that we really enjoyed together. But I'll
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: tell you what, after about four or five months, I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: just had enough And now I'm screaming because we started
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a new album and um, I'd already ready written three
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: songs for it, and we we got into a finished
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: stage and we were really feeling like we were rocking UM,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly we couldn't do anymore. And and uh,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: we did another couple of tracks where I could actually
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: use technology as it is and sending over what we
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: used to call the tapes a long time ago to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: UM to a bass player who lives in Denmark and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: he would put his part on, you know, in the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: way that people do like that. But I love, actually
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: on some of the songs the whole band to be together,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: because sometimes it can take you in a direction, even
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: when you're on sound check and you think you've got
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: something that really works, UM, but it tells you within
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of minutes no, that that that's that's not
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: how I thought it would be at all, and you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: take it into a different direction. And so we've got
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: our first meeting and rehearsal together and recording with the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: whole band again together UM in two weeks time, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I'm so looking forward to that. I have to say, now,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you say you're in this beautiful occasion for the last
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: six years without giving the address, generally speaking, where is it.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It's in It's in Hampshire, UM, and I'm about an
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: hour south of London and it's in the beginnings of
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: what is known as the South Downs National Park. So
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the countryside around here is absolutely glorious. Um And I
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: had no idea it was as absolutely lovely as this,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: but it really really is. Everywhere you go in whatever
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: direction you go, you go through gorgeous villages, gorgeous protected countryside.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a very lucky place to be.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I think we're very lucky. So if you've only been
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: there for six years, where were you before and what
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: motivated you to here? We were actually in a house
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that we've been in for thirty eight years in Beforshire,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: which is north of London. Um, in a little village
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: called Silso and Stilso was a lovely little village when
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: we first moved into it, but as is the way
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of the world, it got gradually built built up more
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and more, and bypasses and and main traffic roads went
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: all around the place. Um and it's I think we've
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: just got out in time. My wife said, UM, if
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we are going to move, we've got to do it
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: now before we get too old. So so we made
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that decision. Okay, generally speaking, are you turned on creatively
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: by the city or by the country's isolation help or
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: does inspiration come from other actions going downtown people come in. Well,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I mean anything can give you a little bit of inspiration.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And when when you're in lockdown and you're not doing
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: anything at all, um that that's not the greatest place
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to be. Um. I always remember Charlie Parker reading about
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Charlie Parker saying that UM to a young Miles Davis.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I think it was so it might have been somebody
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: else saying, listen, whatever you do, even if it's just
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a walk outside down the alleyway in between sets, do
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it so that you get some sort of outside input
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that can just I don't know, just broaden your perception
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, in whatever way. And I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: think that's very true. Actually, I think you do need
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: um other things going on. And I have to say
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the more I've been in lockdown that to some degree,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the less I've wanted to go out, and I don't
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: think that's a good thing. Um Well, I found the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: same thing in that I'm almost you know, the first
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: month or two of lockdown, people called you haven't heard
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: from in years. Then that stop. It's like I don't
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: want an intermediate zone. I want to be hunkered down
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and then if everything's open, I'll go out in between.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It is just too frustrating. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So how
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: have you filled the time you're reading, you're listening and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: s eating? Would even doing? Yeah, I mean I have
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to say so that much really current music, and um,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe that's just a factor of my age. Really, UM,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I still do you know what. I still go back
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: sometimes and play the early Ray Charles records or UM
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: or the Miles Davis um albums Night when he first
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: got together with John Coltry and Canniball Laderie, and I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: can still sing some of the solos on those very
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: first records that I that I got to know in
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: those days. And I've got a jukebox, and my jukebox
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: is full of early Elvis and Little Richard and and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you know all those all those things, um, And I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: do find from my limited perception, I do find quite
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of modern music. Not everything, but quite a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: lot of modern music, a little bit mechanical in in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: just it's just the way it affects me. And I
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: often think that where and when we started out to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: make anything work, you had to make You had to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: have a structure that worked. You have to you have
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to write something with a good chord sequence with um,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: with something that just works and builds and has a shape. Um.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And these days it's to make something work. You can
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: every everybody samples things, and you can just loop a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: drum loop and you can get a great sounding little
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: bass loop and throw that on and and and it
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: sounds like a groove immediately. And you can put two
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: or three things together and it almost sounds like a record.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And and then you auto shoot the vocals and you
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: get that sort of metallic sound on the voice that
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: everyone seems to have these days. Um. You know, I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm this is a huge generalization, and I
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: quite understand that. No. I mean, the you know there
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: thinking amongst older people is if you trash the younger music,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you just don't get it. It's a nege. But we
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: lived through the Renaissance. I mean, I always say, like
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in painting and sculpture, there was only one renaissance. They've
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: been painting and sculpting since then and the era certainly
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you were a member of that in the sixties and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the seventies. That's why they call it classic rock, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: switching gears a little bit. You talk about your wife,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You've only been married once, right, I've only been married once.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I met my wife when she was eighteen and I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: was twenty two. Uh, and we we sort of lived
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: together for a few years and then we got married
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two. And I'll tell you what, Bob,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and this is not just sentimentality. We're happier now than
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: we've ever been. Okay, what was she doing when you
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: were she was eighteen? And where were you at in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: your career when you were twenty two? Um, when I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was twenty two, we'd already I was nineteen when she's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: not there, became a number one record in cash box. Um,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and our first gig in America was at the Brooklyn
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Fox Mary the Case Show Christmas Day in nineteen sixty four,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and we were we were scared shitless actually, because we
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: we thought, here we are five skinny, young white Englishman
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and we're going to go and play with some of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: our heroes, like you know, Benny King, Patty LaBelle was
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: on there, Um, Dion Warrick, and and we thought they're
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: gonna hate us because they're gonna say these guys coming
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: over and creaming, you know, creaming everything, and they're just
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: bringing back American music. But it's a pale imitation. But
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that wasn't the way they they looked at it at all.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And I remember we actually walked into the Brooklyn Fox
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and we had a sound check and the person sound
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: checking before us was Patty LaBelle, and we thought, oh
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: my god, you know, how how are we gonna you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: we were nineteen years old, how are we gonna follow that?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: But you know, we did, and she became a really
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: good friend and she introduced us to remember her saying,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: there's this young kid on the block. You've really got
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to check out our names a wreatha. And this was
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the day. These were the days before Aretha was a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: soul singer. She was doing her cabaret thing with CBS
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: UM and uh and she told us about Nina Simone
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and it was just wonderful, and she would she would
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: just talk to us every night and tell us about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the Black Church and how that affected how they sang,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and and how obviously Aretha came up and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: probably Nina as well, and how she came up and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: how that affected her um her style of singing, and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: obviously that's where Ray Charles came from in the first
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: place as well. Um, and it was just it was
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: just wonderful. But you're totally right, I I think I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was so so fortunate to be born in the time
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of what was a great cultural explosion because we just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: had the war and in the UK ten years after
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the war there was real austerity, that really was and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: suddenly the younger generation started to get a little bit
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of money. Um, we heard Elvis, which actually lew our
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: socks off. I mean, for me, it was like hearing
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: black music by proxy, because I had never heard any
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: rhythm and blues at that point. And I know I'm
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: not the only one. I mean it was the same
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: for the Beatles, for Van Morrison, Eric Burden, all these guys. Um.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And it was just a wonderful time to be ensconced
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in all that. And and I mentioned the early Miles
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Davis group that was fantastic as well, huge energy, but
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: really really inventive and and and the wonderful thing was
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that the older guy, once we were lucky enough to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: get a record deal, the older guys in the record
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: business didn't understand what was going on. They hadn't got
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a clue, so they left it up to the bands.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: They left it up to them to follow whatever direction
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: they wanted because they were from a previous generation. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it meant that there was none of this um product
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: management all the time, and all the sort of DJ
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: what do you call it, playlists and and and and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: very governed you know, playlists or anything like that. And
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: you know what, the people the public absolutely adored that.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: They ended adored the real enthusiasm of the DJs who
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: would get knocked out by a particular record and play
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: it and play and that enthusiasm really infected the listening audience.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It was just a fantastic time. Um, we'll get back
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to that time. Let's just kind of close the loop
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: on this. So how did you How did you meet
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: your wife? I met my wife because sorry, I was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: whispering on there and going around and around the houses.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But when we did them marry the case show, Um,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: there was some choreography that was going on on the show,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and there was the choreographer was a woman called or
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a girl called Molly Malloyer, and she got married to
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: she started going out with Paul Atkinson and guitarres and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: eventually married him. And she came over to the UK
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and she formed a dance company and my wife was
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the lead dancer in that in that dance company at
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: that time. And I went to Um, I went to
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a party one night. UM, and uh, she grew up.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: My my wife grew up with someone called Arlene Phillips,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: who who who has made a name as a choreographer
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: over here, and she's been on the you know, the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: dance programs and everything. Um. And I thought she had
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful face I've ever seen in my life.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And uh, Colin the bastard actually got in there before
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: me and said and invited her out and actually took
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: her out. And I had phoned Colin up because Colin
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and I we've always been really good friends and and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Colin and I I had this thing where we wouldn't
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: try and step on each other's toes if when it
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: came to girls, you know. So I phoned him up
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and said, look, I know this is really unusual, Colin,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: but would you mind if I I said, I'm I'm
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: pretty besotted with Kathy. Would you mind if I gave
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: a call And he said, listen, mate, He said, you
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: might you might even marry her. Ha ha. So so
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: so go ahead if you feel that strongly. So I did,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and then went out with her and we we never
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: looked back, really, I mean we It was a pretty
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: loose relationship for maybe two two or three years. Then
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: we moved in together, and then we got married. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: how do you keep it together? The itinerant life of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a musician? I know, Well, the thing was because maybe
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: because her life started as a dancer. She became an
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: analystic psychotherapist in the second half of her life, but
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: in that first half of the life, she was a dancer,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: so she understood, um, what creativity was and how you
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: had to follow it, etcetera, etcetera. And she was always,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you know, wonderful about that. I still feel very guilty
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: now when we go on tour, because you know, we often, Bob,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: we often do three tours a year in America. Um,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and that means a long time away. Um. And I
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say we're isolated here, but it's, um, you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a pretty secluded spot and uh. And
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I often feel that I'm being very unfair to her,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but in actual fact, um, it's it's worked beautifully. I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: mean maybe that helps in a way because it always
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: feels great when we get back together again. And how
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: many kids do you have and what are they up to? Now?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: We've got two kids. A daughter is actually an academic
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: but she um is living with her husband in Austria.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And we've got one grandson, which is the only one
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: we're going to get which is which is her son.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And and my son unfortunately has some mental health problems.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: But he met a lovely girl who was actually a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: great university um uh when she had a mental breakdown
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and they got together and they've been together now for
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: twenty years. Um. And that's fantastic. And my wife and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: my daughter is very very happy in Austria uh and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: having a great life. So you know, we have to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: count a blessings really, I think. And are they off
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the pay roll they make it independently or you help
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: them out. I don't have to help my daughter out
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: at all. Her and her family are doing brilliantly well. Um.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: But and she writes academic books and one thing and another,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and she's the most beautiful girl as well. She looks fantastic,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: which she's not a girl anymore now she's you know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for they thought it, um, but my son I help
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: out and I account myself in the most privileged position
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to be able to be in a position where I
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: can continue to support them so that they don't have
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to live off the government or whatever. So they have
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a good life. It's fairly sheltered life, but you know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: they're very happy. So I'm I'm very happy with that. Okay,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. Where in the UK
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: are you originally from St Alban's which is a little
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: It's not a little, it's a city twenty miles outside London,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: north of London, and lived there for when we went
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to Bedfordshire that that's only up the road as well,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: because I always wanted to be in touch with my
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: mom and dad as well. My dad was a a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a dance band musician from the age of seventeen to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the age of eighty three. There was a there was
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a wonderful moment when we had a guy doing our
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: boiler in sils and he came up and said, what's
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: your dad? Then? Is he is he a musician at all?
