Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Brinsley Schwarz

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Brinsley Schwarz · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bobmasu's podcast. My guest
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: today is Brinsley Schwartz. Brinsley, good to have you here,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: could be here? What think okay? For the Americans were
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: out of the loop? What exactly was pub rock? Easy? Rock?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Was any music than any band wanted to play in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a pub. There wasn't as no such thing as a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a music genre that you could say was pub rock.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It was just what everybody played. Anybody played in a pub. Okay,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So then why did it get a label? What was
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: different about it from what came before? I was well
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: so musically I'd say that the biggest difference between the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: two things was, Hey, you get into words like honest um,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: but pub rock was down to earth, just playing songs.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And there were no no long sometimes tedious guitar solos
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: or keyboard silos or drum solos. He never saw a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: drub solo in a pub, so so much more focused
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: on the songs and the and the excitement. The level
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of energy was was higher, The audience was really close
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that they could they could get the vibe and see
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: what was going on, much better than bigger bands that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: played in big places and It also provided a place
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: for bands that were never going to be able to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: play get up to playing in in big places, somewhere
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to play, and eventually some of them did get up
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to play in big places. So well, let's set the scene,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: let's put it in context. When did pub rock begin? Well,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: so it depends when you when you think it begun.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Um Eggs Over Easy with the band the first band
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that any of us saw playing in a in a pub.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: They were American from San Francisco area, I believe Um.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We saw that we we were fed up and playing
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in bigger places, mostly colleges, and the idea of playing
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: with an audience in front of you, not having to
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: play your set of album songs, you could play whatever
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you wanted appealed. So in the timeline we saw Eggs
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Over Easy. Um. Two weeks later, Oh Dave Robinson, our manager,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and myself went around pubs in London trying to persuade
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: landlords that would be a really good idea to have
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: us play in the pub. A lot of them didn't
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: didn't get it, but they did get that we would
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: play for nothing until until they were making enough money
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to be able to pay us, which so they liked
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that idea, and a few weeks later we were we
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: started playing in pubs and pretty pretty soon and it
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: went down really well. It's pretty soon there were as
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: many people outside as there were inside. It was summer,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: so it was a good time of year to be
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: doing it. And pretty soon other other bands joined in,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: got gigs in some of the pubs, and I would say,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: but that that's when it became pub rock. Well that's when,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: roughly when the press took notice and labeled it pub rock. Okay,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: this would be what year for what year did you
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: start playing the pubs? Yeah, I would say seventy summer
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of seventy one. Okay, So for those of us who
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: are not English, this is in London or did it
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: spread throughout the nation? It was it was mostly in London,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: uh and closely around London. But yeah, i'd say it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: was in London. Okay, So we don't have pubs in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the US. How large would these pubs be? How many
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: people could be there when you performed? Um? Probably maybe
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the larger ones could hold hundred fifty two hundred people.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: There was a place, a pub called the Kensington, which
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: was had a large mainly road but large paving part outside.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And I definitely remember going out one very hot summer
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: evening and that that section of that square being packed
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of people with people and the inside but so in
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: or maybe four hundred people, but mainly I'd stay between
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: hundred two hundred like your it's just the same thing.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And that's states like bars, larger what you called larger bars, okay.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And how many of these bars were there? How many
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: were in the circuit so to speak, um, ten a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: dozen so not many, no, no, not not a lot
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to know. Okay, So when you start playing the pubs,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: do you how frequently do you play? And do you
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: play at the same pub or different pubs? We we
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: played in maybe four to six different pubs and once
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a week or once a fortnight. So we were you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: we were playing just an ordinary amount, but always mostly
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: in pubs. And once you established you could generate a crowd,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: how much revenue could you generate, um, fifty per person
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: on the door, maybe a hundred pounds, two hundred pounds,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: not a lot of money, okay, it's like it's like
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: it is now. We don't do this for the money.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: We do it because it's fun. That's that's how it
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: how it was. We weren't really looking for anything else.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: We just wanted to play. Okay, so Dave Robinson Jermana joing.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: At this point the act is called Brinsley Schwartz. Do
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: you say Schwarz with the te or without the tea?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Now we say it with the T, but it's it
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: rhymes with hearts. It's Prinsley Schwartz, not princely Schwartz. One
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: more time, I gotta how do you pronounce it? Schwartz?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Swats so it rhymes with huts. I got it. I'm
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, It's like in the UK, Ray
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: it's Ray Davis, and here it's Ray Davies. But we'll
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: soldier forward. So who's who's in the man Brinsley Schwartz
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: at this point myself, Nickla, Bob Andrews, Billy Rankin in gone.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: So that's the five of us. Okay, let's let's go
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: back a little bit further when okay, where do you
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: grow up? Sorry? Where did I grow up? Yeah? Mostly
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in a place called Tunbridge Wells, which is in Kent,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: or or in villages around. We moved quite a lot,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: but never a long way. So around Tumbridge Wells yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the south southeast corner. How far from London thirty five?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And did you go into London a lot or were
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you living like in the country mentally? Um M, well, yeah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: we went into into London a lot. By the time
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: pub Rockets started we were living as a band together
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: in a house in a place called Northward, which was
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: northwest London. So as the as the debacle in nine
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: seventy started, we all moved into London and lived pretty
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: much in London. Okay, so let's go back. You're moving around.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Why are you moving around as a family so much?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: My parents moved along. We we were we were a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: house to do a rothers. They bought houses, we fixed
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: them up in the holidays. After a couple of years
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: we dined again. And was that Was that their main
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: means of employment or did the outside jobs? Now? My
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: my father was a school teacher in a in a
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: private school, which is the opposite to yours. You would
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: call it a public school. Yes, And how many kids
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: in the family just too then? Which were you the older,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the younger, the older? Whatever happened with the younger? Um,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: she got married and moved away. She's she's now living
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: in Scotland with a second husband. Okay, so you're growing up,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: when do you get exposed to music and excited about music?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I think pre pre Elvis, I can remember, so I
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: have to dig dig into memories. I remember a record
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: called Green Door, which I have no idea Who's who's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: saying that Frankie, Frankie somebody, Frankie Vaughn maybe um. And
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: that that's the first record that I I said I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: heard as a record. But pretty soon after that I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was listening to Elvis Presley and then all of the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: late fifties and early sixties music. And the real turning
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: point was when I heard a tune called Patche which
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: was performed by a band called the show Days m
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And that is why why I wanted to be a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: guitar player. Okay, so how did you hear these records
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: on the radio? Did you buy the records on the radio?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Mostly historically we've learned that radio was very controlled in
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the UK with the BBC, and people would listen to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Radio Luxembourg Radio Caroline, what was your experience that well,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that Radio Luxembourg Radio carry on a bit later later
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: than this, but yes, it most most radio was by
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the BBC, and they were very strict um rules about
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: what could be played and what couldn't be played. And
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until the pirate radio stations started up that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: we started to hear music from from the from more
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: from the States um that we hadn't had a chance
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to to hear in England. Now, Liverpool was a dark
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: city and they say that the sailors came in with
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: blues records and that influenced the scene. There was that
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: only in Liverpool. Was it also where you were or
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in the Kent area It wasn't. It wasn't in the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Kent area. The top forty was probably in stock in
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the late local record store. Um it was. It was
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: very very young and and unworldly or experiences at that time.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: It was a long time before I heard of blues record.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I don't remember which the first had a friend and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: older friend who there was a guitar player who who
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: got me around to his place one day said listened
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to this and put on John mel Male Blues Breaker
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: album and that was probably the first time I heard
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: a blues record. And and I remember I remember listening
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to Albert king In in the local records store. You
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: could go into a booze. That happened in the States too.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: You could get into a booth and if there was
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: no one in the store, they just played the record
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: for you. And so I used to do that. Um okay,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: so you hear you hear apache tell me about picking
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: up an instrument and playing. Um. I hustled my parents.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: They gave me a classical guitar for my birthday and
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to play a patty. I learned that
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: by myself without and they just from the tune figured
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: out some chords. And I've got a book called Five
