Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Leo Sayer

Transcript

Leo Sayer · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the barth Websites podcast. My
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: guest today was the one and only Meal Sah we
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: are good day approprim nice to be here. Bub. You
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: in Australia. Why astral h good question. Well, after I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: had made my first record and silver Bird my first
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: album in I went straight to America on tour because
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: things were happening on a lot of a lot of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: interest in America, and you know, we signed up with
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Warner Brothers for the USA and Canada at that time,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and South America, I guess, and the rest of the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: world was Chrysalis Records in England. Um. And after the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: American tour which went fantastic, um, it was just a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: huge success. Uh, there was a call for me to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: come to US Astralia. So I came down to Australia.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And when I came, it was by this time and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a buzz had already really started. So I arrived in Melbourne,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was arrived in Melbourne to absolute well,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: it was like Beatlemania. You know, the airport was jammed
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: with people. There were people waving at the plane as
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: we came in from the observation deck of the airport.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And journalists were immediately, you know, beseeching me, and I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: had lots of stupid questions asked at the airport, you know,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like why did you come to Australia, what do you
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: or even what do you think of Australia. Well he
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hasn't even got it yet, you know, so it was crazy.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And but this tour was just amazing and I fell
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in love with the place. And we had a a sponsor,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a wonderful guy called redg and Set who ran an
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: airline which is now defunct called and Set Airlines. And
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Bob had his own private plane. So he said to me, Um,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: do you want to what places would you like to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: go to in Australia Because we'd had an incredibly successful
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: to us sold out everywhere, so he wanted to give
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: me a gift and he just said, look, I'll fly
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you to six places you choose. Just put a pear
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: on the map and we can get there. There's air
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: there's air fields everywhere. So yeah, I went to the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: famous airs Rock you know, which is now Ulura Uluru
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: as it's called the area you Laura, um. And we
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: went to Northern Cans and we went to Broom where
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: they shot the you know, Chariots of Fire movie, and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you see those guys, you know the Endless sands. That's
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that's this incredible place. And we went down to Tasmania.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: We we flew to all these places, and I made
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: myself a vow that one day I was going to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: come and live in Australia. I don't know why I
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: made it, It was just an instinctive thought. But when
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you see the beauty of this place and you feel
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the space and you feel the you know you can
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: be lonely here and yet happy. How can I describe that?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's solitude that you can reach in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: this place. Um and and a little bit less bs
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: than the rest of the world, you know, they're a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: bit less hype. So I kind of over the years,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I started coming back and coming back and coming back,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And when I finally moved in here in two thousand
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and five with my lovely partner Donna Teller, who was
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: also a man my manager at the time as well. UM.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: When we moved in, they asked me how many times
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you have been to Australia then, you know, this is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the immigration standard question. I said forty five, which was
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the absolute God's truth, you know. So so hey, it's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: my it was my second hand home, you know. But
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: but let me say as well, I've always loved working
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in exile. I mean when I lived in when I
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: lived in the States, in in California, and in briefly
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: in New York, made all those albums during the seventies. Yeah,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I felt really good at being away from home. My
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: father was a merchant seaman, so basically he sailed around
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the world as a ship's engineer, and I suppose I
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: followed in his footsteps. I always loved traveling, and I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: love being away from home. It pushed me more, you know,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And I think being here it pushes me to prove
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: myself all the time. Even though I'm seventy four in May,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I still feel I've got a lot to prove. Okay,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I've been to Australia a couple of times. I know
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: most of the people in the industry there, and they
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: talk about how far it is from everything. They are
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: thrilled when you actually go there, kind of like what
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you're saying your first time in nine Oh. Yeah, absolutely,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: but they also talk about the distance. It's certainly well
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: known in terms of bands Australia has the best live
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: bands because they're limited number of markets they have to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: play all this time. But do you feel somewhat disconnected
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: from the business, from the news, from anything. No, No,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: not at all. And I think that, you know, I mean,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: look at here, we are talking on zoom and we're
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: able to reach the world from wherever we are. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: mean I follow Formula one, you know, Grand pre Racing,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and most of the journalists who work on that, um
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: that business was always centered around England, around Britain, rather
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: like my version of the music business was always centered
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: around Britain. You know, it had to be Britain first.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: That was the where you know, you've got the best
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: equipment for the studio, and that was where you kind
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of that was where you worked. If that was your
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that was your field, your place. Now, all these guys
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: in Formula one, they all live in Spain, they all
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: live in Italy, they all live in Germany because they
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: don't need to be in in Britain to do their work.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So just like that, I mean, I think I've talked
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to a few rock journalists who live in the Demonic