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, he's he's got his own dance band,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: he's and is he how old is he? I said,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: what is as one now? And he went, oh, my god,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and I said um. And just the other day he
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: was complaining he wasn't getting enough work. Okay, so you're
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: growing up at St. Alban's. How many kids in the family, Um,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: just two. In our family, my mom was was one
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: of eight children, UM, and and all the brothers and sisters.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Her brothers and sisters had kids, and some of them
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: had three four kids. I think one of them had
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: five actually, So I had a huge number of cousins
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and they all stayed around the Stormers area, so there
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: was always a very good family social scene around St. Orban's.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: We all lived very close and we all used to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: visit each other. My my closest cousin was Jim Rodford,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the guy who was later in the Kinks but formed
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Argent with me um and later in the Incarnation of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the Zombies. UM. And he became a mentor of mine
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: because he was four years older than me, and he
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was the guy that introduced me to the music at Elvis. UM.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I remember one day I went down to his house,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: only four dred yards away. His mom was my mom's
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: best friend, and um, he was playing me some Bill Haley,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and I said, well, it's all right, you know, I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: don't mind it, okay, okay, And he said, well, let's
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: listen to this, and he played me handled and it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: just blew me away, blew my world away, spun my
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: world around, and then to my parents horror. For six months,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to hear anything but the royalst rock
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and roll. I could get my hands on Little Richard
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: as it was at the time, you know, Jerry Lee
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Lewis of course, um and then that quickly introduced me
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: to Ray Charls and all that sort of thing. But
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: it was a very very musical family. My mom got
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: me involved in a great choir from the Asia of
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: about ten years old, and that gave me a real,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: really broad sort of panoply of a sort of umbrella
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of music. And and by almost by the condition of
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: os Moses, I sort of you know, drew that in
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and and and it exposed me to stuff that I
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: would never have heard otherwise, wonderful music by Bark and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you know all the other things. But at the same time,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that's when we started the zombies, and and I couldn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: bear to tell the master of the music that I
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: was going off early on a Sunday evening to do
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: a gig with the zombies of rock and roll, gimee
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: with the zombies, you know, and at one for a second, sorry,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: did your mother work outside the home? She didn't know
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: what she did much later in her life she did.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: When you were growing up, she didn't. And that was
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: your was your father's main source of income. The group
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: know that his main source of income was as an
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: aeronautical engineer. He worked in a in a the hat
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Field Aeronautical Works, which was about five miles away from St. Orban's.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And Colin came from Hatfield, and you know that that
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: provided a link as well. But I don't think and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: his father worked there too. Um, Jim's father worked there,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: but I don't think they. I mean, obviously Jim's father
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and my father knew each other, but I don't think
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Colin's father ever did. But there we are, okay, and
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: your sibling older, younger male female. It's it's my sister
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and she's ten years tipped between ten eleven years younger
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: than me. Okay, so you're the golden child and you're
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: growing up in St Alban. Sounds like your father made
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a good living, so it wasn't like you were economically struggling. Well,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: we weren't economically struggling struggling, but we lived in a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: council house. We lived in a council house, UM, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: my father UM was making out the time twenty pounds
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a week. UM. This was in which was much more
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of an average wage, but a lowish average wage at
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the time. And you're growing up, you're going to school.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: What kind of student were you? Were you popular? Do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you fit in? And we're more of a loner. I
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: was fairly much of a loner. I mean not completely loner. Um.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: It was a school that my mother really wanted me
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to get into. It's it's what we call a public
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: school over here, which is it's like a private school
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to either. It's only called public because I think King
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: King Henry the eighth um designated a few schools for
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the children of the clergy or something like that, so
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: it became more of a public school anyway. I had
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to take an exam. I got a scholarship to go there,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: which was a very good start. But after being in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the sort of B form, I quickly was pushed down
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to the C form and it wasn't until the streams
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: divided and I could concentrate on the arts rather than
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the arts and the sciences that that I started to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: make more of a mark academically. Um. And there was
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: only one thing I was ever any good at, bob,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and that was English. And and I would have certainly
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: gone to university at the time if it hadn't been
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: for the band starting to take off. But so so
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that route was then closed to me. Um. But you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: but it was a very it was. It was a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: pretty highly rated school. Okay, so you're growing up, when
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: do you start taking the piano or whatever you take lessons? Well,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I only ever had two years piano lessons in my life,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and that was between the ages of nine, nine and eleven,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Between the ages of nine years old and eleven years old. Yeah, Um,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And you know what, in that time, I played the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: piano less than, uh, than I ever did before or afterwards.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I always I could always pick out a tune on
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the piano, and in fact, strangely enough, I remember my
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: parents buying me a harmonica when I was about seven
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or eight years old, And somehow I always had this
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: um facility to look at music visually and and I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: could always work out where the tune had to go
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: when I was playing the harmonica, because I could I
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: could work out that this was a whole whole tone,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that was a whole tone, that was a half tone.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: It just seemed natural to me somehow, so I could
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: always play a tune on anything that people gave me.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: When I first picked up a guitar, I I saw
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: immediately that, you know, two threats was a tone and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: then just one threats half a tone, So I could
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: always do that. UM and I played by air really
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and when I when I had the piano lessons, it
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: gave me the very basic grounding of what mew of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: what notes were and how they associated with notes on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the piano. And then when I was in the choir
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: it showed when I when we were singing, we obviously
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: sang by music all the time, so that gave me
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a good grounding there. But that was it, really, And
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and then I started playing by here. I remember there
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was a song called Swinging Shepherd Blues. That was the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: first thing I ever worked out the piano. It was
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a hit hit song before rock and roll. UM, and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I thought I discovered the whole secret of Western harmony
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: because I just I played everything in the key of
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: C at the time, and I worked out that if
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: you played you know what I know now know as
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a triad, you know, a basic call of C, C, E,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: N G, and then move my hands up there, right
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: up all the way up to an octave, that I
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: could harmonize. I thought almost any melody with one of
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: those three or four chords that were there. And it
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: was much later that I got more sophisticated and started
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to experiment from there. But that was the first thing.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And that The amazing thing is I only read about
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a year ago that that Paul McCartney said something very
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: very similar. He said, I always tell people that start
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to try and play the piano, play everything in the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: key of C, and if you just move those three
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: notes all the way up, you can you can harmonize.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: You know, most things are after a fashion. So that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: was how I taught myself. But you know, I wasn't
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: alone in that many most people in the world of
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: rock and roll ourself took I have to say, so
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you don't read music at this point. At that point
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I read music very simply. But I could read music
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: because I spent so long in this quiet, which was
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: great choir. Um I could I could then site read
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: single lines um almost at any level. But that doesn't
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: mean that I could translate that to the piano, you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: which is much more um um polytonal obviously UM. So
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: there were two different things. But when I came off that,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: sorry i'm jumping all over the place here. But when
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I came off the road, um actually with our after Argent,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: because I was between the zombies and Argent. I was
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: on the road for twelve years, I think something like that.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: And then I've just wanted to rest from that for
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a while, and I thought, I'm going to come off
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the road and I'm going to do two things. First
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of all, I'm not going to write anything myself, and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: then secondly, if anything interesting is offered to me, I'll
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: do it if I if I think it's interesting. And thirdly,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to learn to sight read. So I took
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: any piece of music, no matter how difficult or how easy,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: put it on the piano in front of me, and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: for a couple of hours every day I would play it.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I try and play in tempo, but no matter how
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: funear really slow it was, I just try and play it,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and it's only like learning a language, you know. After
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a year, I was in a completely different place and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I could site read pretty much most things. Um So
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that was when I taught myself that really, and that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: was when I was oh god, that wasn't about seventy
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: six at that point. Okay, let's go back to what
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it was like. Tell us more about the austerity and
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: when it goes from black and white to color. Well,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: an example is that things were incredibly austere for I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: would say ten years, but in the UK and certainly
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in England where I was between nineteen, it was incredibly austere.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And they were the first years of my life really.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Um I remember everything was rationed. I remember once going
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: into a grocery store with my mother, and I remember
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: her putting her ration thing down and buying some potatoes.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: And I thought, she's not getting enough potatoes for the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: money she's spending on them. And I picked out another
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: one and put it in her basket, and then we
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: took it home and she and then she said to me,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you put a potato in the basket, You've got to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: take it back. And I was completely mortified, you know,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and I sort of went back until this potato paper.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But that was the sort of rationing that was going
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: on at the time. Um. But then suddenly there was
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit more money. Suddenly things started to change.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: But I remember when I first heard Elvis when I
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was eleven. Very soon after that, there was a broadcast
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: from America which showed Elvis at one of the very
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: very early live shows, this very grainy, black and white thing.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: It was probably the ground old opry or something. I
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: don't know, but it was just like magic to me.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And I looked at this thing and it was like