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Common Chords, which was which was a bad book to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: get because it showed you every chord in all of
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: its inversions, and so every chord was a different poet
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in your head, but really they were all the same,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: just moved up and down the fingerboard. It was an
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: actually much easier thing to learn to play guitar than
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of other instruments, which I tried to play
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: later on. And if you started with the book, do
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you know how to read music? No? So I did
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: younger at school. I think I got to grade four piano,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Grade four it's called in this country. So I could
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: read music, but once I started playing guitar, I found
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that I could I knew what was coming next and
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: where it was quicker than I could read it off
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the of the page. So I ended up really learning
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: everything by ear. So you never took a lesson. Much
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: later on I took I did some lessons when when
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: some guitar dam is opened up in London that would
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: have been in the in the eighties, I guess and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I went to some of that. And what were you
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: learning to learn and searching to learn and what did
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you actually learn? Um? I guess I was searching to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: learn steely Den chords and parts. I did learn the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: solo to here's a memory stuff. Uh, well it's a
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: major Larry Carlton solo on a on the steely Den charm. So, um,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: when do you get an electric guitar? Um? Well, this
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: is where helping my father was with the doing up
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the house was. I got a shilling a day that's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: ten cents maybe maybe it's about ten twelve cents um
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: for helping, for which I had to do things like
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: crawl under the floorboards to pull the electricity cables through.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Do you know that spiders are white and alive? When
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they're underneath floorboards. Um. And I got enough money to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: buy a an electric guitar. But when I went to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: to buy one, I thought I knew what it was
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that I wanted. My eye settled on something different, and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: my parents very kindly paid difference for me. So I
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: got a half decent electric guitar, which was what it
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was called a Oftener color Rama. It was red and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: looked like the guitar that Hank Martin as the Shadows used,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and that was good enough for me. And what about
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: an amplifier? Yeah, I just got a little one and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I it had vowels in it, but I didn't really
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: know what that meant and important it was until much
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: later later on. Okay, So you're playing and at this
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: point your hold okay, and at what point do you say, hey,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I want to play with others? And what happens? Um?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: When I when I left school, I left school at eighteen, Um,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to go to university, although I had
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a place. I wanted to be a guitar player. What
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: before we get there, you never played in a group
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: or anything in high school or you know whatever, your
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: secondary school. Yeah, okay, in my so this is part
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of part of my time that I don't think about
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: too much. I went to a boarding school when I
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: was fourteen and we had a band. We used to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: sneak out underneath play underneath the stage in the hall
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. Um. There were six
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of us. We were sounds, four plus two. We didn't
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: really know what we were doing, but it was a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: lot of fun and I guess part of it was
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: sneaking out at night in the middle of the night
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: to smoke cigarettes, drink cider and play underneath the hall.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: But we did go. Nicklay's father was an r af
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: UM commander and in Germany and we went to uh
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: We went there to play for the for the kids,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and we were all fifteen sixteen, so I think we
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: played five shows. We traveled in my My parents had
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a sleeper bus and yeah, we all piled in with
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it to amplifiers and a snare drum. I went and played.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: That was the only time that I had played before
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: leaving school. And do you remember what the material was? Yeah,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: any rock and roll song that we could sing, one
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: of us who could sing could put together. Although we
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: did we played a lot of Beatles. I remember playing
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you really got me and thinking, well this is fabulous.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that kind of said what we would call
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: pop music in England. Okay, did music bring it together
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: with Nick Low? Or were you friends before that and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: music brought us to get together? We were two years
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: apart in school and you didn't mess with people two
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: years apart. So how did you actually cook up with Nick?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I think we're people were talking one day and we
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: all ended up with in the in the room under
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the stage, in the in the hall, and that's that's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: kind of how it started. It was he always a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: bass player or did that just you know we needed
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a bass player in the band. No, it wasn't. I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: think he had a base by the time we went
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and played in Germany. But but before before then he
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: had a had along I think probably a bit of
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a clothes line, like plastic lines um sort of broomstick
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and a packing case and and just plucked at it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: We were all just whatever we had. We just wanted
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to do be in this and and so we did
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: what we could. The Beatles hit in sixty two. What
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was it like when the Beatles hit you were still
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: in secondary school? It was m hm, it was it
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: was everything that was wildly exciting. Um, it was all
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: people would talk about. The the anticipation for the next
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: single was was was massive? Um, yeah, it was. It
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: was a turning point for the as it turned out,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: for the world. I would say, right, but you were
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ahead of us in the UK
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and all these other acts that we consider to be
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the British invasion in the US. You know, the ones
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: from Liverpool and then you have the Kinks. What was
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it like having that scene in the UK? Um, yeah,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it was just it was just it was it was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: almost everything that we thought about that I guess. I
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: guess we thought about football as as well and girls,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: but otherwise it was it was the music. It's what
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: everybody was interested in. All the hangouts in record stores
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and well, right, I was never allowed to go to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a coffee shop, but I guess a coffee bar as
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: they were called. Then that's what we talked about. That
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: overtook movies and things like that as the main event.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It was wildly exciting. Okay, you graduate from what we
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: call high school, you decide you don't want to go
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to college. Your father is a teacher, what does he
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: have to say about that? He's not happy. Neither of
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: my parents are happy, but they could see that it
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was what I wanted to do, and they came up
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: with an offer that they would take care of me
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: vie if I got any money. I contributed part of
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it to the running of the household and I had
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a year and if I didn't it didn't succeed. After
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a year, then I was either out of out of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: my own or UM gone toinun of city. So they
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: looked after me for a for a year, probably longer
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: in the end. So what happened in that year? In
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that year somebody somebody knocked on the door or or
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: telephoned me. I think they knocked on the door or
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: either that or somebody knew my mother UM, and a
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: word got sent down a line somewhere, and this guy
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: whose name was Dave Cottam turned up and said, I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: hear you play guitar and can sing. Do you want
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to be in a band, to which I said yes.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So that band came known as three as a Crowd
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and which later turned into Cypington Lodge and we eventually
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: made singles for Am I or Parlophone UM. And that
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that was. That was the beginning of what I would
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: call a career. Wh Okay, how long after we've calls
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you are you making records for EM? I must must
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: be a year, a year, a year and a half
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: something like that. A long time and you're still living
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at home? What are you? You know? What are you
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: living on? Financially? Very little? Hardly anything at all? Really?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So how does the band get a deal with the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: m I we h A guy asked to manage us?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Saw us playing somewhere, asked the manager as we said, okay,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and he got he got the deal. Um, I think
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: they paid for us to do a couple of demos
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and and he carted those around the record labels and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: we ended up getting a deal for five singles, which
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: we ended up doing. So what happened with kippington Um?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: We made? We made five singles? People change, We became
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: an left so that the drama who was the last
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: person to leave, he left and week that's where we
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: got when we got Billy ranking in Um the bass
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: player whose band it was in the start, he left
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: because he wanted to play soul music and we didn't. UM.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: That's when Nick joined UH and then and then we
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: decided we needed an organ player, and that's where Barry
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Landerman came, who was at the same school as Nick
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and myself. So basically I phoned around people that I've
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: been at school with and said you want to join
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: a band? And people did and so um and then
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in the end Barry left. He went and played with
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a real pop group called Vanity Fair and and then
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: we had we advertised and found Bob Andrews. Okay, what
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: was Nick doing? We've were you called them? I have
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: no I have no idea, but see, obviously nothing that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: important because he just jumped at the chance and and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: came down. Okay, when is it goal? From Kippington Lane
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to Brindsley s Keypington Lodge that there was Commington Lodge
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: somewhere somewhere in the middle of that appears, so the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: four and after so I guess sometime in sixty six
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: days or sixty nine um, and yeah, they showed the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: other three chose the name. Okay, okay, let's stop. The