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: American rock journalists who live in Dominican Republic or Mexico,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you know, or Canada, because we now have linked the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: world by technology. So I think you don't and I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: think you know if you if you follow some of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the the news media to find out about what's happening
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in the business. Like this morning, I was looking at
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Mixed Magazine, and you know, they're they're blog and finding
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: out about some new studio gear that I'm interested in,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and I feel like, yeah, at that moment I'm reading
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Mixed Magazine, I'm I'm in California, you know. So so
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I I think the world has got small and got closer.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Air travel is easier as well, you know. I mean,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: COVID's put a spike into a lot of what we do,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: traveling wise and international wise. But I think that I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: don't feel disconnected, and I wake up every morning feeling
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: at home. You know. Let's start at Formula one. They
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: were just in Melbourne, did you go no, no, no,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm a bit off it at the moment, although
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I talked to about six different friends who are down there,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: you know, so I get the inside track, you know. So,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: so yeah, and I over the years, I've just become
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit less of a racing guy and a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: little bit more of a more of a chronicler. And
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm writing my book at the moment, Bob.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm one thousand, four hundred words into the book
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and chasing my chronicling my life. And I've got a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: vast amount of material here. I'm working on everyday research,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you know, research, research, research, find out what I was
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: doing on June the eleven. You know, You've got a
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: couple of things. Let me ask. Yeah, George Harrison was
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: famously into Formula one. He was a good friend. You
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: were into Formula one? But what was the appeal back then?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I think that we all grew up. You know. Look,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: boys grow up to either want to be racing drivers
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: or fighter pilots. It's the fantasy when you're at school.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe soccer players or American football players, or baseball players
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: or tennis players. But mostly I think boys, you know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: like that dare devil sport. You know that that that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: devil may care kind of dangerous thing that you do.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You know. So I grew up with motor racing. I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: used to follow Phil Hill and Sterling Moss. My father
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: raced motorcycles, so you know, just as a spare time
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: kind of thing until his mom, until my mom stopped
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: him because it was too dangerous. Um And I remember
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: him taking me to the Goodwood Race Course, which is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: very famous now for historic events. Um And we went
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: there and Sterling Moss crashed and right in front of us,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and it was a crash that nearly finished his career.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And I it was just one of those moments when
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I just I thought that the smell of the petrol,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the whole kind of screeching of tires, the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: whole dangerous excitement of it, I just found very compelling.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And you know the most beautiful part of that story
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: is that Sterling Moss became a friend many years later
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: because I met him through you know, Formula one. Of course,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: now he knows I'm Leo say I'm not Jerry Sarah
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: any longer. Um And and we became pals and I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: used to go to dinner with him all the time.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So it isn't incredible that you meet your heroes and
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: they become your friends. Okay, staying with Fromula one just
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for another second. Yeah, why are you off it now?
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And what do you think of the Netflix series? If
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you've seen it? Can I say the word crap. Absolutely,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you can use if you want to. It's fucking crap. No. Um,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I just think it's all become a little bit less Vegas,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you know. Um. Of course, the Americans group, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: big group have taken it over, and of course they
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: want you know, you know, lots of lots of bodies
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: at the track, and they want to appeal to young
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: kids and girls and all of this stuff. But it's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: not as pure as it used to be and the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: rules are starting to get fudged around to kind of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: make the best, uh, you know, the best result and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: netflix the series. Although it's very well done, of course
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you can't say it's not. Um. It tends to kind
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: of bring up kind of you know, it makes it
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: makes stories that aren't really true, you know, I don't know,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: fictionalizes it and sort of dramatizes it. And I think
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: over dramatization, life's exciting enough, isn't it, Bob? You know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: do we need to have a dramatist kind of rescript everything?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a bit like when you watch
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a biopic movie. I can't watch the Queen movie or
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the Rod Stewart movie, whatever they are. You know, I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: just can't watch them because you know, they're just kind
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of you know, enhancing all the details to to cry
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and try and create something that somebody who's just not
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: interested in the subject of, say Jim Morrison, will be
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: attracted to. But I mean, anybody following the life of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, boy, that's exciting enough as it is, you know,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I agree totally. Let me just ask you one,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: why dramatized Janice Joplin When Janice Jock it was Janis Joplin. Man. Well,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: that's one of the things that we've lost. Of course,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: when you went to go see these acts before YouTube, etcetera,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and you experienced it live, it was something transcended. They
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: cannot be replicated today. Just the final note on Formula one, Yeah,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I got into it. But the final result last year
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: with Verse stopping taking over Hamilton's in the rules, I'm
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: eating out dreadful. Well, that's that's what's kind of that's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: what's led me to this position. I mean, I gotta say,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's really a shame when you get your
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: best protagonists a bit a little bit like you know, um,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: some fights are coming in in Muhammad Ali's Prime and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: with four hands, you know, and you know, four arms,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and they let him box and he beats Ali of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: course because he's got four arms. Um, and you're going