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a being from another universe. You know. This didn't seem
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: to have any relation to anything that was going on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: in the UK. All the clothes looked totally different. Um.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: The way he was seeing was like nothing I'd ever heard.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It was the most exciting thing I've ever seen. And
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh God, I've got to have a
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: bit of that in some way or other. And I'm
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: sure the whole of the youth of England was thinking
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: thinking the same thing. Um. You know. It was just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like a huge wave crashing on the on the shore. Um.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And and that lasted really for for for some time. UM.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And incidentally, the most extraordinary thing was when we finally
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: went over to the Marry the K show. We learned
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: much later in the nineties when I was having an
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: interview with the DJ, that Elvis had three of my
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: songs on his jukebox and this was what what was this, Bob?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Eight years well, the beginning of it was eight years
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: after I had first seen this being from another planet.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And it's like when I first went to As a contrast,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: when I first went to New York, I hated it
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: because it was so full of energy and aggression that
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that that was my first impression of it. But in
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: fact it became one of my favorite cities because it
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: seemed to have an honesty about it at the same time,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and musically it was just brilliant and you could go
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and see anything. I mean, I know, Chris White and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I um walked into um a jazz club after the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: show one night, and we saw Roland Kirk and we
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: were the only two people in in in the jazz
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: club apart from a completely dead drunk I and his
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: slightly less drunk um woman and and and he was
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: making loads of noise and everything, and I thought, I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: can't believe this, you know, even then we were starting
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to venerate these guys, you know, And and that was
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the situation. And it seemed and the cars all seemed
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: like mobile jukeboxes to me, you know, whereas all the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: English cars look very it's safe, and you know, not
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: all of them was the e type jag which was wonderful.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: But apart from that, and they were so big, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it was such a such a different world, and and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and that caused and together with a little bit more
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: money coming through, young people started to be taken more seriously.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And then with the music what I said before about
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the older guys in the record companies not understanding what
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: was going on, it gave a great feeling of power
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: to the young people. And then of course the Beatles
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: hit the scene in nineteen sixty two in the u
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: kay a little bit before the US and um, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they were a complete breath of fresh air because their
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: music had uh grittiness and vitality but huge invention. Um
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it was it was like England winning the World Cup
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: every week because particularly when they first went to America,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: suddenly this completely unbelievable thing was happening, whereby they were
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: becoming the most important young rock and roll Act. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: they were English, and this was in America where they
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: had all their influences from and where all their idols
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: were as well. You know, there's absolutely no no difference
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: between them and us in that way. Um and uh.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And and it was that explosion out of austerity, and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it really was austere. Every everything was. It felt like
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the world was pretty much in black and white when
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I when I was ten years old, eleven years old,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and then it gradually opened up. And then suddenly the
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: young people, um started to be able to um cause
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: an explosion in in all the arts, in fashion, um,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you know, in in everything really um. And it just
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: felt the most exciting time to be young, and the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: young people seemed to have some sort of real power
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: for the first time. And I always think that that
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that was to do also with news starting to come
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: from you know, Vietnam. That was a little bit later
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of course as well, um, but but where you could
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: actually see really what was happening in the world for
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the first time, and the young people were making up
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: their own minds and they were refusing to do some
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: things that the older people wanted them to do. And
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, in in so many ways it was such
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: an exciting time. Okay, so you're in the choir at
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: what point and then you say, ultimately Sunday night, you're
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: playing rock and raw. Tell me about the decision a
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: former band and what the early adventures in forming bands
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: were like. Well, okay, in those days, um, the amplification
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and all the equipment was extremely primitive. And at that meeting,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I've already told you about with Jim Rodford when he
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: played me Elvis, he had already formed a skiffle group
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and he played teaches space with a string um and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and and a tea chest, and he up to his
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: death he could still get some great notes out of
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a teacher space with with string and he would do
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: occasional nights doing that, which was absolutely fantastic. UM. And
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of course Lonnie Donegan was the first person to bring
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: um his version of blues over which was um, you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: not not quite the blues of Muddy Waters and Johnny Hooker,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: but it was it was blues and and and people
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: were becoming enamored with that. Jim had got his band,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: got who were called the Bluetones, and he got and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: they got some of the earliest electrical equipment in the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: whole of the south of England and um he was fifteen.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I was eleven at that time when he was in
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the skiffle group. UM. I went to see him, maybe
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: when I was twelve or third seen and I was
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: so blown away by this, and I thought, well, I
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: have to in some way or other former band whenever
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I can. UM. And there was one day, UM, a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years later from that, I think I was
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: fifteen when I walked into a form room to see
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a friend another form to my own, and Paul Atkinson
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: was in the corner. There was a little folk club
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: going on and he was playing an acoustic guitar and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I thought, that guy has got a really good sense
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of rhythm. Um, I wonder if you'd like to be
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: in a band And I said, Um, I'm thinking of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: forming a band. Do you want to join? He said yeah,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I don't mind. I felt fantastic, right and I thought, okay,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: where can I go from here? And I thought my
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: friend who lived close to me was building a bass guitar.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: He never played a note of anything in his life,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: but I went round to his house that night and um,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and I said to him, how's your basically start coming
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: on and he said, well it's nearly finished. I said, fantastic.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I said when will it be finished? He said will
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: it be finished this week? Really? I'm I'm there, really
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: with it. I said, fantastic. Do you want to be
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: in a band and he said, well, yeah, I don't mind.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And he said, I've got this mate who sits behind
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: me at school. His name was Arnold A. And Colin
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Blanstone was b who sat behind him. And he said
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: he plays, he plays guitar and he sings a bit.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I said, bring him along, bring him along, And then
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, we just need a drummer now. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: uh as school had an army cadet force. So on
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that Friday I went along to their march past and
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I picked out the guy who on military side drum
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: seemed to have the best sense of real And I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: called him afterwards and said, oh hi, I'm My name
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: is rod And who you? He said, I'm Hu and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and I said do you want to be in the band?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: He said yeah, that would be good. So within two
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: weeks we had our first rehearsal. Jim Rodford as always
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a wonderful, wonderfully helpful guy, fantastic enabler, and as I say,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: it was always a mental to me. And he drove me.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I couldn't drive, and he drove me to our first rehearsal. Um.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I remember that in the in the the playground, if
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: you like, um up break, I was going up to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Paul Atkinson and said, we should play an instrumental first.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: We should do this song called Malaguena. He goes down,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: la la la la la la la la, you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and and he went, okay, hang on and he kept
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: forget sing it, and I kept saying it to him
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: at every every break, and he sort of learned that
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: we and we all drove up, and we drove up
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and we met outside a pub. On this pub, I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: mean we were we were too young to go into it,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: but we met outside and as we pulled out, I
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: said to Jim, oh god, I hope that you know.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: The one guy I didn't know was was Colin Bloodstone.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And there was this guy standing there looking really mean,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: with a plaster across his nose, two black eyes, um,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and he was a rugby player and he broken his nose.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I said to Jim, oh, my god, I hope that's
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: not him. And it was, of course and we went
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: and had our first rehearsal. We thought we were great.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I mean we Jim showed Hugh the very first kick
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: drum and backbeat that he had ever played, and something
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: simple on the symbols, which, to be fair, Hugh picked
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: up in absolutely no time at all. And then and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: then uh uh we had all the blue tones gear.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So Paul's bass went through this wonderful fox and um,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and there was another Vox thirty white amp as well.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I think that we the rest of us went through,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: including the vocals. Um. And I was supposed to be
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the singer, so we we we We tried out an
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: instrumental and Colin kept getting the line wrong, so so um.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I then wandered over in a break to an old
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: beaten up old piano and I played. I started playing Nutrocker,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the old b Bumbler and the stingers um hit at
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the time, um um dumb da dad, you know, And
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: he came running over to me and said you sound fantastic.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: He said you've got to play piano in the group,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and I said, well, not really, no, It's it's not
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: as sort of group as the guitar group, isn't it.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, no, i'm i'm, I'm, I'm I'm going to
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: be the singer, you know, so he said okay, And
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: then a few minutes later we had another coffee break.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: He picked up his guitar, started playing an old Rick
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Nelson's song and started singing. I thought, my God, is
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: so fantastic. And I went over and said, I had
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: no idea you could sing like that. You've got to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: be the singer. And okay, I'll play piano. And then
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: for the next two years I suffered the worst beaten up.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Old acoustic piano is usually at least to SENDI tone
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: down from concert pitch, so everyone had to tune down,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: um and and and my life changed the day when
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I found a hone a pianet, the electric pianet that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: we actually used for years, and I did, she's not
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: there on that as well. But that's that's that's how
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: the fact. And Jim Rodford, I mean, we thought we
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: sounded pretty good at that first rehearsal. Then second rehearsal
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: when we didn't have the bluetoone s gear, we thought
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: we sounded terrible. But on that first rehearsal we thought
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: we sounded pretty good. And Jim many many years later
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: said to us, do you know what at that first rehearsal?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And I thought, no chance. Okay, so you have that
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: first rehearsal, how what year is that? And how long