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: name ends up being your name, Brinsley Shot, how does
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: that happen? We agreed that that Keypington Lodge was not
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a good name and that we should leave that behind
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and all that it had meant um, and we were
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: going to write down or suggested names, get together and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: pick them one at a time and choose one. Uh.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And when that was due to happen on the Sunday,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I think, And when I turned up at Nick and
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Bob's flat, they said, no, need to do that, We've
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: chosen already and they told me and I thought, oh no,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that's not pretty good, and but they said they were adamant.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: So that's how I happen. Well, there's a benefit to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the p and being your name. And I'm sure all
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: this all this time later because of the recognition, you're
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: probably happy. Yeah. I didn't. I didn't think about it
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: much after that, you know, I just complained and then said, yeah, okay,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: let's do that. Okay, it's keeping in livee. You made
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the five records for you, am I. The band keeps
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: morphing now, as Brinsley shots what happens then? Um, we
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: saw an adverse in the Melody Maker, which was the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: main music magazine of the time, UM, advertising for a
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: band that had their own equipment and wrote songs. And
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: we did have our own equipment and we did write songs.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: So we called up the person turned up to Dave
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Robinson who came down to Tombridge Wells and saw us play.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: We went to for a few meals, mostly Indian meals
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: with him. He told lots of great stories about stuff
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and we agreed to let him manage us. In reality,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: what did he have going on when he was courting you? Um,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: he didn't have very much going on. He was his company,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: which was just him basically was involved with a small
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: group of companies of small companies who were involved in
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the payment business. Although Forbidden Fruit who are clothes story
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: up in London, it was one of them. There was
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a little film film company um and an album cover
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: designer Barney Bubbles, who went on to do quite a
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: lot and that was overseen by by this money man
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and so Apart from wowing us with stories about about
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Hendricks and touring and various other things, his idea was
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: for us to play and and move up the ladder,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: play the right gigs and trying to move up up
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the ladder, playing bigger places and on tours with people
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: with big bands. Okay, tell me about Dave Robinson. Weltimately
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: goes on to form Stiff Records and he continues to
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: be a manager. What was he like Was he a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: force of nature? Was he lucky? Was he was a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: force of nature? Definitely? Did? Do you know the story
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of how he got us at the gig, at the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: film or east? No? But are we jumping ahead? I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: know that, I mean, I want to hear you tell
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the story. But let's go a little bit slower. So
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you're playing, You're playing around, the band has your name.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: What ultimately happens UM It comes to a point where
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: we realized that, uh, it's just not going to go
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: anywhere unless we do something that we do something out
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: of the ordinary or something big enough to get the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: attention of any kind of record label. It was not
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: very easy to get on even if you had a manager,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it was not easy to get to get on UM.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So we decided that we'd go the route of trying
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to to do something that would catch attention. And the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: question was put to the other member the other companies
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that were involved in the in the group of companies,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and they came up with some pretty bizarre ideas, but
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the one that stuck was that we would we would.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It's like a circle that you have to close all
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of the all of the things at the same time.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: So we would get a major gig in the United States,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: we could get a record company and a songwriting deal
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: so that we could pay for transporting press music press
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: from around the world to see us play at at
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: whatever gig it was. So we dave I did. Had
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to get the gig on a promise, had to get
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the called company on a promise, and so on and
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: close the wall at the same pretty much at the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: same time, which he which he did. Um, and that's
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: what we were set about doing. Well, that's what he
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: set about doing. So how did it play out? Um? Well?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So now now is there right to tell the story
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: about how he got us the gig? Friday afternoon in London,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: he calls up and hearing names again, he's list with names.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Who was it that owned or ran ah those two
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: gigs on the West coast of Bill Graham? Bill Graham.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: So he calls up Bill Graham's office, gets to speak
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: to Bill. Bill Graham says, I have a I have
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a band, we have a we have a record deal,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and we want to fly the world's press to come
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and see the band playing at the film Warriors. Bill
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Graham thinks that I got a crazy guy on the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: phone and says to Dave, Okay, send me the tape
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and I'll see what we can do, and puts the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: phone down and forgets all about us Dave. Dave gets
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: books a flight to San Francisco. I guess he was.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: He was in And on Monday morning, when Bill Graham
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: comes into his office, David sitting in his office with
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the tape. Um Bill Graham says, hello, who are you?
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: What can I do? Okay? So I called you on Friday.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I've got a band, We've got a record deal. We
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: want to fly the world's press to see them play
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: at the film War East. And I brought the tape.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You asked for the tape. Here it is. Bill gram said,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: it's okay, I don't need the tape. You've got the game.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And that's how That's how Dave Romson did stuff. He
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: was a force of nature. You didn't say no, go
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: away at that point. Um so so yes, so we
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: got the gig, and I do want the whole story.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: It goes on forever, okay. So I can only set
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: it from my my point of view. I know there's
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: lots of stuff out there that there's been a book
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: or books written. I haven't read very much of any
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of them. Um, you know I was, I was there.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Really the book kind of boring. Um, So Dave tired
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: start at the beginning for the press. Here he got
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: all the pressed together. UM, who thought should come and
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and rented a plane from air lingus. He was irish,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: so maybe he had a few strings to pull. Um,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: which was supposed to take the press from heath Row
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: to Kennedy. Um. He sorted out visa applications. We had
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: an exchange band. In those days, the musicians unions of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: both countries had to agree before any visa could be granted,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: so our musicians you had to to vet us and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: make sure that there was another band from the States
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: coming to take our place, and vice versa. The band
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that was chosen was Love, and I'm going to forget
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the guy's name again. Who was the singer in Love? Arthur?
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He developed laryngoitus a few days before the visas were
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: supposed to be done, so they're canceled the tour, which
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: meant that we didn't have an exchange band, which meant
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: we couldn't get visas. And we found this out less
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: than a week before we well actually less than a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: less than two days before we were supposed to golf
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and go to New York. In New York, we were
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: supposed to have three days rehearsal at the former East
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: with with our requested gear, some of our own, but
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: some hired our requested gear, and we were supposed to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: what we did buy or arrange for the front three
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: rows to be available for our press guests. The film
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: or East had had a deal where you could only
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: use cameras in the building up until a certain time,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and that was agreed upon so that our drummer, Billy
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: he was. He had an American and an English passport,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: so he didn't have a problem. He got his visa
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and on the Tuesday morning before we were supposed to play,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: he flew to to the States, um as I remember it.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: When we eventually managed to meet up again, he told
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: us that he had a limousine, came up from the airport,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: drove into a hotel in Manhattan and settled him into
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: his room. The driver gave him his room number and said,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm for you at any time, day or night
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you want to go somewhere, you want to do something,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: just give me a call and I'll be there in
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: ten minutes. So Billy says great because his room, tries
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to relax as Jed lagged a bit freaked out because
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: he's by himself and where God knows where. He doesn't
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: know where we are, but at this point and so
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: he said in the after half an forty minutes and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: decides he's going to go out, so it calls up
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the driver. The driver says, no problem, meet me outside
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the front in ten minutes. Billy goes down waiting. There's
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a guy standing along the pavement from him, also looks
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: like he's waiting for something. A car pulls up, two
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: guys jump out, run across to the guy that's standing
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: there to billion nice hmendous stomach. Okay, this is this
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: is not the good news for Billy goes back to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: his his room where he stays pretty much for the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: for the remaining three days until we turn up. So
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: that that was that's his story. Dave says to us, Okay,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we've been refused visas. So we applied, but we're refused.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Um And says we'll go to Canada. We'll go to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Toronto and get visas there. They won't know that we've
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: been turned down. Here, it'll be it'll be easy. So
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we get on the first flight to Toronto, check into
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a hotel, go down to the American Embassy and fill
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in the forms for visas to the United States. And
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: there's a question on the forms that says, have you
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: ever been refused a visa to the United States from
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: any country? So I think I got there first and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: said today, what do we do about this question? Dave?