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to call that legitimate, you know, it's the same thing. Really,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just I think it's kind of cheating. Personally,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I think that guy had that race one. He driven brilliantly.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: His story is the story of the greatest of all time.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to be controversial here and I'm saying,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: is it because he's black? I don't know. I mean,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a really it's a really difficult one
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to get into. But they wanted the young, the Stapend
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: to win. They got for Stappen. I mean, the first
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: thing he did was put number one on his car,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: which I think is kind of gratuitous, you know, to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: say the least, because they all have their numbers and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: their logos going with that. And of course you've got
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the right if you win the championship to put number
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: one on your on your team, but on your car.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But I mean mostly those drivers, they don't race on
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: those kind of ego principles. And and here you've got
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: an ego guy. Well you know, well, we'll see what happens.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: The best news of all with to close on Formula
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: one is the Ferrari now looked like they're they're wrapping
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it up. So that's fantastic that the oldest team, the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: most traditional team. UM it's too young, wonderful young drivers.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: UM is doing what it says on the packet, and
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's beautiful. If the Red Car wins, I'll
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: be very happy. Okay, let's go back to what you
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: said being in exile. Now, let's just talk about recording music.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: So do you find it's easier to do in isolation
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and exile? Yeah, well, I I've developed a way of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: making records completely by myself, and I'm very proud of it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I'm It's taken me a while to get there. But
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know, if I go back, I started as all
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be as a painter, an artist. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: was into you know, people as various as as as
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Marcel Duchamp and Mark Rothko and and and Henri Russo
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and and Van Gogh. But I mean I wanted to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: be a painter. I at school, I was great at art.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That was my great ability. I was a dyslexic kid,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: so I leaned towards the creative side because I was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: no good at the practical. My father was an engineer.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: He was ashamed of me because I couldn't add put
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: two and two together. And I mean until I was nineteen,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I couldn't even tie my shoelaces. I didn't know what
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: left and right worth? Could you really not tie your shoelaces?
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I really couldn't. I really couldn't. I was I was.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I'd bulk at anything technical like that because
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the laces would go in different positions. So my brain
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: told me, you know, left and right position, all this stuff.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, I still can't play drums. I can't coordinate
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: one hand on the other, so going you know, having
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: those disabilities leads to incredible mind and creative abilities. You know.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: So I could imagine things. I could I could see things.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I could work out perspective and distance in my head.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So I was born to be an artist. Now I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: went to art school. Um, my parents argued with the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the art school uh burses when we got in, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: so to say, he said, I don't want him be
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in a bohemian and get him a job in commercial arts.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So you know, I went into a commercial art course,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: you know, to do that, which was very frustrating. But
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I would bunk off all the time and go to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the life drawing classes and go to the art classes
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and hang out with all the fine artists. You know.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: So I was already a rebel in that time. But
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I I just had this creative brain.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I've always had that, and that that I mean, I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: could sing. I sang in the church choir. I had
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a wonderful priest who taught me to sing, so I
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: always had that in the background. And apparently I have
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: perfect pitch, so you know, that gave me the gift
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of always been able to know what note I was
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: singing and tune into the sound of birds or whatever
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: in the background, you know, So I could find those things.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So when I actually got to the studio and I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: did working, of course, nobody would let me near the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: control desk and that they just put me on the microphone.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: But I mean they were amazed that I could walk,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I could go out and have a sandwich and come
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: back and sing in exactly the same key as I
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: had left the room singing in you know. So I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: had those gifts. I had those abilities and I was
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a quick learner a good observer as well. So all
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the years that say, from seventy four, seventy three, maybe
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: seventy two, all the way until um, I was working
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: with other writers and other producers and learning their craft
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: by just observing them. So now I've got to this
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: finite point where I can do the lot myself. And
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: so I believe, going back to the art theory, that
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: if Van Gogh and Picasso and all those guys didn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: need somebody in the room to do the blues and
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the reds for them, why can't I do the lot?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: If I call myself an artist, I should be to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: make the whole thing, so I should be able to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: learn the technology to make it. Slave to me absolutely, So,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, based on our discussions and preparations, it seems
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: like you're very technologically savvy intuitively, so I think I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: think it's an intuitive thing. You know that I honestly
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I read manuals and I don't know what the hell
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I'm reading. And sometimes my engineer, live engineer, Damian Young,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: great guy in Melbourne, sometimes has to do a screen
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: time thing with me, you know, with team viewer and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: come onto the screen and sort out what I can't do.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Oh no, Leo, you do it like oh, I'm going,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a klutz. But but we get there,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you know, because I'm determined, my determination, and I can't
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: believe I'm seventy four in May and I'm still this ambitious,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: determined guy who's got to prove all these things to himself.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: But that's how I am, That's how I'm built. Okay,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So how much equipment do you have in the studio?