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: after that do you start playing gigs? That was the
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: nine We started playing gigs after about nine months. And
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: when I say started playing, they were few and far between.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: The first gig we had was a corner's rugby club
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and they had a dance band evening and an interval.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: There were about fifteen people there, um you know, probably
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: about seven couples and one extra bloke. And in the
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: interval we got up and did a half an hour
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: set and the half an hour set went down a
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: complete storm, even with those few people, and what was
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: going on on the terrible amplification and do you know what?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: We we then started to build up completely a local scene.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: We never played outside St Orbans. It was always in
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: St Organs. We played about three church halls always um
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and um. This rugby club and this rugby club became
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: After fifteen people on that first gig, we then by
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the end, but that was in nineteen sixty two. I
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: think when we when we had our first gig, or
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: maybe late sixty one, but sixty sixty two and then
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: um by nineties sixty three. UM, they had to have
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: a marquee that took four or five hundred people, and
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: we used to get four or five hundred people in,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: you know, to play our and they only they didn't
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: have any proper electrical outlet, so they had a generator,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and we knew that the generator would be brilliant for
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the first hour. After that it would slowly wind down.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Eventually there wasn't enough to power my electric piano by
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the time I got an electric piano, and I would
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: have to just bang a tam Marine and standard. So
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: how do you start writing songs? I UM. I always
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: thought that the first song I ever wrote was something
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: called It's all Right with Me, which was on our
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: first album UM. But I later found out that I
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: had written a song for the Bluetones, unbelievably um uh,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: just about the same time that Please Please Me came out.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't sound like it's derivative of Please Please Me,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: but it was really um and it does sound a
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: bit beatly. But they actually their manager really liked the
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: song and he'd gotten to record it in Olympic Studios,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: which was you know, a major major studio that's where
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the Stones used to record, etcetera. UM, and so that
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: was the first song I ever wrote. It was called UM,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the Lonely One I think it was called the Lonely
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: One UM and UM. So that was the very first song.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: The second song we used to do in our Zombies
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: set UM it was called It's all Right with Me
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and it was like an early rock and roll song,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: UM with a bit of rhythm and blues thrown in.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Then we won a heart Speat competition and the heart
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Speat competition was it's because it's Heartfordshire, so it was
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: heart speat play on words UM. And we actually played
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: against Jim's band in in the in the final of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: this competition UM, along with three other fans as well,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: and we actually won the competition. And after the competition,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: after the after we won the final, UM, there was
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: a knock on our dressing room door and it was
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Dick Roe, who was the head of Decca Records, and
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: he said, we'd like to make a single with you, uh,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: and we said fantastic, okay, So UM, we we thought
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: we would record the Gershroing song that we did in
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: an as set summertime. Um. And we were doing it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: at this very small studio and we got involved then
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: through a friend of one of Chris's relatives was a musician.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I think he was. I can't remember in what way,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: but he was. He was, it's quite a well known
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: a musician in the business. He said, I've got this
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: great friend who's a really good producer. He said, I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: think you should have a professional producer produce your records.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: And we said, well, okay, great, um. And he said also,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: he said, taking the dip Row Decker contract and get
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: him to look at it and see if there are
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: things in there that shouldn't be in there. And um.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: This guy was called Ken Jones. We met with Ken,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: really liked him. He said, Dick Rose contract is pretty good. Actually,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: he said, but there are one of two things that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I would change in that. And he said, these are
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: my suggestions. So we did. Role was fine with that,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: and he changed them and we did our first session.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And the first session was in two weeks time and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: he said, Ken said, you know, if you like, he said,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I know, we're recording sometimes, he said, but if you like,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you could try and write something yourselves. So I went away,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: and Chris White went away, and Colin just didn't think
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: any more about it, neither neither did the other two guys. Um.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: And then Colin couldn't believe it when when I called
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: him and said, I've got this song, can we rehearse it?
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And that was She's Not There? Um, and and that
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and that that really was the third song.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: But really I've always felt that was the second song
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I ever wrote, and we recorded that in nineties sixty four,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: in the summer of nineties four. Tell me what the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: inspiration was and how you wrote She's Not There? Well,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the inspiration was the session coming up, and and the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: fact that I was just hugely, hugely enthusiastic about music,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I mean about any kind of music, but particularly rock
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and roll at the time, and particularly the Beatles that
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: had just exploded onto the scene and loved, loved everything
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: that they brought to rock and roll music at that time. UM.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: So I desperately wanted to be part of that, and
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I desperately wanted to write. And with that naivety and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: arrogance that you always have, maybe only once when you're
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: you know, seventeen or eighteen years old, I thought yeah,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I can write something that's as good as the Beatles,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and and Colin is going to sound fantastic singing it,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: and the record is going to sound great. I couldn't
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: imagine anything else. I you know, years later, my god,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the pitfalls you have when you're recording and you know
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that you get a great sound in a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: record studio and that everything works is you know, that's
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: that's not a higher chance. But at the time, that's
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: what I thought happened. Um and and really and so
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, I've got I've got a couple of
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: weeks to write this. So I went back and I thought, right,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I'll play I'll play a couple of records, try and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: get in the mood, see if anything triggers an idea.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: And I put an old john Ley Hooker song on
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: on to Johnny Hooker album and the first track on
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the album was no One Told Me. Now. I rushed
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to add that the that was the only lyric that
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: had anything to do with anything in the song, just
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that those opening three words no one. No One told me?
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Um And I thought, you know that that sort of
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: trips off the tongue. I like the way that trips
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: all the time, I thought I'm gonna I thought to myself,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna we've a story around that. And the one
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the one thing in my mind immediately I have to say,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: was the structure of the song. And I thought, I
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: want to start it with a um, something that has
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: a really blues melody, a blues scale for the melodic
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: part of it, you know, for the verse um, and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that's based around like a minor blues scale UM. And
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: then the second part of the song, I want to
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: go into three part harmony because we always used to
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: do a lot of harmony right from the beginning actually,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and I thought that would be great, you know, to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: include lots of harmony. And then the third part of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: this song, which turned out to be We'll let me
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: tell you about the way she looked and all that
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I wanted to really build and I wanted to change
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the meter of the words to help that as well.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: You know, We'll let me tell you about the way
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: she looked, the way she acted, you know, put the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: stress in the different things. So it just sort of
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: grew and then ended on a major chord, because the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: whole thing was in the minor ended on a major chord.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And then fell right back down again to a moody
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: verse again with a minor blue scar and minor chords,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: and that was the inspiration really UM. And so there
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: were all sorts of indirect things coming through UM. The
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Beatles were an influence in the sense of wanting to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: have the harmonies, wanting to include all that UM. And
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: actually Ringo was an influence as well from the Beatles,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: because not not that we copied a riff of his,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: but the way he used to break up the verse
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: rhythms quite often, like on Ticket to Ride or UM.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: You know, he would break up the verse rhythm and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: then go into a more of a steady group and
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: bit and build things from there. I loved that, and
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh, it would be great to have a
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: little bit of that involved, which is how the bomb
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: but but Blood you know how that came about at
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: the very beginning UM and uh. Years and years later,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: I met Pat Matheney when he was just starting out,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: and I thought it was a fantastic the thing that
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I've seen that Joe papsts in New York, UM, and
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: he was only just starting to get known and it
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: there was a jazz musician that introduced us, and this
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: jazz musician didn't know who I was, no reason why
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: he should. And he said, old Pat Metheny, this is that.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: What's your name? And said Rod rod Argent and patmtheny
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: said Rod Argent. He said you're the guy. He said,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: with all that modal stuff you played and she's not there.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: That made me think I had a way ahead doing
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to do with fuse, you know, fusing
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: different elements, etcetera. And I thanked him very much, and
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I thought to myself, there's nothing modal about she's not there.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: And I went back and what I had originally thought
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: was just as simple. I am honored to d chord
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: that the melody worked around. I'd actually put a really
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: little modal scale without even realizing, because I'd listened to
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of Miles and Milestones, which was the very
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: first modal thing that Mars ever did. Was one of
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: my first jazz purchases. I could only afford the EP,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: so I bought the EP, and and and so all
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: those sort of indirect influences were coming through, and I
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: think later on um things from classical music were sort
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: of influencing me, but never in a conscious way. Bob.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: It was always I thought we were just doing you know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of songs, beatless songs or any other hit
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: that was going on at the time, and yet those
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: other things sort of found their way through, and I
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: think it was I think that was totemic of of
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of English stuff, actually, because I remember talking
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to John Steele from The Animals and he said that
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: when he played Lethouse the Rising Sun when they recorded it,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: he was imagining he was playing the Jimmy Smith record
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: of Walk on the wild Side. So you know, those
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: very indirect things, um, we we're all around. I think
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: so that. I think they were the inspirations of of
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: of starting to write and if She's not there, okay,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the Zombies records had a dark quality and that made
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: them magical. Was that in the song? Or was that Ken?