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: He says, just say no. So I said no, we
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: all did that. We filled them inside them off, took
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: them up to this guy who who was an all American.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: That's that's what I'll say about him. He took them.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: He didn't like us. We had long hair. And you know,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: this was then. It's different from very different from now. Um.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: He took them and it was lunchtime. He said, come
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: back after lunch and you're you know, you'll have your papers.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: So when we went back, we we got called the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: same guy. He said, you guys think I'm that we're
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: crazy here. I've got a million dollar computer behind me
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that tells me that you were refused visas to the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: United States just a day ago in London. And we
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: said yeah, mumblement, And he said and I so I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: remember this, this is this is a quote. You guys
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: want to go to the US of A. You got
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: no chance, At which point he threw our papers at
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: us and we left told between the legs and oh dear,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: what do we do now? So then we all went
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: back to the hotel. We had a day visa to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: stay in Canada, so we didn't go out. But these
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: chances are we run into a policeman and get caught
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: for crossing the road where we shouldn't or something like that,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and they'd want to see our papers, and then we
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: get extradited. So we stayed in the hotel while Dave
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: went out with our record company are Canadian record company
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: guy who was great, supplied all kinds of we said
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: we needed were pretty much eight burgers and watched our trek.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You m in the hotel and Dave was out trying UM.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So I believe I believe a senator or someone high
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: up handled the deal for us, got us waved through.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And so on Friday, so the first gig, first set
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was Friday evening at seven o'clock. So Friday, just before lunch,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: we turned up at the American Embassy, still in the
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: forms say yes to the dread question and hand them
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: in to the same guy who's not happy because he
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: knows that he's got to pass us. Um and he
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: really doesn't like this now. Um. So at half past
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: twelve he comes out from from the back and puts
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: a pile of papers which looked very much like our
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: three visa application forms with our passports on the on
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the counter in front of him, and then goes to lunch.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: He comes back about hot past one and calls us
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: over and pushes the papers and visa to us without
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: saying a word. We take them, say thank you very much, uh,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and and go. And in that hour a ground crew
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: strike on the northeast coast in the United States is
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: IS is announced and there are no flight to or
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: from um. So we hire a private little plane five
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Caesar Cessna. I think it was flown by a Japanese
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Canadian who who was an agile flyer. I'll say he
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: he threw the plane across the sky quite a lot. Um.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I have a problem. I still have the same problem
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: as when I go up in a plane and my
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: ears pot they don't put, you know, the other way
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: around when I come down. So I came down. I
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: can't here very much. Um, and they hurt. So this
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: was I don't know what are their little planes fly
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: up for eight thousand feet so they were popping both
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: ways all the time. And by the time I got
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I got well on the way. We landed at Buffalo
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and we said, well, what's happening and he says, okay, passports.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: So we all got our passports out, our precious visas
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: in them and hand them over. He said, no, I
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: don't need this. I just say, you're American businessmen going home.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: So we didn't need a visa. As it turns out
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: there's a back door in to Toronto. Um. But so
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: so then we took off and then we landed and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: I'm this is guesswork now, but I'd say around six o'clock,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: five thirties, six o'clock in some field. It was just
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: a field. It didn't seem like an airport at all,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: but but we landed in it. There were there were
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: four limousines, one each, one for day, one for the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: three of us. My guy I got in. He was
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: playing the best music I've I've ever heard, handed me
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the requirements and and drove drove me in in in
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the key with the others a little limousine cavalcade. Um.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And the thing that struck me, the great thing that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: struck me was that the DJ playing the music, which
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: was or you know, all of the good stuff Van Morrison,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Motown Hendrick. Yeah, just really good, properly music. And he
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: didn't say where. The DJ didn't say a word until
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: the half hour came, at which point he said, you
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: just listened to and read out all the names, and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: then started playing the next half hours worth of music,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: which was in this country DJs, you know, they seem
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: to think that the radio show is is their vehicle
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: to stardom in some way. You know, it's not. It's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: not to do and play music for people. And they
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: always talk over the outros where some of the quite
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: often some of the good stuff is sit sitting and refers. Anyway,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I thought he it was great to hear that. Um.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I think by the time we got in the dressing
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: room it was quarter to seven, so we put on
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: our stage clothes, got the guitars out and went and
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: played the first sect, which was not very good, very disjointed.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I'd hear anything, so I had to read people's lips
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: to see where we were in the songs some of
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the time it was it was not good. The second show,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I say. The next thing we
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: did was we went to the to the dressing room
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and Nick went downstairs to to watch, and the rest
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: of the stayed up there. And after ten minutes and
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: so Nick turned up and said, Okay, you've all got
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: to come down and watch this. This is astonishing. So
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: we're all pretty shattered by this point, but we all
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: went downstairs and watched Dan Morrison, who was blindingly good.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: The band were blindingly good, and he was two. It
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: was amazing, and that one show was enough where we
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: saw him three more times, but that one show was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: enough change our minds about quite a lot of stuff
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: in the what we wanted to be like, what we
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: wanted to play, what was important to us um and
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: then we played. We played the other shows. The the
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: press had a dreadful time. The plane was late because
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: it had problems taking off from Shannon Airport. It had
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to be fixed that he throw, and those days that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: he throw if he went past the passport check. There
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: was only one thing and that was a bar which
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: when as the plane was four hours late, the press
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: utilized AH quite a lot. Uh. Then they they took
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: off and developed landing geve fault and had to land
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: at Shannon Airport and the only thing there is a bar.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: They only do two types of drink or then they
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: needed two jobs and that was guinness and an Irish whiskey.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And so when they finally managed to to make the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: journey and land late at this point at Kennedy, they
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: were pretty wasted bunch. And because they were late, there
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: was the plane was supposed to arrive sort of midday
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: ish where the traffic wouldn't be too bad, but instead
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: they arrived just as the as the Russia started it.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: So I think they were eighteen stretched limas to take
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: them to the to the hotel potentially, but ended up
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: to the to the gear uh and sitting police on motorbikes.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of sirens and stuff going on
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: UM and I think three of them crashed and didn't
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: make it, and and the ones that did while half
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of them went back to the hotel because they were
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: so shattered they just wanted to get to bed, so
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: they never even came. By the time they arrived, the
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: camera UM rule had had come into operation. No cameras
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: after a certain time. They were after a certain time. Um,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: they'd opened the doors, so the public went in there
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: when no nobody's sitting in the front three rows. So
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the public just used went and sat in the front
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: three roads. So when the press arrived, their place at
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the front had been had been taken. There were lots
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: of camera men, so they were refused entry with their cameras.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I know a couple of them had their cameras smashed
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: with complained and and they who ever got in, I
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: don't know how many. How many of them did get in,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: they just had to sit where they could find a seat.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: And we knew that they were they were there, but
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: we also knew that there had been a problem that
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: had not been kept away from us, and so we
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: went We went out not knowing what, you know, who
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: was there, what was going to happen the front three
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: rosere people or are they just people? And so we
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: we saw they were just people. Um, And that was
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the worst of the four gigs that we played. We
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: were stiff, I'm together and really really nervous. Uh. The
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: fourth gig was it was all over. So he really
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: didn't care anymore and really played quite well, and and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: things things like occasional solos or or question answer bits
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: in the in the music were applauded people. Some people
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: whooped and kind of thing. And we used to do
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: us a little country is song called rock and Roll Women,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: which is which was humorous um, and people laughed, so
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: it went. It went much better. Um. When we got back,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: we spent another day and a half I think, taking
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: photographs and stuff, and Rumson turned up again. We went
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to is Riker's Island. Not allowed. Yeah, you're not allowed
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: to go there. We didn't know you weren't allowed, and
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: just drove on there and hung around and took pictures stuff,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and the police came. And there's a great photo of
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that that Dave has of him with his with his
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: one hand on his head talking to a New York
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: policeman who's got his hand on his gun. Um. And
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and you know they were going to haul us off
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: until they found out the a that we were English
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and be that we were a pop band and so
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: knew nothing of not being allowed on Writer's Island, and
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: they said, hey, that's called you got a new records.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, um, but that was Dave again. Dave put
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: in a situation where his band were out to be
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: arrested at gunpoint, um and turning it all good within
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: ten minutes. It was he was so good at that. Okay,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: So despite the debarcle, you end up making five records
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: as Brimley Shots. Okay, how do you ultimately call it?