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: How professional is it? It's pretty pro I mean I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: work with a computer which is kind of highly boosted.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I've got a whole server system in here, about twenty
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: one terror bytes of memory, and it's a whole radio
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: system with backups. If the power goes off here, which
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it often does because we're in the country, um, I've
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: got a twenty four hour backup, so everything just clicks
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: in and works. I've got accelerated Internet as well, which
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: which helps me stay on touch with it all. I
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: have a necessar desk, some beautiful mics. I've got a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: new mic by a guy called Lowton who's built this
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: incredible mic which David Crosby as well uses, and Dave
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Crosby's engineer was a guy that I knew, so I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: quizzed him about mikes and he said, throughout your name,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: throughout you annoymans, get this one. So I've got this
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: amazing mic that just makes my voice sound really sweet.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I've built a booth in my studio all on wheels
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: where I sing in. So i have a big open
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: space barn here. I'm speaking to you from one side
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of the barn, and I'd say it's about a thousand
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: square feet and it's all open. But I've got these
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: things called clouds, which you know, basically give you acoustic
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: treatment over where the monitors are and everything. I use
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Miller and Cries or monitors. I use Crane Song, which
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is Dave Hill who created the Summit brand, and then
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Crane's song. I use his mike PRIs which are fantastic.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And I've got a lot of expensive equipment, um incredible
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: electrostatic headphones and these these Planar Dan Clark Audio. I'll
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: give him a plug from California. And you know, I've
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: got all the toys, Tina Turner's old Newhiman microphone and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: some beautiful A kg s. I've got all the toys
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and I can basically, you know, start a project by
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: myself and not bother to call anybody, which is great
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and that's what I love. Okay, So you have a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: new record, Northern Songs, which are covers of Beatle records.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Did you play all the instruments, do everything yourself? Yeah? Everything?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So how did you do it? I mean with the Beatles,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I always imagined how I would treat those songs, being
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: very cheeky, you know. So it's a kind of it's
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: an interpretation first off. So you know when people hear it,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: they won't hear direct covers, you know, they'll hear um
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: leo leo phid versions, you know. So we've changed the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: beats and we've changed the field and all sorts of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: things like that. So that's the first point. So I
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: heard these songs in my head, and I hear things
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in my head sometimes from dreams as well. I've write
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: songs in dreams. And then I just I mean, I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: have seven studio here, let's say, because basically I've designed
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: it so that if it's the winter, you can instantly
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: turn the it's it's hot here in five minutes. Big
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: radiator hydroponic system in here. Great air conditioning for the summer.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: So I'll get up in the middle of the night,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: straight from a dream or straight from some imagination, run
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and immediately come in and just start working on something.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: The fact that I'm not using another studio really helps
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: because everything is ready to go all the time. So
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: wherever you were last into a song, say working on
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the base, if you leave it alone and you go
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: away for a few hours, you can come back and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: just carry on. And I just hear all the lines
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in my head. I've I can dissect all the parts
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of a song in my memory and just work on
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: them and put it all together. Um, I've just got this,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: found this ability. And I suppose the dyslexia has helped
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: in a way because I'm able to kind of really
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: dig into my imagination or my mind and and use
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that for all my work. You know. So I start
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: with a basic template. I'll put down a drum beat
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a keyboard. Go. Okay, just to be clear, you said earlier,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: because you're slexic, you couldn't play the drums. So these
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: are electronic drums you're putting on the record. Everything is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: played from a keyboard into the computer. So every note
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: relates to a keyboard. I don't really use pads. Some
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: people use pads, you know for drums and everything. I know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I don't do that, and I tend to cut and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: paste a lot of stuff, so I tend to I