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Johns Oh, well, I don't I don't want to sound
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: like I'm boasting, but I think it has to be
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: in the song. Really, Um, I don't think it was
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: it was Ken. I mean, although you know, I must
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: say the you know, the echoes used on Colin's voice,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: particularly She's not there, We're really really good, um, but
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: he just really used to master my recordings were done
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: very very quickly. We rehearsed. We rehearsed at home. Uh,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: in my mom's front room actually with the piano. And
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the poor guy next door was on night work, so
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: that that was that was pretty hard for him. Um,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: but he never complained. But um. We used to rehearse
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: everything and then we would record, I think in a
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: three hour session in those very early days, we might
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: do three songs in it or yeah in three hours. Okay,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: so she's not there, it's cut. Do you think you
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: have a hit? How does it become a hit and
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: what does that feel like? One of the things we
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: did was she's not there was Um. We we recorded
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: it and we thought it sounded pretty good. I thought
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: it sounded lovely. We're very excited about it. Um, but
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: we thought it needed just something else a little bit.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: And so in those days, you recorded on four tracks
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and then you mix the four down to one tomorrow
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: because there was nothing else. There was just mornow and
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: as you if you wanted an extra track, as you
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: mixed to monow, you would add that extra track. And
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: we added a drum track, which put a flame on
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: the beginning because originally it was a bomb but but
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: but but this became bomb but but plut and and
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and then just a little bit extra on the on
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the bridge into the chorus. UM, and that for me,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: that was an important part of the record later on,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: because we thought records only had a life of two
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: or three months, and then then you never hear it again, so,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we we go away, and then two or
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: three years later some student engineer at Decca remixed it
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: in stereo, but of course he didn't have that extra
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: drum track. So very often now even the mix that
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: you hear on quite successful commercials UM is the stereo
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: version without that extra groove, which makes it sound much
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: more cool to me. But with all that in mind,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: I thought what we ended up with when Ken, when
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: it had all been mixed, because also the you may
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: have heard this story, Bob, but the engineer UM at
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the time got very very drunk because he had been
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: at a wedding in the afternoon and we were recording
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: through the night, UM and UM. He passed out, UM.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: And when he passed out, we we we all carried
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: him upstairs, put him in the cab, and he went home.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: And Ken Jones said to the Taypop the assistant engineer,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to carry on with the session.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: And that tape hop was Gus Dudgeon and that was
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: his first ever That was his first ever um uh
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: experience as a first engineer, you know. Um. So anyway
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: to two of the sides that we can't were brought
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: round who um uh one of the one of our
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: houses and Kem played it to us and said, we've
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: got to choose which is the single, And it was
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: between She's Not There and You Made Me Feel Good,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: which was the Chris White b side, um, and we
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: found it hard to make up my mind. We thought
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: they both sounded really good. Um and I was I
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: secretly preferred She's Not There, But then I would wouldn't
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I because I wrote it? But um, Luckily for me,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the decision came down to um, She's not there, uh
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and and I and again with that naivety and arrogance,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: we just, you know, we just expected it to be
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: a hit. We had a huge break because there was
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: almost no place right at the beginning when the record
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: first came out where you could hear records on the radio.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: The BBC was the only major station that played records,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: and they had half an hour a week of records,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I think that was it, and and they'd only play
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: half of them, you know. It was that sort of thing.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: But there was this TV program called Jukebox Jury, and
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: they would play a minute and a half or something
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: like that of a record or two minutes maximum, and
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the panel would would either vos a hit or a miss.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Um and George Harrison happened to be on the week
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: that we were lucky enough to get this. She's not
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: there but put on Jukebox Jury, and I was watching
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: it like this because you know, the beech the beetles,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: to us, like to every other young musician at that time,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: were God's and I thought, please don't let him say
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: anything bad about the record, Oh please, you know. But
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Um and I. As each record came on, he was
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: never nasty, but he was sort of saying, well, no,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, you know, and that sounds pretty
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: ordinary actually to me, you know, and all that, and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: then we played ours, and I was looking from behind
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the sofa, you know, and he said, well done, zombies,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: and then he actually says something about our cart remember
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: what it was now, something about the piano, so is
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: it said, you know, if that's the if that's their
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: real Paris, that's great. I thought, what what was that?
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Did I hear that correctly? You know? And and I'm
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: sure that gave it its first leg up. And then
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: very soon after that, all the Pirates started to broadcast
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: with these young DJs who were full of passion and
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: enthusiasm about the music that they were playing, and they
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: played She's Not There a lot, uh, and you know,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: it was just such a lucky time. I mean, we
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: were so lucky with that timing. Okay, so that's a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: huge hit. How does Torno come about? Well, the net
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: The follow up in in the UK was leave Me Be.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: And it's not that I don't have the utmost respective
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Chris for longwriter, but we thought it was a terrible record,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: a terrible single, and we thought it was very really
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: limp and weak. And that came out and it was
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: a huge flop in the UK, and in the end
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: we only ever had one hit in in the UK um,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure that was the reason. Um. And then
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: because of that in the States they decided to miss
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: out Leave Me Be and put tell Her No out
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Now Tell Her Now as a song came about because
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: we've been on a package tour in the UK with
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Dion Warwick and the Isley brothers. The Isley brothers were
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: they were just fantastic and they were absolutely they became
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: really good friends. And Ronnie Eilis got the most beautiful voice,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: you know, and and they were giving us all sorts
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: of tips and they were really really lovely. Um And
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: but Dion Warwick was having hits in the US and
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: in the UK, although most of her hits in the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: UK were covered by people like Sylla Black UM and
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Dion Morritt was getting really annoyed about this, you know,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: because she said, can't you find some of your own songwriters?
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: And I thought, well, do you know what? I love
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: some of the back right stuff I've been hearing. And
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I absolutely loved the way that he was taking things
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: away from just playing chords into more jazz informed cards
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: like um without wanting to get too technical, like major
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: seventh major, ninth major e levenths and and and and
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: things like that. And I thought, I would love to,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: you know, put some of that into what we're doing.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: And I wrote this song again fairly quickly called tell
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Her No, which was using these major chords, but with
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: some jazz colorations in them as well. Now, you know,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: tell her no. It sounds like a very simple song,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and it is. And I always think that when things
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: really work, they always sound simple. But it me that necessarily, um,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: there's not something nice going on underneath, or something that's
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit more inventive going on underneath, you just
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be aware of it. I guess really, um and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: um anyway that that that was how how Teleno was written,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: um and um to you know, she used pleasure to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: us because when we were recording it, as we were
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: recording it, uh um not al Cope al Gallico, publisher
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: in the States, phoned us up, which was a big
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: deal in those days, phone from the U S to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: UK while we were recording, and so I just wanted
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: you to know that she's not there is number one
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: so over here now. Um. So we were knocked out. Um.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: And and then the next thing we sent him was
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: tell her No, And luckily it became a top five
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: record as well. Okay, how does the being ultimately peter
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: out and break up? And then it is the story
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: t about our Cooper pushing the button and time of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: the season. True, Um, what happened was that although we
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: love Ken and he was a great musician, really good
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: pianist himself. Um, he was an old school guy. And
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: whereas we felt that on the very first session that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: he did with us he was a great producer because
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: he just got the best out of the songs, after
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that he seemed very intent on trying to analyze wasn't
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: made the first record successful? Excuse me? And in his
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: mind he thought, well, you know, there's a really breathy
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: quality to Colin, so we've got to emphasize that. And uh.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: And rather than taking whatever song was Chris or I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: had written and then getting the best out of them,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: he was trying to fashion them in a certain sort
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: of way. We did. We did a a song, I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: think our third single in the States was called She's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Coming Home, and he tried to fashion it just like
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the Righteous Brothers of You. You lost that loving feeling.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: He was putting the same sort of echo on it
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: and throwing it that way, you know, And we thought
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: this was so wrong. We thought it should just be
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: good production is just getting the very best out of
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: what what you were doing. Anyway, To cut the long
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: story short, we had lots of singles, and none of
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: them were hits in the UK. Um and although we
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: later found out that around the world many of these
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: have been hits actually. Um. But but in those days
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you didn't get news all that quickly. You know, you
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: you can have a hit now in our to Mongolia
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: and no within an hour or two, but but in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: those days, you know, it probably took you might never
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: find out. Um. So it had the result that Chris
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and I, because we had very honest publishers, um, we
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: got all the money that we would do from writing,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: so we were doing pretty well and we didn't have
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: money problems. The rest of the band were completely broke.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: And because we were based very much in the UK,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: and I have to say, there was a little little
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: bit of exportation going on, and we'd be on tour
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: in America and we'd be on tour with big hit
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: records and and and and playing with on massive shows
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: to twenty people and just breaking even by the time
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: we got back, and somebody else was making a huge
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: amount of money and it wasn't us. So that was
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: their situation. And one day, um, well, there were two things. Okay.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: So first of all, we were looking back on the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: singles that we recorded, and Chris and I were thinking
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: what happened to that song? We did a demo on
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: the demos a lot better than the final record you
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: know where Where's we recorded? Um? One of my sons
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: called is this a Dream? And it was really rocking