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Quit there and go to work with Graham Parker? Well,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the two are not are not are not aligned in
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: any way that their separate things. So the band Van
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: quick Nick called it. And you know, I was quite
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: shocked at the time. Um, we'd lived together for nine
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: on five years and done everything together and been through
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you know, what you could call hell and high water.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: There was no violence involved, but we've we've been through
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Um, And so I was, I
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: was surprised our own reflection, and I guess I shouldn't
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: have been really a bit. We've been treading water for
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: a year or so. Um. So so we broke up.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: We didn't have anything. We were living in a rented
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: farmhouse and northwestern of London, and all we had was
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: our gear and we had a monster p A. So
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: we all took a piece and and went our our way. Um.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I took my family or we tried. We tried squatting
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and got kicked out pretty quit and so I we
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: ended up again to stay with my parents. When you
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: say we are you married at this point? What was
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: going on? Married with two children? And what do you
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: living on stuff from? We have a long time and
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: we've had a place called the ox Fam Shop, which
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: is second hand for charity. Sure, so you could buy
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you a pair of second hand jeans or a shirt
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: for fifty cents. Well, you know, we lived, we lived together,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: and we had we had no money. All the money
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: went on the band going forward, and there were three
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: children living there and so some of the money went
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: to make sure that they were okay, and the rest
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of the time we just carried on. And you get
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: to that point when in a band sometimes when what
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: you're doing is so that you can do the next
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: when you're earning money, so that you've got enough money
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: to go and do the next gig or the next
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: album or whatever. Um. Yeah, that's that's what we lived
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and we lived on nothing. Okay, So you go back
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: to live with your you go back to live with
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: your parents. The band is broken up, Yeah, okay, So
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: how do you get yourself out of that hole. Um,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't really to start with. Um Martin who who
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: lived with us in the big house in Northward. Um
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: he'd he'd he'd been, he'd roaded for us, uh and
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: left and formed a band called Ducks to Lucks. He
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: called me up and said, hey, you want to join
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: the Ducks. So I said, yeah, great, So I joined
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Ducks Lucks, who are also a pup up and who
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: are different from us in that we were very very
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: laid back. We we played sometimes we played things purposefully
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: slow because the groove was better there. We wanted to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: be That's what we were looking for. The Ducks, on
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the other hand, played everything lightning fast. The drama was
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: could say one, two, three, four faster than anyone I've
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: ever I've ever heard. Um. So it was a bit
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: of a bit of a culture shot me. But um
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: and I think that was maybe two two and a
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: half months. And then they broke up, which made me
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: wonder what was the cause of something? But and then
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and then after after a bit, so I had I
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: had virtually nothing. I had one guitar, a saxophone, and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: so I played saxophone when my parents were out, and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and guitar whenever I could and wrote a few songs.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: You know. It was just a musician living at home.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: And then there was another phone call, which was Dave
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Robinson who told me that he had he had a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: studio that he was learning how to use. He had
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: a tube desk that had belonged to Decca Records, um.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: And what his plan was was if any time he
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: heard of or heard a singer, songwriter or a musician
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: that he thought was worthwhile helping, he would invite them
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: two make a demo recording in his studio. That way
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: he would help them get a demo, he would help
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: them maybe get advanced to a record deal of some description.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: And he'd learned how to uses his equipment. Is he'd
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: be an engineer as well as record producing person. And say,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: he said, I have this guy, Um, he writes great songs.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I think you'd really like him. And so we're making
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: a demo and and then he said Martin and Bob
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Bob Andrews from the from the Brens List and Martin
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Belmont from Ducks there with us with two guys from
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: a reggae ban. And now I really can't remember that
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this. I can't remember the name,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: but they've just broken up also, and that was Steve
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Golding and Andrew Bodner, and so this is this is
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: how I remember I remember it. I'm not convinced that
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: everyone remembers this the same way. We've talked about it
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: more recently and we end up saying no, no, no,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that's not how it went at all. So so as
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: far as I remember, we went, we we went and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: did these demo songs with Graham Parker. That that's who
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: it was. It was Grand Parce. So we met Graham Parker.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Martin might have met him earlier because he'd been Martin
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: lived as an open anchor, which was the pub where
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Dave had his studio. Um, And as we were packing up,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, oh, that went really well. That was
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: really good. That was good, good fun. Everybody got on
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: really well, So I said, I think. I said, well
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: that was good fun, wasn't it. And everybody's stilar to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: me and said yeah, it was pretty good. So I said,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: anyone found see you getting together and just to play
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: somewhere if we can find somewhere to play, anybody in
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: fancy noodling on some songs? So and everyone said yes.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: So a little bit after that Martin who knew the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: proprietors at Newland's Tavern which is in southeast London in
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Peckham Uh, and they said, yeah, they had like a
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: function room, quite a large room as part of the pub.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: UM and they said we could use the function room
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: in the afternoons where the pub was closed, with one proviser,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: and that is if we ever formed a band and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: did a gig, we do the first gig at their pub.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: So we thought that was a pretty fair deal. So
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: we took us. So we started playing together for the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: hell of it. Basically, we we played songs that we liked,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: played songs any song that anybody wanted to sing. We've
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: played songs that we've written or we're trying to write. Um.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: And for two three months I would say it went.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: It was really good. We started to we call on
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: better and better all the time, and we were sort
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: of approaching the time where we probably could have could
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: have done a gig or some gigs had we wanted to,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: but it never anybody because we were doing it because
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: we enjoyed it. UM. And then and then Day phoned
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: up again he's got a record deal for Graham based
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: upon the for three tracks, and the record company wanted
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: us to back him on the album and on touring.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: So not wanting to be a band and not want
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: into tour or sign anything with anybody, we agreed that
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: we play on the album and do one tour and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: that started at the end of and at the end
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy six, we've had thirteen days off as
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: far as I remember, its five or six tours of England,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: one of Europe, two of the United States, and made
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: two albums and we're about to make the route what
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: was what was going to be the Rumor's first solo album. Okay,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: let's talk about Graham Parker for a minute. You know,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: he comes out. He's a phenomenon. Ironically, he's playing relatively
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: straight ahead music when the new wave and stiff records
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: and Elvis Costello becomes a thing. But the first two
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: records are phenomenon. I'm one of the few people who
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: enjoys listening to Heat Treatment more. Something I'm going through
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: has got a reggae a feel soul in the Maelstrom.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Did you feel that this was going to break big?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Did you? What was it like being inside the engine
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: because it's got a lot more publicity, a lot more
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: traction than Brinsley shots. Um. Yeah, so that the things
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: that you when you're on the road, that the things
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: about what's happening with the press and what's happening with
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: sales and the rest of it. You they're they're told
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: to you. But and they it's not that they go
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: in one ear and come out the other. It's just
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: that you're occupied because you're playing all the time. And
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: so if you've got any spare time to think about anything,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: you listen to somebody else's music. But there's not very
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: much time to do that either, So I missed huge
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: chunks of music. But as I was playing all the time,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: and so you you know, you get to hear that
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: things are going well and then they don't for some reason,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and you see people around you moving up. Um I don't.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we made any potential hit records. Um,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: at the time, I would have known what a hit
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: record was like. Um, I had I had two young
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: daughters that they they turned me onto Adam and the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Ants and a few bands from the early eighties. But yeah,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: it time goes past and you do stuff, and some
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of it works, some of it doesn't, and to me
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much. But it is out of your hands.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: You can't influence it in in any or many ways.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: So so you just go along and I guess if
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: you don't like it enough, you you go somewhere else.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: But the overriding thing for me anyway, and I would
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: say for everybody in the band, is that we all
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: really like Graham Parker's songs and really enjoyed playing them.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: And that's for me. That's good enough. Sending a whole
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: lot more money than I had been before of the Prinsidents.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: So were you making any money? Yeah, a little bit
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: of money. I wouldn't have said that we were not rich,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: but we got by. Okay. So you're on the road
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: essentially every day. How does that affect your marriage? Um?
