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Sad Goodbyes With ANDY SCOTT From THE SWEET · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hi, I'm Andy Scott of the Suite and we're coming to Australia to tour
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  in November. Prior to that, we are on one of these Rock the
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  Book cruises out of Sydney and we just hope to see you all there.
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  With me will be my singer Paul Manzie, my best player, Lee Small,
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  my drummer Adam Booth, and our younger genius second guitar player, keyboard
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  player Tom Corey, Ray good Ernie. Thanks for joining us the same thing.
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  Well, it's been fantastic so far. You'll keep it that way,
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  say the Sweeter. Hitting Australia this November for the Farewell Tour Greatest Hits,
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  starting in Melbourne on November eighth, then heading to the Early Beach Music Festival,
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  Tweettheads thwarm By Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney in Penrith, and then finishing
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  in Deirerile on November the twenty third. It's decent run of shows in some
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  out of the way places, mate, Yeah, exactly. Also, I've
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  just been told yesterday that it looks like we'll be going to Tazzy and then
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  finishing in Perth, so there's a little bit for everybody. Fantastic. But
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  I live in Australia and I don't even know if the well listen and you're
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  playing there, So he's the one off on me. I have to say,
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  the promoter obviously knows something that we don't. Let's just leave it at
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  that. The Early Beach show should be fun too, bro, like,
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  you won't want to leave there. And then the Rock the Boat tries.
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  I didn't know you're on that, Like I was on that last year and
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  it's a fantastic, fantastic trip. You're gonna have a ball. Yeah,
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  we were on the one just before the pandemic with Susie Quattro, and we
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  were also on one a couple of years ago with the Angels and Chocolate Starfish
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  and it was a really really good one there. And five years ago,
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  four or five years ago, Yeah, Jay, I saw you on Yeah,
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  brilliant, brilliant stuff. I was there with that with an icy DC
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  tribute bank called Akadaka Ah. Yes, I remember them. Yeah, they
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  were there, very cool, very cool. So what what can fans expect
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  from the shows? He says, Well, what's what's the sweet to twenty
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  twenty four show? Looks like we've been through many phases as you know,
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  as as you would imagine with the difference in musical styles, fifty odd years
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  of a catalog with like almost three hundred songs in it, try picking twenty
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  from that, you know, or it's it's uh, I think most of
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  the set rights itself. You know, we're certainly going to do about a
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  dozen of the hits see, and then we're going to fill it with things
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  like set Me Free, some some of the heavy rock stuff, and then
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  because we've been we've been releasing some stuff more recently, we'll we'll probably chuck
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  a couple of the new ones in and it depends how long and whether we've
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  got supports on all of the dates, depends how long we're going to be
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  playing, So the set might change slightly, but you know, it's there'll
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  be something for everybody. I can tell you that you mentioned a good point
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  there. Ran like it must be an absolute nightmare coming up with a set
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  list to play the majority of people, because you've got so many songs and
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  they all mean different things to different people. Say it's just you just you
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  just couldn't well. The thing is, you're damned if you do. You're
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  damned if you don't play a song. And the other side of it is
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  a friend of mine works for Paul McCartney and he said to He said that
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  the band have to know over a hundred songs because they don't know what he's
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  going to pick right on that night. That there's a certain section of the
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  set where they might go on a bit, they might not go on a
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  bit. He might throw a curveball in. So now you imagine that you
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  better be. They're paid really well, so best not mess up. I
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  think you know. It definitely test you out, tho, wouldn't it?
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  Yeah? It would. It'd be like the old James Brown thing. If
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  a Trumpeters made a mistake, he'd look at him and give him five,
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  which meant five dollars less tonight for you mate. That's it. Wow.
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  Does the title suggest that it's going to be your farewell tour on this country?
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  So is it a farewell world tour that you do it? Or is
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  it just the last time you come to Austraia. Well, I did say
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  something a couple of years ago that because of situations, I mean, I'm
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  now fifteen years in with prostate cancer, I'm doing fine. You know,
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  the guys who look after me, are brilliant, and I don't want to
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  stop doing what I'm doing. But sometimes going away for like six weeks on
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  a full blooded tour on a tour bus and all that, I can't do
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  that anymore. So when you start talking about farewell, it doesn't mean to
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  say we won't come to Ustralia again. It's just putting together, should we
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  say, twelve to fifteen dates in a month or three weeks is not that
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  easy for me. So let's let's see how it goes. Yeah, yeah,
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  well might I'm backing you and you're looking fresh and vibrant. Still,
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  well, you know, you don't see what's happening, you know, further
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  down is what was it? Somebody said to me. Somebody said to me,
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  you're like the swan, not looking too bad above the water, but
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  down below there's a lot going on there. You had a bit of paddle
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  bait and needs doing down the line. The Sweet Tour out Here Stride for
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  the first time in nineteen seventy five, made which is almost fifty years ago.