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: in the studio and we were never allowed into the mixes. Um.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Ken Jones would always insist on mixing it by himself.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: And we came back from the pub after he had
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: mixed it, and Colin said, is that the song we recorded?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I mean he thought it was almost a different song. Um.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: And we've had enough of this, you know. And I
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: said to Chris, look if we're going to break up
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: because some of the guys have got no money and
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Paul Atkinson was getting married to Molly Molly malloy and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: he said, I've got no money and I want to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: get married. I've got to get another job. I'm sorry, guys,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to leave. And we were all still friends.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: There was no antipathy in the band. We were just
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: we were all friends. Um. But things were breaking down
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: and I said to Chris, look, we've got we've got
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: to do at least one album where we can write
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: some material and have it realized in the way at
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: least that we hear it, and if nobody likes it,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do. But at least, you know,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: we feel satisfied that we've actually got it down on record.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: And so and I had to say that Ken was
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: great about this, and he said, okay, if you want
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: to produce something yourself, he said, I'll support you. I'll
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: go to UM. I'll go to E M I and
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: see if I can get you a deal. And I asked,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: you said you should try and record an abbey Road
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: And we said, well, surely you have to be signed
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: to E M I to record Abbey Road. And I said,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the Beetles are uh the biggest act there.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: So anyway, he got it somehow he used his influence.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: We've got a thousand pounds, which even then wasn't a
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: huge amount of money to do an album. And we
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: walked into Abbey Road just as the Beatles a week
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: before had walked out having recorded Sergeant Pepper and they
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: had left quite a lot of stuff around the studio.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Thank god that John Lennon left his meloton there and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: without asking him, Sorry, John, UM, I just used it
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and and used it all over. Obviously an oracle, but
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: it was great because we because we had no money,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: we really rehearsed and rehearsed, and we rehearsed, and we
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: put the back into acts down and and and the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: lead vocal as we heard it and the harmon is
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: actually But then because the Beatles have worked out technically
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: how to get slightly more than four tracks, they managed
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: to get seven tracks. Um. They didn't have an eight
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: track machine in the country like Brian Wilson had had,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: but they managed to get the boffins at Abbey Road
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: to work out a way of having seven tracks. And
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: so what we would do is we would record exactly
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: as we heard things, and it would be recorded in
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a way that we'd heard it. And we were over
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: the moon about this. And then even though it was
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: really prepared, we had a bit of spontaneous chance of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: improvisation or just a last minute thought. And even on
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: on the time of the season. I remember we recorded
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: that and another track, the backing track of it, in
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: three hours time the season as something else. At the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: same time. Um, and as we were playing through we
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: all thought it sounded pretty good. Um and um, But
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: I said to Hugh where it had been doom doom doom, sorry,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: doom doom doom check, doom doom doom chap like that.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I said, sounds great, But I said, you know what,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: I can hear a bit of percussion either side of
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the backbeat. I can hear doo doo doo ah like that.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: And honestly, he said, well, if you hear that, he said,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we've still got a few minutes going there
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and bang it through. And we had Jeff Emrick as
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: um engineer on that particular track, and I had to say,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: right from the beginning, the sound was brilliant, and there
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: was something about even when we recorded before those those
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: bits um, there was something magical about the way he'd
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: recorded the tom tom's with the bass. It just sounded.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: It sounded so right, and we were really excited. But
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: we put this improvisation thing um and that that's the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: one I really remember on that that particular track. It
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: was done so quickly, but when it finished, we thought,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: that's the best we can do for an album. We
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: were all all really happy with all the tracks. We
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: thought it was great, but we thought, if no one
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: likes it, what can we do? You know. So anyway,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: it came out in the UK because everything was very
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: based locally at that time. It was it was much
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: more hard. It was even hard from a business point
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: of view to go to the States because I mean
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: we at one point we had to um swap on
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: the Musicians Union with a Duke Ellington orchestra, you know,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: so all these things were going on. Um. But it
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: finished and then we thought, we put one single out.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: If the single was a hit, fantastic. If it's not,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: then okay, at least we've got something that we really
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: like and it's there. So we have one DJ in
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the hole of the country who liked it, Kenny Everett.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: This guy called Kenny Everett who was a really cool DJ,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and we had one meeting with him and he said,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I hear you're broken up, and we said, yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: but well we've had you know, we've put the first
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: single out. Nobody's playing it, he said, I play it,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: he said, And he played it once a week on
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: his program or something like that. But it just died
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: of death and we broke up and that was the reason.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: But we were really happy from how it sounded um,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: but we were unhappy from the fact that it wasn't
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: a hit, of course, and then if anyone has said
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: to us that in fifty five years time it would
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: be selling far more every year, and it ever did
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: when it first came out, we we did. We have
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: thought he was absolutely crazy. But you know, that's the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: weird thing about life. So after me the record is
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: a gigantic smash. The band has already broken up. What
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: is that experience? Like, how do you decide to form Argent? Well,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: as soon as the Zombies broke up, I stayed together
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: professionally with Chris White, and we decided to form a
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: production company and then we start. Then we thought, okay,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to have to try and get someone to
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: finance this production partnership. And I didn't think how we
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: were going to do that. But then suddenly we'd already
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: well formed by by Argent at the time that that
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: UM the Time of the Season started to be a
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: hit in the States, because it came it was a
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: hit eighteen months after UM. Obviously an Oracle came out,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: and I mean that was in sixty seven where we
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: actually finished it, and it was sixty nine before it
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: finally like like crawling up the up the top hundred
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: until it finally ended up right at the top, which
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: was just wonderful. UM. And we only found that out
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: actually two or three months before it reached number one,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: because we've got a call from our Gallico, the publisher
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: in America, saying, this is starting to be a hit.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: He said, One guy in Idaho in Boise, Idaho are
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: starting to play this, just one guy, he said, and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: unbelievably in a very very slow pattern, like a like
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: a stone in the pond. The ripples are starting to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: cause UM success and and those ripples are causing people
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: UM to start spreading the news. And then of course
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: it absolutely caught fire at a certain point, and then
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: it and then then with complete wonder we were looking
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: at the you know, the top twenties, seeing some of
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: their heroes, uh beneath us, you know, and there there
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: we were, and it was wonderful and actually it felt
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: it felt glorious because already Chris and I were able
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to go over to UM Clive Davis and we're able
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: to say we've got a number one single that Chris
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: and I have produced UM and we've already planned a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: solo album for Colin Bloodstone, which was one year, um,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: which I still think is a great album. UM and UM.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: And we formed another band called Argent and we played
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: two or three tracks that we've already got and he
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: loved it and he and and he said, yeah, okay,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll, we'll, we'll released that. UM. I mean Clive
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: was was one of the guys that I'm sorry, I'm
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: going back to your previous question now. Uh. He was.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: He was the guy that said, um, when our Cooper
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: came over in sixty seven, UM, he just signed with
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Clive Davis as the top A n R man in CBS. UM,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: and he came over to the UK and he wrote
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: this thing which said, um, I bring back two hundred albums.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: And you know the the rows amongst Thorns were were
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: obviously an oracle. And he went back at a meeting
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: with Clive Davis and said, there's only one album that
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: I think that wherever that is, whoever is, he's got it.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: UM in the whole world. You've got to buy it is.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how much it costs, You've got to
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: buy that album and release it. And Clive said, well,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: we've we've we've bought it, but we decided to to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: to to not not not release it, you know, we
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: passed and and Alan said, well, you you've got you've
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: got to you've got to release it, and he was
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: on um. It was it was completely to al that
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: that it was down to him that it was released.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: It would not have released otherwise. And then Clive, who
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: didn't really see it at that time, released um Bush's Tail,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite albums on the album
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: but never a single in a million years. I loved
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: his song. I thought it was great, an anti war
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: song um and of course it was a it was
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: a stiff and then he released Caraself forty four which
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: also did nothing. And then finally, as a last gasp,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: you put Time in the Season out and of course
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: it was then that it was a hit, and so
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: he was then really really up for doing a production
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: contract and and and releasing Oja. So for Chris and
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: I it was like a dream. We were going over
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: with the number one record and it felt really easy
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: to to form a form an album and we were off. Okay,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: so you have a production company, how do you hook
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: up with Russ Ballard and decide you're going to be
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: back in a group. And then the first two records
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: have great tracks, but there's not really any financial success
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: commercial success. We went into a uh Russ and Bob Henrick.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Russ ball and Bob Henrick, we're playing in Unit four
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: plus two at the time, and Jim Rodford again. I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: formed argent with Jim and he said, you know, he said,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: there's a great drama that's playing in Unit four plus
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: two at the moment. He wasn't the Roulettes with Russ Ballard.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: They were in the Roulettes together, and they're they're two
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: really really good people. I've never seen him play, and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: he said, you should really try and catch them, see
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: what you think. And Chris and I found out they
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: were playing a little church hall, and I said, I'll
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: tell you what, Chris. We'll pretend that we were just
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: passing and we saw the sign outside that it was
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: Unit four plus two and we're wandering and and and
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: just to say hello and um, just as an accident.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: We'll be passing and we're walking and we we sought
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: out this little church hall in the back of beyond
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and we went past this um this church hall, and
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: we went in until our horror, we couldn't lose ourselves
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: at the back of the hall because there are only