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: We're okay? Now that are you still married to that? Bleay? Um,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: we're together, let's put it that way. I gotta ask
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: what that means. It means that we're we're we're together
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: where we're happy together. Okay, But you made it sound
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: like but you're still married? Correct? Yes? No? No? Did
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: you get divorced and at some point you never you
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: never got married? Which one is it we were divorced,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: recently divorced. Yeah, nothing to do with being in a band.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: What causes a divorce at this stage of life? Goodness
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: only knows. I you know, I'm not a psychiatrist or
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: a psychologist, so I have no idea. I do know
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: one thing, and that is that UM. Being in a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: relationship uh is is a deep thing if it's going
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: to work forever, um and can be hard. Work things
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: things out of your hand. Um, get in the way
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: of stuff. It's difficult, stop surprising. Ready? Is there a
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: third party involved? That's Noah, Okay, So let's go back
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: to Graham Parker. You work with Mutt Lane, who then
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: goes on to be considered one of the great record producers.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Reilly has success and in my phenomenal Did you realize
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: he had that level of talent at the time? No, No,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't. And the bands, which is from Mercury to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: hera staff, was that something you felt in the band? Um? Well,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: you have to you have to remember that Graham Parker
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: as an entity other than the rumor. I know we
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: did everything together, but we were not the rumor, were
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: not signed um to anyone. We had We eventually had
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: a sorry, um A record deal with Arista as the rumor. Um,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: so where where Graham went? So it it seemed like
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: the move from me Cree too Arista was a good idea.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: But it's business stuff. I don't know. I have no idea. Okay,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: So the band is not signed to the label, but
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: was just on everyday life. Because you're playing all these gigs,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: is Graham separate from you or you feel that you're
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: all in it together? I, having having been in the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: in the Brindles, being in the Brinslees changes, I want
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: to believe that you are in it all together. We
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: weren't ordering it together and so rightly or wrongly, that
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: was my my impression for philosophical idea of how it was.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: That's what I didn't think about it a lot. I
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: just you just do what you do and and pretty
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: much what I did was as as if we were
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: all together. So I think that's how we were. Okay,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: So hard does it end with the band in Graham? Um?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: I think Graham came to a full stop. Um. I
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: think he was unhappy with with the way things were going. Um,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: with the amount of money that we he and was
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: put into into touring and all the all the other stuff.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: I think he needed to to stop for a while
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: and gather gather himself again and change things to to
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: he was not happy with. So it was it was
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: completely amicable. We just he just said, I'm I'm stopping
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: and you guys go do what you what you want
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: to do. Okay. The Graham peels off like a stage
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: of a rocket. Where does that leave you in the
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Rumor and what happens there? Uh? The Rumor carried on
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: as a four piece without Bob andrews um And we
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: made we made another album, so that would be our
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: third album without Graham um And and we had to
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: make that twice. There was a record company thing that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: that we had to obey a certain thing in a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: in a contract which we didn't obey, and and so
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: we had we had a record that was released in
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the in the UK, and then another version which so
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: we re recorded everything, which was released in the United States.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Which one was better? Well, they were, they were different. Actually,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: we were talking about it the other day. One of
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the songs is on it is have You Seen My Baby?
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Which is a Randy Newman song. Uh, And Steve emailed
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: us all and said, I probably said, now I heard
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: all this, I think ours was better. Um, yeah, I
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: guess the the USA one was was better. It was
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: definitely it was definitely looser feeling. So how does it
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: grind to a halt with the rumor? Just it just
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: does stuff. You know, if you if you can't get
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: work that you can afford to do, or that is
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: is not what you want to be doing, then it
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: all it all stops, and and Steve and I carried
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: on playing. We played with Garland Jeffries, Um the band
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: played with Garden Jeffries. We supported and backed him um
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: and then later Steve and I went on to play
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: with him on another tour. Um and then and then
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: that stopped. And so that was the end of the
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: rumor and split up by then. Okay, but ultimately you
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: go straight you give up the music. How does that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: tell me the far process there? Um? Well, getting back
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: a bit um. When Graham got himself together again and
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: made made another another his next album, I was in
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: New York converting our agents newly acquired loft building or
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: loft floor into a five room office. Did I did
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: all the the walls, all the electricity blurred, the ceilings,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: all of that and made it into a pretty cool
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: office space. And while that was. While I was doing that,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: I was I was staying with with Alan or agent
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: um And and Graham was looking for a guitar player.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: He had the risk of the band All Americans um
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: And was looking for a guitar player. And they had
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: arranged long much and came up with with no one.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: And Alan said, Brinsley's staying with me, and Graham said yeah, okay,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: was he up for it? And so I had obviously said,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: you know, if he asked, I'm up for it. Alan said, yes,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: he's up for it. Graham, why didn't I think of that?
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: And so I got back playing. And then through the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: eighties I played, made four albums, produced Mona, Lisa's sister
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: and Human Soul with him and so, and toured with
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: him UM. But in one I started very loosely working
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: fixing guitars and did one day a week at the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: store UM, which I really enjoyed. They were really good
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: to me. They allowed me to go off and and
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: play on tours and make records. So I had spent
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: six months working with Graham and said months working in
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: this store fixing guitars, and that got busier and busier
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: until I was working five six days a week. UM
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and then in nine late I think we were we
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: were touring and in America. I think it was Lost
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: A and LX that I was. I was walking to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the plane perfectly, okay. I was not freaked out or anything,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: not worried. And I don't really do that anymore. I
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: don't don't recall. But they used to put yellow and
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: black take a big wide yellow and black tape across
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the floor where you were going from one area to another.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: And I reached this tape, which was at the top
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: of the the shoot what are those calls the shoots
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: that you walked down to plays gateway. I was walking towards.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: I got to it and stopped and I looked down.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: I wasn't even looking. I just stopped and I looked down.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. There's that yellow and black tape. Went
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: to put my foot across it, and I couldn't, so right,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: I was perplexed. I turned around, walked away, came back
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: at speed, stopped, dried for about ten minutes, and stopped
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: every time I ran at it stopped. And I was
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: standing there and they were calling last call for the flight,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: and our keyboard player, who had a tendency to leave
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: everything until the very last moment, walked up behind me,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: put his hands on my shoulder and said, friends, thanks
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: for waiting for me, and pushed me across the line,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: at which point I walked down to the plane. I
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: had a very pleasant flight up to I think it
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: was to Oregon, um, and that was the last flies
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: apart from flying back to England on that tour. And
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: I got someone to push me over the line, and
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: I s that's how I got on the plane and
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: came back to England. And then for from then until
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't fly, and I knew that I couldn't get
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: on an airplane again. Um, and then so when when
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: I that sort of backed it up for me. Really
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do it anymore? Wait wait, wait, wait wait,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: what was going on there? In retrospect twenty years you
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't fly? Did you just have a pianic attack? How
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: did you get over it? I didn't know what. I
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: didn't need to get over it because I never got
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: on a plane. I was pushed twice and was okay, well,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: well you haven't met but you started to get on
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: planes again? Correct? Yes? So how did you do that? Um?