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: have a vast sampler library, you know. My my, my,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: my computer is relying on about eight terror bytes of memory,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: slaving to it from various things and from various other
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: outboard uh memory units, you know. So I've got all
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: these samples, and somehow my head always manages to find
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the right sounds and the right um, the right grooves
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: as it were, you know, on the drums, to to
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: give me the field. So I'll use lots of different
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: elements to get there. Sometimes some loops as well, so
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I mean get back on the record. Is just the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: drum loop that I found from some guys that work
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: with in Denmark, and he gave me a CD of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: all of his drums, and bang, I'll put it all
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: together from there. Um just added some symbols in the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: right places, you know. But I just love that feeling
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of control. You know, you can do things yourself. It
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: is possible. You start off with the drums, told us
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: how you built the track from there. Yeah, build a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: track basically, put down a keyboard. It's it's it can
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: be a tiss in process because you're writing a song
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: at the same time. So I'm I'm writing lyrics at
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that moment um and and you know, working on a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: vocal line. Um, I don't know, it's it's it's just
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: it just comes, and it comes fairly easily. I have
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: to say, it's hard to describe the process. I'm supposed
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to do something soon for I think it's Mixed magazine actually,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: um where they're going to look at my studio and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the way that I work, and and they said, they
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: don't know anybody who works like me. I mean maybe
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Todd Rundgren did when he was doing his a cappella
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: record and a few things like that, but they don't
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: know anybody. Stevie Wonder of course does everything himself, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Prince did as well. But at the same time, Prince
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: would bring in musicians to work with an engineers, he
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: would always have around. I have nobody. So I think
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing is pretty unique, you know. Okay, how
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: about acoustic instruments. Do you play guitar? Do you play
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: all these other No? But they're all available as samples now,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean wonderful program called Native Instruments. UM.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Just to name one of them. They can give you
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: strummed guitars. So basically you can get a guitar which
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: will go ding ding ding ding ding. Now, you might
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: not like one of those beats, so immediately you go
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: onto the screen and cut that up and then get
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: it to work in the way that you want it
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to work. I mean, when I'm working, I often start
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: off a song. I'll be completely in the wrong key,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: so I'll have to move everything, so it becomes an
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: extraneous process, you know. Um, But that's that's okay. I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: mean anything to get there. And I gotta tell you,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I mean Northern Songs. It's the second album that I've
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: made like this. So I made an album called Selfie, UM,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and I called it Selfie because I was doing it
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: all myself. UM and I that came out a couple
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of years ago or so. UM. And they can be
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: a long process. I mean, I don't care how long
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it takes. The Beatles projects started ten years ago, so um.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And I have an engineer, an amazing engineer that I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: use for mixing and and also, you know we he
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: does the market mastering as well. He's called John Hudson
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and he used to be an Olympic Studios who ran
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Olympic Studios, a very famous studio in London. And he's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the guy who recorded that brought all the Bryan Adams songs.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You know, um he recorded Tina Turner, he recorded He's
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: got Grammys for Tina turn What's love got to do
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: with it? All those tracks? We don't need another hero.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: John is probably one of the best mixing engineers in
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the world and he started mixing me way back in UM.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And you know, when I was working with this guy
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Alan Tani, we did more than I can say, and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Richard Road and a few other songs, and John was
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the mixing engineer and I always got on well with John.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And one day I moved in here to as I say,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and in two thousand and seven
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I got a call out of the blue. Hey, it's
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: John no Going, what what are you doing? And I
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: noticed it was an Australian number, and of course his
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: wife is Australian. He said, well, I packed up the studio,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I got out of there, got fed up with it.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: There are a few complications. I'm here in Australia, so