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: about ten people in the hall. So so we we
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: sat at the back of the hall or were still
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: at the back of the hall feeling and they looked
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: and saw us and sort of went, you know, because
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: they fainally knew it. They sort of had messas I think,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: or at least they knew Chris or something I can't remember. Um,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: but anyway, or we knew Lem Lubin. I think we
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: knew Lem Lubin who was in the in the in
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: the band. Anyway, we went back we we thought they
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: were great. I thought I thought Russ was fantastic when
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: he when he was singing bits and pieces, because I
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: think it was Tommy Moyler that was mainly the lead singer. Um.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: And we went backstage afterwards and they had a new
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: manager and we felt really embarrassed because we were sitting
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: at the back of the hall, back of the changing room. Uh.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: And the the manager went crashing in his new manager
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: and said, um, I can tell you in three words
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with this band. And we sort of looked
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: at him and thought, of God, we shouldn't be there really,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: and he said stop drinking, and were completely apart because
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: those three songs were stopped drinking those three words so
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: well stopped drinking anyway. We thought they were great and
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: we asked them. We we we met up with him
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: in London and said, look, we're starting this this thing.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: I've got a couple of songs I've written, like honey
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: at the time, um, and I can't remember a couple
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: of things. And they said, yeah, I think we play
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: some demos that we had and they really liked it
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: and said yeah, yeah, we should, we should, we should.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: And we said and I said, well, we've got to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: have a name. Um. And but we were going to
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: call them because of Argent meaning silver, we were going
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: to call them something like silver, Surfa or something. We said, well, no,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: we can't call it that that that's that's not right, um.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: And in the end Bob Henry said we should call
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: it Argent. I said no, no, no, because it was
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: one of those things like when you're in the back
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: of the classroom. I was always really embarrassed when when
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: my name came out Argent, you know, I thought, you know,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: reminded me of school sort of thing. But in the end,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: against my against what I wanted to do, he made
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: it UM. He decided to that that we'd had the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: name as Argent, and so that became the name of
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: the of the record of the group and then the
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: first record UM and we and we formed the band
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: and we did the first album in a very small
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: studio that had just started and it was a great
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: little studio called Sound Techniques. And we loved the album.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: We really were very very proud of our first album, Argent.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: In some ways, it's still my favorite album, but it
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: was it sounded like very much UM, a natural UM,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: a natural follow on from what what we've been doing
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: with the zombies UM. And they loved it as well.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: They loved obviously Oracle and everything UM and we recorded
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: this thing. Now. The one thing that was bad about
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: that and and Ring of Hands, which was the second band,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: was that we felt the actual sound quality in Sound Techniques.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: We thought it was great, but we thought it was
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: a bit small as a sound. And then if you
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: heard it against UM another hit record that will come out.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: Their records always sounded a bit more powerful and strangely enough,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: not that long ago, a few years ago, maybe ten
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: years ago, they had they made Sony made a five
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: a five CD box set, UM of CDs that they
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: they remastered it, and they remastered with the sort of
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: marvelous things that you can do these days with remastering
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: with multi band compression. So suddenly it felt that the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: part that the parts that we put on the album
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: was suddenly able to um compete with the sort of
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: albums from whatever was around. It would be the right level,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: it would have the right impact of everything that was
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: going on. Unfortunately they deleted from the five CD box
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: set and I can't get it anymore now, but that
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: that really it was a great thing for me to
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: get to get that and and I really think that
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: if we'd have managed to get a bigger our sound
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: from the album, we just stood a much more chance
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: of having a hit record with the with the with
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: the first album, and and that was the main reason
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: why we went to abbey Road again for for the
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: album which became hold your Head Up in It. Um.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: It was because of that, because we wanted a bigger
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: sound out of what we were doing. But I still
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: think that we were most at one with those first
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: two albums, and I still absolutely love those first two albums,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: and I think that Russ's voice was really really special.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Um In the way that he could be really powerful
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: at the same time when he was singing um more
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: tenderly if you like, he had this wonderful high lyrical
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: quality as well when he was singing Listen. Liar is
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite tracks of all time. Literally, I
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: will say I didn't buy the album when Napster Hit
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: was one of the first songs I downloaded. To this day,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: I played incessantly the sound of the record. Mean three
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: Dark Knight cover is good, but it's nowhere close to
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the original. Oh bless you mate, Yeah, well, thank you. Well.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: We loved it, and our idea was that the actual
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: chorus of b that I should have really smashed out.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: But of course it had the effect because the actual
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: sound as it was at the time was that a
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: little bit quieter, So it made a lot of the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: verses sounded very quiet, and then the liar sort of
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: came out at the sort of normal level in a sense,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. It didn't end out when it was on
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: the radio sounding us as dramatic, dramatic as it should
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: have been. Um, But I I thought it was beautifully
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: put together, and I loved how we were all playing.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: I thought Jim Rodford as well. I thought the best
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: bass playing at that time was really fantastic UM and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Bob's drumming was really solid, you know, and exciting. It was.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: It was those first two or three years were really
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: really great fun and we had some very bad experiences.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: We did. We did a one of the first venues
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: that we did was in the It was either the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: Whiskey of Go Go or The troubad Or, I can't remember.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: And to our amazement when everybody turned out, Frank's Apple
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: was there, Jimi Hendrix, Um, Eric Burden, just just everybody
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: was there and we zoomed into the first record. I
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: had two Leslie's and they were amplified from UM UH
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: a changing room that the UM support band had on
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: the support band, and I can quite understand this. We're
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: drowned out by this Leslie speaker in their changing room
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: UM and that was so that we could amplify the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Leslie speakers without it being having feedback. So the actual
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: effect was that after the first two minutes of the
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: first song, you suddenly couldn't hear the organ for the
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: rest of the whole the whole set and the organ
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: was a really big part of what we were doing,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and I was. It just sounded like disaster to me,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: and people were very sort of kind about it. But
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it was a really it was the opposite
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: of Elton John doing the was it the whiskey Truber
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: or I can't remember, you know when he came from nowhere?
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: But I had this suddenly, this shuge, huge explosion of success,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: you know, But we had the complete opposite because what
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: had been great gigs for us just turned out to be,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: you know, no real impact. So that that was really
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: a great sense. You know a lot of things went
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: wrong in a in a okay, So ultimately you cut
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: all together, now hold your head up as a gigantic kit.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: You followed up with God gave rock and roll to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: you on the In Deep album, which really was as
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: stiff at the era and has become classic because of
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: covers thereafter, even though I think your version is the best. Um,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: so walk us through the creation of that, the disappointment
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: and the ultimate leaving of Russ from margin. Well, I
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: mean there were there were several reasons. Really, Um, I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: think that um, God gave rock and roll to you
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: when it started, Um, it was actually it was a
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: rock and roll tempo. It was. God gave rock and
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: roll to you know. It was like a double time
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: almost rock and roll thing. Um but as we always did.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, Russ was a great songwriter, but um, as
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: always we were, all four of us, would would would
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: take an original idea and we would mess around with
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: the arrangement hugely. And and I have to say, I
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: don't know if Russia remembers at this, but I said,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: do you know what we could do? We could make
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: it halftime. God gave rock and roll to, you know.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: I said, we could have quite heavy, almost like an
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: industrial field to it. And I changed one of the chords. Um,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: DoD DoD DoD do that bit there, um and uh.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: And we worked on it, and then we worked on
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: really having cascading vocals and everything at the end. And
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: we weren't thinking of it. We weren't thinking of it
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: as a single at the time. We were thinking it
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: purely as an album track and starting and having many
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: layers and then really building at the very end to
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: a this cascading harmonies, you know, which which we really
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: loved when it When it came out, um and uh,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: it was it was used um as as a single
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: after it came out and people, I love the song basically,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, first of all, we weren't thinking of
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: it as a as a single, and in fact, we
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: weren't thinking of Hold Your Head Up as a single either. Um.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: In fact, no one was having singles at that particular time.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: But it became a hit when they when they cut
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: out three and a half minutes of organ solo, which
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: is fair enough, you know, um, But you know, it
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: was all it was all really good at the time,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: but then it's like everything else. It's like with the Beatles.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I always sort of the Beatles as the
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: first progressive UM group ever, right from the beginning. I mean,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: whether it was Revolution number nine, or whether it was
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: trying their ideas on helter skelter or whatever it was,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: or using music concrete or or whatever. There was so
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: much of that going on, and we were always trying
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: to go to the edge of boundaries, and we were
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: always trying to push things and they didn't always work
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: in in in a way that they should have done,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: but we were trying all the time to do it.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: And in the end Russ wanted to do much more
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: straightforward songs, and I quite understand that and we remained
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: really good friends. But in the end, it's that I'm gonna,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to leave and just go for
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: a solo career and just do some more straightforward songs,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and that that seemed fair enough to me at the time.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: And and and then and then we broke up. You know,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: that was it really tell me. The story of the
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: creation recording of Hold Your Head Up. Hold Your Head
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Up was done Chris White and I shared UM an
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: apartment we had We had a bedroom each, and there
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: was a third guy who did the um the artwork
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: for obviously an oracle as well, so that that was
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: the three of us and we had a room each
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: at the time we were just doing that. At the beginning, UM,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: Hold your Head Up was a song that Chris came