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: I went to the doctors and said, I've got to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: I've got to fly. I have a problem getting on
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: the plane. Um, I've got to fly to the States.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: And so I was wondering if there's anything you could
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: give me that would would arm me enough to get
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: on the plane. And she very kindly said, just have
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of bottles, a couple a couple of glasses
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: of red wine and you'll be fine. So Martin said
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: he would help. Martin's not very happy flying either, So
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: I thought, this is going to be fun. Someone who
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't like flying with somebody who can't get or a plane. Um.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: And we got to We got to Heathrow Terminal five,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: which was very pleasant. Oh walked around for a bit
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: and then saw that it was time we could go
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: and check in. So we went to the check in desk,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: presented our passports and papers and every saying tickets and
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: the guy said, ah, I'm very sorry to have to
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: tell you that your plane has been delayed. So I
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: so I said, so I'd had the two glasses of
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: wine by now, so I I laughed and said, and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: so what are you doing? And he said, We're getting
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: another one, and and I said, and that one will
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: be all right. Um. And so they spluttered a bit
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and he said, yes, sir, that one would be fine. Uh,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: And and it was. But um, the wine had taken
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: its effect. I needed more. And so I don't remember
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: an awful lot about what happened after that, but I
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: overswine and and and have flown quite quite a reasonable
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: amount since. And uh enjoyed it and not had a problem.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Do you still drink the two glasses of wine? Absolutely? Yes? Yeah, okay,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: So tell me about the period when you couldn't fly
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: what you were doing. I fixed guitars in the store.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: I branched out of my my by myself a couple
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: of times. I got so this is this is about.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: From the moment that I heard Apache, the only thing
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: that I was really in love with in terms of
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: things were guitars, electric tiars. UM completely fascinated by them.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: I loved I like looking at them and pouring over them.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a boyhood fascination that never never went away.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: So to be able to work on them all day
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: long and be paid for it, and be able to
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: play them while you're fixing them and learning about why
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: they go wrong and how they go wrong and how
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: to fix them was was fascinating and I'm lucky to
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: have to have been able to do that, to be
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: with guitars, the thing that I love all my life. Okay,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I have a good Gibson Acoustic s J. My mother
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: left it in the cross space. It's got some mold
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: on the top. Is that something you could fix? I'd
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: have to as as all repairs say, I would have
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: to see it. But potentially yes. Okay, well I'm asking
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: really because you're in the UK and I'm in the US,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: and we're not going to actually do this. Um, you
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: can do things besides the trust rod and adjusting strings.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: You can work on the whole instrument. Yeah, I'm not.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not so good inside acoustic guitars that that, you know,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: fixing struts and things like that. That's um, that's that's difference.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: But refretting, fret dressing, as I call it. Um, that's
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: that's a complicated thing. So don't it do strange things?
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: And so if a guitar needs setting up, it also
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: might need a refret, which is a big job and
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: has to be done carefully and accurately. Um. But the
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: main The main thing is is that I I because
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: I've been a guitar player for so long, I kind
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: of intuitively know how a guitar is supposed to feel.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: When when I'm during the final part of setting up
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: a guitar, which is which do with the nut and
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: the trust rod and the action, there seems to be
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a sweet spot, and I am prepared to work until
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: I find the sweet spot if it's there, and find
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: her ball. That that's my my thing. I'm interested in
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: making guitars feel like guitar players think they should. Okay,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: my understanding is a professional of your caliber would not
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: play a guitar off the rack, that they would immediately
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: send it to someone like you to set it up.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: Is that true? Um? Yeah, I think, Um, I haven't
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: I haven't tried all of them, but yes, in general,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: there isn't a There isn't a guitar, so there are
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: specialist makers, but in the run of the mill guitars
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: that there isn't one that wouldn't benefit from at least
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: a set up and probably possibly a fret dress in
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: a setup. And just to be clear, a setup would
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: entail without the threat that would entail adjusting the trust
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: rod so that the neck was true as true as
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: it can be. Um. They the action and the nutcuts correctly,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: the nut slots but correctly. UM, and adjustments to make
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: sure that it plays in tune all the way up
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: to next. Okay, is this lucrative business? Um? If you
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: were doing it for yourself, yes, if you were doing
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: it in a store, um not. Wages are not fabulously
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: I So you would go back and forth being independent?
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: What was that about? Um? The independent stuff was bigcause
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: while I was I was getting involved in fixing guitars,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: also got interested in our amplifiers. And at one point,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: quite accidentally, I stumbled across a little part of a
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: circuit dar fire circuit that made things made them sound, um,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: very comfortable. That helped you, made you want to carry
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: on playing. Um. And I've talked to a couple of
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: friends who are amplifier you know, proper designers and repairers
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: who know what they're talking about. Uh. And one in
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: particular was really interested in it. Pointed out to me
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: why that happened electronically, um and and pointed out to
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: me that no, no electronics person would do that. But
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: actually it just seems to be no reason not to.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: It works and it sounds very good. Um, So I
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: was I attempted to start making um amplifiers. I came
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: to a halt that I couldn't find anybody who would
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: print out a face plate, you know, with base, middle,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: treble and volume and the name written across it that
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: you would stick to the front um. It would cost
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: two and a half grand. Whether you wanted one or
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: he wanted two thousand or four thousand. The setup work
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: was was what cost the money, and the making of
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: it was just the cost of a bit of plastic
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: or word and a bit of machining. UM. And that
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: kind of stopped me. And then Graham phoned up instead,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: we're doing it again, And so I stopped being a
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: guitar repairer and an AMP build a modifier. There's quite
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of my modified apps out there in this country. No,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I did do quite quite a lot, and some one
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: in particular is in a in a studio where apparently
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: all the guitar players that go there use that AMPR. Okay,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: so what does it look like that you work with
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: Graham Um? Graham phoned up. I was the last person
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: he phoned, and he said he said that I know
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: you're going to say no because you can't get on
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: an aeroplane, but I'm going to try any anyway, and
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: everybody wants me to so um. And he explained what
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: he was what he was doing, which was to make
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: another Grand Park in the Rumor record and he'd love
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: for me to be involved, and could I get on
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: a plane and I said absolutely, no problem at all,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: no worries, just tell me when I'll be there. Great,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: And so we had a chat about it a little
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: bit and then I put the phone down and sat
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: back and talk shit, I've just said I'll get over
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: an aeroplane, and and I did, and it was all fine. Okay.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: So at this point in time, okay, let me ask
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: you difficult why you're a luthier. Are you continuing to
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: play music yourself? Yeah, well, if you're fixing it, so
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: you need to play it for ten fifteen minutes before
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: you start. You played the fifteen minutes afterwards, played for
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of hours if nobody's Hastley hastling you. So
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: I played every day, probably more than I played when
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I was on the road, where you don't get much
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: time for it. Apart from the gig. Uh and and
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: later I used to hang around in sound checks as
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: long as I could. Um. Yeah, So I played a lot,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and at some point I started writing songs as well,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: which I hadn't done for quite a long time. Then
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: did you play any bands in that era? No? Well,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: I had played bass with a friends band. They're bass
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: player left and they couldn't find another one, so I
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: said I'll played bass with so I I started playing
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: bass and we played a gig. It was just really
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: I love playing bass. Um. Okay, So you recently put
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: out a new album. It's this late date actually in
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: the crazy world we live in music now, where the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: biggest household name Max, put out records in there immediately stiff.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: What motivated you to make a record now? Um? I
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: think what what motivated me finally was that the one
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: that the tune that I recorded to start with turned
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: out the experience of it and and it itself turned
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: out so well that I wanted to carry on. I
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: had more songs, and and I thought, you know, why not,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: this will cost me a little bit of money, but
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: actually it would be fun and and and it was.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: But it started with James halliwell, who played with us
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: on Mona Lisa sister. It was a keyboard player. He's
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: got this little studio off in in Richmond, and he
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: came to one of the Grand Parker of the Rumor
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: gigs in London Shepherds Push Empire, and came backstage and
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: said high and said, you know, we're just talking. So
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: what are you? What are you doing? Sort of doing
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: this and writing a few songs? He said, what if
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: you want to come and record one? I've got little studio.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: Why did you come down? And so I did and
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: recorded a song which I wanted to record for a
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: relative's wedding as a wedding present, and which we did
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: and and carried on. Both said. We both looked at
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: each other after we've played it back in its mix form,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: said well that's pretty good, isn't it. Should we do
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: some more? And he said, yeah, let's do some more.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: We could make an EP and before we knew it,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: we'd made an ill okay if you made it in
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: his studio. Essentially the cost was lower, non existent. Uh no, um,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: I got what's what we call mates rate, but pay
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: you paid, But there's a record company. The record company
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: reimburse you. They just releasing the record. Um, well, if
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Tangles, so I was talking about the
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: first album. Okay, we'll continue the narrative. You make make
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: the first record, but you put the first record out yourself. Yeah,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: that's right. And sold it where I where I could.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: There was want to with Graham, sold sold someone that
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: a Japanese guy called me up and wanted two. Yeah,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: I just told it where I could. I still have
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: a few left, um, and I haven't broken even on that.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: That's the second album Tangled, that I paid for and
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: it's selling few and so I will get reimbursement at
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: some point for some of it. But as I think,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: we don't. We really don't do this for the money
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: because because it's not it's not there. It's very difficult. Um.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: But we enjoy it. So what was the motivation for Tangled? Um? Well,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: mainly because it it started because there was that there
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: are songs that UM as as I as I was recording, unexpected,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: there was I was writing more songs, and so some
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: of the songs that I wrote while we were making
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: it UM seemed to be better, better suited to some
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: of the other songs that were already there. So we
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: ended up with three four songs that were, you know,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: on their way to being finished. Um. And so there
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: was the beginnings of another album, and I had more
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: songs ready, so we just carried on and and now
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: we've carried We've carried on and Tangled Is is out there,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: and I've got three or four songs almost finished and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: eight ten songs written. Um. Some of them have just
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: got basic demo tracks. Some of them are almost finished.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: So I have another album. It's it's not like it's
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: not like I'm making albums. It's that I'm just recording songs.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: And at some point you have enough for an album,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: so you put it out. Now are you playing live?