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I said great. He said, look, I'm looking for a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: studio to work in. I said, well, I know there's
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: a studio here called three or one Studios, which is
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: linked with Abbey Road. It's my studio down here, is
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: quite beautifully equipped and everything. And On is the genius
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: with SSL as well, you know, always has been one
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of the best mixing engineers. I mean, I mean he
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: did he did the the the Live Aid song, you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. You know, so he's he's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the genius with SSL. So when I told them John
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Hudson was down, they said, oh, bring him down, bring
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: him down, and they gave us a room in there,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and with we only had computers in there and a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: little mixing desk. But that's how the project started. Just
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: literally he was off the plane but a jet lag
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and I played him these songs I was working on,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: these Beatles songs. I played him Strawberry Fills, Forever Um
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and Norwegian would eleanor Rigby with the Michael Jackson kind
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of beat to it, and and he said, great, let's
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: let's mix them. He mixed them straight away, and those
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: are the mixes that are on the album there from
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: ten years ago. Okay, let's talk about the Beatles. When
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: did you first hear the Beatles. I think I think
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: give Us Love Me Do, which was the first really
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: real proper single that they made, and I was at school,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I must have been about fifteen sixteen something like that,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and this song came over, and I've got to say
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty cool because, um, I like
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the way that the guy John Lennon was I'm just
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: checking the time I had thirty two minutes. Um, I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: liked the way that the guy it was playing harmonica
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: because I was playing harmonica at the time and I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: was playing, you know, I was just learning the harmonica,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and hey, this guy with the Beatles was playing the harmonica.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. So that's what made me listen to it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was much more into Buddy Holly and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Elvis and and blues music basically, and folk music, you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Woody Guthrie and things like that. I hadn't quite discovered
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan yet, which was going to be the big
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: one for me, but but yeah, I was. I was intrigued.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I loved Lonnie Donnie Gun and you know, and skiffle
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and and pure music, you know, Sunny Terry and Brandon McGee,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: all that stuff, and here comes this guy making this
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: pop song but he's playing a harmonica, so it's pretty cool.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I think that was the first time I noticed them.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So what was it like experiencing the Beatles in the UK?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: We know ed Sullivan Beatlemania and the United States. What
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: was it like in the UK? Well, I think that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we were watching them develop, you know, and that was
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: what's interesting because they were based here and you see
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: them on the streets. I mean. I used to work
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: in the design studio when I was about eighteen and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: left art school. Um and I was in a design
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: studio in London and John Lennon used to visit Yoko
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: ownA who had an apartment on the top. That was
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: when they were first dating. Um Well, she was in
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the apartment with her then boyfriend, so John would come
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and visit. Now, the the art gallery guy that Yoko
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: was with didn't like anybody smoking upstairs. John smoked like
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a chimney, so he had to smoke down in the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: yard where I had to smoke as well. Because basically
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: we had a lot of chemicals in the in the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: art room, and you know, you couldn't smoke there. So
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I would go down to the backyard and there's this
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: guy was turned up with the white suit and I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: knew who he was, um, but I couldn't really sort
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of say hey, Mr lenn and I just couldn't bring
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: myself to Oh I'm a big fan, you know, I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: couldn't bring myself to do that. So I just said,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: had I mate? And uh? And he said hello, mate, back,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: you know, and we shared Siggi's together, and sometimes he'd
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: roll a joint and with our smoker joint together, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you know, we were smoking companions and it's really kind
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of funny because you know, you know, he said, what's
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: your name? I said Jerry, And I said, yeah, what's yours? Oh,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: John John? And I think he kind of got a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: kick out of the fact that I wasn't John Lennon
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and him or beatling him, you know. So so we
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: we became hey, how are you today? Yeah, good mate?