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  Like, can you remember much about that first tour? I remember a
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  lot. I remember one of the big dates. It must have been known
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  in Swindon Swindon, Sydney, the big open airplace, Pavilions something Pavilions,
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  Holden Pavilions. Yeah, and we had such luminaries as Andy Gibb as one
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  of the support acts. I think there was a bank called Sherbert. And
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  the weird thing was during the sound check somebody came rushing up and said,
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  you're far too loud for this. And I'm looking at the place and it
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  holds about twenty thousand or more and I'm thinking too loud. Good lord,
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  you know. But I think they were expecting a bit of a pop band
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  and what they actually got was a four runner of Motley cru probably you know
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  Bless your Cotton Sock fra Yeah. You mentioned before that you've got over three
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  hundred songs, mate. So when you turn around different parts of the world,
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  like you find that different places have got different songs that they want you
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  to play, or like the hits more universal and you can just have a
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  basic setlist forever you go. Well, I think we've got to the point
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  where we know where we're starting, we know where we're finishing. It's that
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  little bit in the middle where things can change. Plus also the added bonus
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  for Australia is one of our biggest number ones. There was one that was
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  only ever released as a single in Australia, which was Peppermint Twist, right,
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  so it was on the album and the Australian record company picked that as
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  a single, and then we gotta we gotta imagine there's a telegram all those
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  years ago congratulating us on our number one record in Australia and we're wondering what
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  record that was, because we it was on the same album as there were
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  there were no other singles released from this album, but Australia put put out
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  the greatest like the greatest hits album and tacked on the end of it was
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  Pepperin Twist and the radio station started to play it and it went to number
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  one. So, uh, every time we go to Australia, Peppermin Twist
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  goes into the set and nowhere else. It didn't really go off anywhere else.
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  No, we've we've included it on some of the you know compilations,
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  and we have we have tacked it. We have another song called a c
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  DC and what we do is it's the same kind of song, rhythm,
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  almost similar chorde shapes and we've what we do is we sometimes morphed the two
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  together. So all of a sudden, when we're no longer playing a C
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  d C, we're playing pepperin twist, you know, just just for a
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  just for a little bit of a medley change, you know, time as
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  a band made. Like the music industry has seen so many changing trends and
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  bands coming go and shit, But you guys have always stuck to your guns
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  and done what you do best. Like, how difficult has it been over
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  the years to be able to do that? I guess when everything's just going
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  in so many different directions. All right, I'll pick one word out of
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  what you just said, difficult, difficult, It can just be a little
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  bit hit and miss. We had a really good seventies obviously the eighties weren't
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  too bad for two thousands where we kind of got running again. Shoul we
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  see. It coincided with me kind of moving out of London, and I
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  think that was a catalyst that I had to get out of that. In
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  London, everybody expects you to be you know, you get invited to things,
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  and if you don't go, they wonder whether you're ill and all that
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  kind of stuff. So I just got off that roundabout and moved to where
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  we are now in wheelchair and it's been fantastic and I just love coming home,
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  you know, to hello Jane over there and my little dog Ted.
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  What do yeah? Yeah, the Slipper Thief And it's great. I've got
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  a brilliant mix of life now we're here and when I go on tour and
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  I've cut all the stuff that aren't there isn't necessary in life, you know,
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  or you know, just do the things you want to do, and
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  I think you end you end up with a better a better quality of life,
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  you know. Very well, said brother very well said, Now you
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  mentioned something about new music before in the press releases they gave us there was
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  nothing about it. So is it new music? Have you just released new
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  music or are you writing new music? Oh? Writing? We've got a
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  new album coming out called Full Circle. It will be out by the time
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  we do the tour, and I'm pretty sure that we'll manage to get Sony
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  to press a few copies so that we can take them with us. Also,
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  if you go on the Suite official YouTube channel, you will find videos
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  of all the of all the new songs and the way the band has been
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  for the past six years, so you know, it's it's all there for
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  people to see. And I think we've got something like over a million,
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  million and a half viewers on that channel now, so you know, so
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  it turns out right, yeah, yeah, yeah, not to be as
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  big an our sohole as I used to be. I got tod once I
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  was bored in ourshole and just acretat bigger. So it's what the new music
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  like back. Is it what people would expect from the suite or is it
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  you got to be sort of get boreder I guess a little bit these days
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  and try and change things up a bit, wouldn't you. Well, you
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  can't rewrite your hits. I know people have and it sometimes works, but
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  you're better off looking for something that that the band sounds good, sounds good
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  playing. So we've had something like four singles that have gone to number one.
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  Uh. There's a chart over here called the Heritage Chart, which is
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  mainly for artists of long standing and you know, everybody appears in there at
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  the moment. Bon Jovia number one in it. But yeah, but we've
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  had we've had four singles that have all gone to number one and well you'll
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  see it if if you go on the channel. I mean, I could
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  rab it on about all the songs, but if you don't know them,
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  best idea is get to know them first and then and I'm sure during the
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  tour we'll probably play play two of those new ones, but not not the
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  same too every night, so we mix it up a bit, you know.
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  Fantastic. Well, that's all I've got for you. I'd been an
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  absolute pleasure to speak with you. Run at the Farewell Tour by the Suite
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  kicks off in November and runs through to the end of November, and I'm
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  going to do me best to come along with the Brisbane show mate, so
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  we'll catch up and say la, yeah, all right, tell your daughters
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  it won't be like Taylor Swift, but it will be very enjoyable if you
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  want to come along,