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: I am not at the momentum. I'm afraid. I don't.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: I trust very little about our government and what it's saying.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: I think it So I think today's COVID infection rate
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: went up to over forty five thousand. It's been forty
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: five or above for the last two weeks. No one, well,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: the only people may wearing masks are doing it voluntarily.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: So you can go into supermarket and half the people
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: are unmasked. There's obviously hundreds of thousands of people in
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: this country with it. People who have been double vaccinated
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: have died, have caught it and again and died. Um,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: so I don't think it's safe. So prior to COVID,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: were you were you playing live? Um? No? When I
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: was playing with Graham, and pretty much after after that,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: I was sort of mid mid doing things and COVID
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: came as a as a rise, and I was lucky
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: to be able to actually finish Tangled because that it
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: got really difficult. Um, we're traveling in the studio. Okay,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: when was the last time you played with Graham? Um? Five?
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: I would say five years ago now for four to
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: five years. And is that the last chapter or you
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: never know? Oh sorry, is that the last chapter? Or
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: might you play with him again? Um? Yeah, I don't.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd be very happy to play with
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: him again if he's up for it. Um. And all
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: these people that have gone through, Bobby Andrews and Nick Low, etcetera.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: Have you mainteam connection with all of them? Um no?
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: I I think if I've talked to Nick a dozen
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: times since the Prinses broke up, that's about about it. Um.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: Bob Yeah, more more obviously because he was in the
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: rumor and then and then in the Rumor a second time. Um,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: when we did it again. Um. So I'm in touch
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: with members of the Rumor and Graham. Um okay if
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: this late D do you get any royal dues or
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: any you know, public performance moneies? Yeah, I get there's
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: a great a great company or a company organization called PPL,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: and they sent me check enough to live on, not
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: enough to live or no, But I don't. I don't
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: know where it comes from. Sometimes it's it's what i'd
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: call quite a lot of money, but sometimes it's sunny,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: it's like a fifty pounds, and sometimes it's a thousand
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: or two. Um. But yeah, you can't, you can't live
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: live on that. So I'm officially a retired person. Um
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: so ah so I am working very very little, really
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: working more on songwriting and and arranging things in my
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: head ready for the studio, hopefully going into the studio
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: again in a week's time. UM to record at least one,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: if not to song new songs. Um. If you're getting
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: this limited money from from your past work, what are
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: you living on? Um? Just just money that I have. UM,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: I in writ it. A little um money comes, A
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: little money comes. In I seem to be able to
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: balance the books fairly reasonably. It's it's not I'm not
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not wealthy or anything. And and really I want
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: to do what I what I like doing and for
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: as long as I can. So well, you've saved money
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: from your musical. You know a lot of musicians when
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: they get to the end, they didn't save any money.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: So you save money from your musical endeavor. Um, Yeah, no,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: I think. I think what I inherited is what keeps
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: me above water doing doing what I do. But I
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: seem to be able to go along and and make
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: ends meet, um, without being hugely successful or wealthy. Okay,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna ask. In America we have social security.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: I assume you have the equivalent in the UK. It's
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: not enough money to live on here. What's the situation
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: in the UK? Um? We have we have a pension,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: a national pension scheme. So everybody's does that. If they work,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: they pay every week into it. And at the end
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: of when you stop working, when you when you retire,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: when you reach the official retirement age. Um, you get
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: paid every your pension, your state pension, every every month.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: And is it enough to live I mean, you've inherited money,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: but for the average person, isn't enough to live on? Um,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: I would say just, but I think I think most
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: people have has something else other than I think I
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: think most people who who who you wouldn't regard really poor.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: And we have a lot of important role in this country.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: But but everybody seems to have enough to get by
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: and go on holiday. Okay, let me ask you about
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: a couple of tracks, because I mean, I did buy
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: the first first room around, I did see it at
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: the Roxy. But going into some of this Graham Parker stuff,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: can you tell me the process of writing something I'm
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: going through? Because it has that white reggae feel. How
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: does that a song like that come together? That's that's
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: the one of Graham songs I know. But did he
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: come with that groove? Um? Yeah, I think I think so.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: He usually comes with with with a groove and playing
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, and he would also he would also play
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: little chord changes, tiny little things that. Okay, more than
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: occasionally I've cotton donto and used um as a as
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: a tune or a riff in the song, like like
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: nobody hurts you that the guitar part that I play
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: is based upon something he was doing on on rhythm
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: on a rhythm part, so I'd hear that. Um, yeah,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: I think, I think. You know, it's a broad range
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: of things. Sometimes he has he has no idea and
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: we we would we would kind of arrange it veen us. Um.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he would have a lot of idea and and
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: we'd step back and and try to, you know, put
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: what he was talking about into a band scenario. Fool's
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: Gold on the same album, the Heat Treatment album, it
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: starts with almost a waterfall flourished sound. Who would come
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: up with that or who did come up with that?
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. I mean, was it always Graham or
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: sometimes the producer? Um? I think, well the producers, so
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: that there are different producers who all work differently. We
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: had a we've had a few odd things with some
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: of the producers that we we worked with. Um M,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know that the sound that you're you're you're
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: talking about, Um, it's a long long time since I
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: listened to fulls Gold. It's not that long ago that
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: I played it. But what are your two favorite Graham
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: Parker and the Rumor tracks Love Gets You Twisted and
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: watched them Man come Down. Okay, you have you must
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: have been asked that before, because you have the question.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: You have the answers right away now, I've I haven't
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: been I haven't been asked it. Well, I've been asked
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: it indirectly, and so I don't. But those are my
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: two favorite tracks, and I've just recorded what I've recorded,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: Love Gets You Twisted and I'm I'm parked recorded Watch
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: the Moon Come Down. So they are for there in
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: my head at the moment. Right. So, if your musical career,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: what are you most proud of? I've been asked this
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: before as as well, so as a as a guitar player. UM,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: the solo on This Town, which is on max, Um,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: the solo on what is that song? Right going to
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: I think of the song as selfish because that's how
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: I how I wrote it. As a track on Unexpected,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: the solo on that, and the solo on Stranded on
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: UM the work. So proud of being in the rumor
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: and proud to have worked with Graham, I'd say happy,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: more than proud. I'm happy to have done those things.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: And yeah, all the day to day stuff that that
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: you do when you're on the road, helping each other
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: through various things, and and proud to have built an
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: amplifier not quite from scratch, but pretty much from scratch
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: that everybody that goes into that studio plays. That's Ralph
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: Salmon's Studio's Drauma who played on Unexpected Um. He's he's um,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: you know, quite a big trauma. He's got a little studio.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: People go and record stuff there, and all the guitar
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: players love this. This EMPLATHYZ song. That's it. I'm I'm
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: proud to do that kind of stuff. Okay, Brinsley, I
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: think we've hit the high point of your career. I
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: have a million more questions. Maybe well maybe one time
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: when we're face to face. You're quite the storyteller. I
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for doing this and
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: hopefully you'll have continued success with Tangled. Thank you very much.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: Been good talking to you. It's been nice to talk
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: to somebody who who knows the music industry and and
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: bands and players. Like I said, thanks so much. Till
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left Sex