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: into me and said, I've got this song. And I
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: had to say that if you're talking about a song
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: that comes from lyrically and UM from the guitar motif,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: then that was absolutely Chris White. UM. But then again,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: like with everything, Chris and I used to work on
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: things together, change some of the chords and and do
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: one thing and another. And I did as I always did.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: I did lots of the arranging side of what was
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: going on and how we were going to structure the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: whole thing together. Um, but that original motif, you know,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: and and that lovely guitar motif was was Chris White's. Um.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: So he did the song. We went into Abbey Road
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: to to record it. We didn't even record, we didn't
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: even rehearse it. We went in to record it and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: we played it through to Bob Henry and we we
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: did the unbelievably. I mean, we did thirty two takes
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: on it, but we took tape one and um, it
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: was six and a half minutes, and we just went
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: on and built, you know, just improvised the middle part
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: and just built, built it and built it until at
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: the end we were happy with what we got. And
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: my god, we stayed there for another four or five hours,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: doing about thirty two takes, but we went back to
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: one because the great thing was that everyone was really
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: really listening, and Barbara Henry was listening so acutely to
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: too where the song was going. And unbelievably we got
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: through the whole thing without making mistakes. But it felt
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: fresh and fresh and improvised, and we thought immediately we
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: could do much better. But we never never achieved anything better.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: It was just that fresh, early um, early response to
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: the original idea, um and and and and that's how
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: it turned out. And unbelievably, um we all sang on
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: the chorus um and it was actually which nobody got
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: until absolutely recently. It was the words will holding it
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: Chris why it wrote it? And he had his wife
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: in mind, and it was because she was going to
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: a difficult time and it was hold your head up
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: woman basically not not whole as everyone thought it was you,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: but I would go ah at the top and that
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: sort of covered the woman really. Um. So, so that
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: that was the story of the of the single. Really,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: But what was it like when it all of a
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: sudden became it was everywhere in the summer of seventy two,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it became absolutely gigantic, bigger than anything you'd
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: experienced previously. What was that experience from your viewpoint? Well,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: it was fantastic again. But um, when we when we toured,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: we never had this sort of we never had the
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: sort of manager the I mean it wasn't that the
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: managers were We're bad or cheating or anything like that.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: They just weren't really quite the right quality UM. And
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: it really strange enough, it's only in the you know,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: to delete Mars forward, and I only do that for
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: a set. UM. In the last six or seven years,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: we've suddenly had um management that I've got everything right
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: and I've understood everything they should be doing, which means
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: that that it's enabled us to grow in this incarnation
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: of the Zombies Pristance. But the but at that time
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: there were always things wrong from the management side of
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: a point of view, UM and and I'm sure that's
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: what actually went wrong with it. But we had some
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: great shows. You know, we had some really great shows UM,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: but we we had some disastrous, very very important gigs.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: There was one gig in New York that we did
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: and we've just done the previous day. In Canada, We've
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: done a gig with Richie Blackmore for Rainbow, UH and
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: I have to you know, I don't know if if
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: Rischie would agree, but we we really went down very
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: much better than than the Rainbow went down. And then
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: our next gig was in New York and we have
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: this big gig there and by halfway through our show,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: everyone's response are completely tailed off because someone had really
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: UM it was a real tragedy. They'd really, uh, what's
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: what's the what's the word they I can't think the word.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: But they become a disaster because someone had We had
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: a disaster with the organ. They they they pulled some
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: plugs out or something, and it was like playing a
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: very small light sound on the organ instead of the
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: roaring sound that we should have had. And so for instance,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: in in in hold your head up when it should
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: have been um completely blowing things away. It was it
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: was really disaster and we were absolutely yeah, it was
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: disasters for us. And I remember going um to Maxis
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: Karasas City afterwards and I just I just wanted to
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: commit suicide. I happened to meet Brian May there and said,
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: we just had the most awful gig in the world,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: you know. He said, oh, I'm sure it wasn't that bad,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: but it but it was. We had some uh, some people,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: you know, um making a mess of things. Okay, So
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: Argent breaks up, You become a producer. You have a
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: gigantic hit with Tanita ticker hum, twisting my sobriety, and
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: then she completely disappears. How did you find her? How
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: did you create? The hit? Was the video was all
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: over MTV and why did she disappear? My My, my colleague,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: my co production colleague was Pete Peter van Hook, who
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: for years was Van Morrison's drummer UM and his tour
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: manager at the time with someone called Paul Charles who
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: became the head of a really big agency UM. And
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: he found Tanita tick around at the age of seventeen,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: just playing with a single guitar in a small club
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: and that's the only thing that she's done. And and
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: Paul asked us to produce an album for her. So
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: he said, I want I want to get a deal
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: with UM. I can't remember who the deal was now,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: but anyway, he wanted just he wanted to get a deal, uh,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: and I think the Universal I can't remember, but UM
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: he said, will you do three demos? So we did
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: three demos and one of those demos was Twist Twisting
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: my Sobriety. But Pete had the inspired idea that that
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: she should sound really comfortable, she should feel really at
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: home when she recorded. So he said, I'm going to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: put down a little drum machine that gives a very
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: simple um metronomes sort of effect. UM, and then she's
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: going to play an acoustic guitar and on the acoustic guitar,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: UM is, this is going to be something that she's
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: totally at home with, and it's just gonna be voice
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: and guitar. And so she she did this. It was
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: just a very simple UM demos sort of drum track
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: on a drum machine. She laid down the guitar and
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: then she did what became the master vocal and then
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: Pete and I started building up on much more UM
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: uh complicated UM surround for her musically, UM and I
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: put people a drum, a proper drum track on, I
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: put a keyboard based on it, I put some uh
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: an oboe line, and I put one or two other
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: things on as well. UM and it sounded absolutely beautiful.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: And we did we did the whole album like that,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: and on one or two of the tracks we we
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: which exactly the same thing, and on one or two
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: things we changed the the chords completely and and and
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: put some very um, very sophisticated chords around what she
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: was doing. But it worked beautifully because she felt totally
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: at home doing it. UM and I think that could
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: only ever happen once when she was seventeen, because it
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: was a huge hit. It sold something like four million
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: albums worldwide, uh, in particularly in Europe. UM. And after that,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: quite understandably, she wanted to use her own touring band
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: instead of US, just UM building up a surround for
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: her UM. And she did that and and it was
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: I think it was a more ordinary result. And then
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: after that she wanted to co produce it, and for
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: me it became again even more ordinary, even though some
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: of the stuff was nice on it, and and and
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the sales just went from four million I think the
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: second second album did a million and a half, which
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: was still yeah, good. But then after that it was
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: almost nothing until it just faded away. And it's a
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: great shame. But um, I thought it was very special.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: The first album absolutely most of the world agreed. Okay,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: at this late date, who owns your songs? And do
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: you get appropriately paid? The earlier stuff? Is that reverted
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: in the UK? You talked about our Galago Calico. In
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: the US, copyright seems to be forever we have reversion rates.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: What's the status of all you're publishing? Um it it
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: was owned. The deal was done in the sixties, so
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: it was a fifty fifty deal as everything was then
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: UM and it remained a fifty fifties deal. UM. Uh
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: So all the early stuff UM, including the ours A
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: stuff as as well, was with a company called Marquis
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Music and Verily Music, which was owned by Carol Broughton,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: and it was totally UM. That has now transferred but
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: still on a similar basis to UM wise music who
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: seem really good. I mean that's only happened recently, but
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: all that early stuff is I'm afraid. But then most
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: things in the sixties were and in the early seventies
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: were that UM and UM. And that's just how things
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: are at the moment. Okay. It's so at this point,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: if you didn't want to have any other forms of income,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: does enough come in from your songs that you could
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: live a comfortable life. Yes, And that's what's been wonderful,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: because the thing is it it means that we can
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: we can do what we want through enthusiasm and energy UM.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: And we can still do the absolutely rejuvenating thing of
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: continuing to make music in the way that we've always
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: aid music and and and get excited about how we're recording,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: and and and and through making a musical idea of
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: work and and seeing that start to come together. Um
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: and and and the thing is those early things from
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: she's not there time of the season and tell her no,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: hold your head up, and one or two other things. Um,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: they that they've really provided a fantastic income which has
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: given the freedom to be able to do what we
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: want to do. Um. You know, because this is a
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: very short life really that everybody has. As you get older,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: it feels shorter and shorter, and it just means that
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: that you know, you can actually you can actually um
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: continue to do what you want to do and to
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: build things, and to continue to write and and then
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: have that wonderful, rejuvenating feeling of being able to go
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: on the road um and and see people who a
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: completely different generation often respond to what we're doing, um
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: and getting that energy back from from people sometimes. I mean,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: obviously we've got people of our our own age who
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: listened to us, but also we have some very young
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: people as well. We always have a young component in
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: the audience. UM. And and the thought of still being
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: able to still be able to connect with people of
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: a present generation is it's really unlooked for and quite
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: extraordinary and and and that's something that I would never
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: have dreamed of. Actually, so I think we feel very
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: lucky to be at that point. Well, right, this has
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: been brilliant. You're a great storyteller. Thanks so much for
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: taking the time to talk to me. Oh, thanks so much.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Till next time. This is Barberth Sex