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: What's up to? I'm just visiting Yoka up stairs. You know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I'll be here for a few hours anyway, you know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: tell me what you're working on today. I'm doing a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: cover for this band, you know, and he said yeah,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: he said, I know a bit about music, you know,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and we'd we'd play this kind of decoy game where
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we just wouldn't admit who he was, which
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: was very cool. Years later, Okay, spin years forward, I'm
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: making my first album, silver Bird, Um and Adam Faith
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: who's managing me and producing it with David Courtney, my
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: co writer as well, but co producer with Adam. They
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: decide that we've got to go to Apple Studios. I mean,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Adam is a complete beat or nut, you know, so
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: we've got to go to not Abbey Road, sorry, so
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to Savile Row the Beatles, the Apple Studios to master
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the record. And there's this great guy there called Porky Peckham,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: George Peckham, who's probably one of the great mastering engineers.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: He was used to He's known as Porky and he
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you'd always his ascetates back. I've got a couple of them,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and he'd always scratched Porky into that, you know, or
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: else a pig sign so that, you know, very collectible
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: items now they go from thousands hundreds of thousands. But anyway, Um,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: we went down there to see to see George and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you know, get on with the master and you know.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And I was allowed to come along that day to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have a listen in. And I walked through the door
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and this burly guy kind of well I thought he
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: was burly anyway, sort of pushes me out the way
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: as he's coming, rushing out the door, and then turns
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: around and apologize and said, I'm sorry, man coming just
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: a clash of two people coming in the same door.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: And it's Lennon and he told me and said, oh
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: my god, it's you. He said it's my smoking buddy.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, Leo and he said, yeah, I
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: know you're. Leo says, said you're you're down in the
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: cutting room today he said, He said, I'm so glad
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: things happened to you. He said, can we finally can
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: we finally face up? He said, I'm a beatle, you know.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I said I know. And he said, good to see you. Man.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: He gave me a big hug and went on his way.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: People rushing him out the door and come on, John,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: come on, and he's saying shut up and turning around
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to give me a hug. It was quite sweet. You
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: talk about how influential Bob Dylan was to you told
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: us that, Yeah, I think I think. You know, I
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: had a cousin, an older cousin. Um, I'd never experienced
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan before, but I loved Woody Guthrie and you know, uh,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: all these people that you know, Bob loved, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the folk musicians. Um, I love what they were all doing,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: rambling Jack Elliott, I'm I'm remembering all people like that
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: who were in Dylan's Psyche phil Oaks. You know, I
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: love what they were doing separately. And then my cousin,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: my older cousin, went to stay with him in the Midlands,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: in England, and he pulled out two records and he said,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: because he had a record player and he was collecting stuff,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and I'd heard Bill Hailey and Elvis Presley with him,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you know, okay that was great, but I could hear
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: them anyway on the radio. And he he just bought
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: this record and it was Bob Dylan, the first Bob
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Dylan record. So this is three well, I think sixty
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: two was the first one in America that was mostly
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: cover sixty two. Yeah, yeah, no, that's it's sixty two.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And so here's this record and I'm about fifteen sixteen
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and something like that, maybe even younger. And he had
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that record and he put it on and the voice
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: and the whole kind of I don't know almost the
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: anarchy of the whole thing. I mean, the guy couldn't
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: really sing great, but the voice was obviously put only
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: trying to sound like an old guy of sixty. Um.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: But there's something gripping about it. And the songs, I mean,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: fixing to die, Please see that my grave is kept clean,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the House of the Rising Sun. The songs were amazing,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: and his songs as well, about you know about Woody Guthrie. UM.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: So this this record just kind of stayed with me,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and I asked him if I could borrow it, and
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: he let me borrow it, and I take it back
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and play it on Dad's radiogram, you know, those old
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: kind of systems that we had, and and listen to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: it and listen to it, and it got into my bloodstream.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And then when the second record came out, which was
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Free Wheeling, I was straight to the record store, you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: using all my pocket money, all the money that I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I gained by getting paid for delivering church leaflets from
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: from the church, all that sort of stuff. You know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I I um, I went and put all my hard
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: earned into buying that record. And it wasn't a disappointment.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: He was even better because now he's writing more songs,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and or at least that you know, he's putting more
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of his own songs on there, and he's got a
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: story to tell, and he's writting about Hattie Carroll and
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: people like that, and you know there's the protest songs.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Times were changing blind in the wind Man. This next
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: series of records that I had, every single one, brought
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: them all on the first day. I was absolutely totally
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: gluten and I thought, that's the man I want to be,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you know, when I finally grow up, that's who I'm
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: going to be. I'm going to get on the road.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Through him. I found Jack, Carol Akin and Alan Ginsberg
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and you know all these great writers Steinberg, Steinbeck, you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: John Steinbeck and Cannery Row. You know you're reading all
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: these things, Albert Camu, the outsiders. You know. I don't know,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I I just it opened up a whole world for me.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: It opened up the world as well. That told me
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that the spoken word, the poetry could be great as music.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: You know, That's what it opened up for me. And
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and I was trying to be a poet at the time,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I was always writing down, you know, everything
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that I thought of and trying to kind of wax
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: lyrical into these lines and on the page. And suddenly,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, some time later on, I think maybe
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: even when I was first working with David Courtney, come
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: right there. I would look at these old old lyric books,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: these old poetry books, and David would say, hey, I've
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: got an idea for a tune, you know, and and
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: he'd be playing away, you know, dump dumped, the dump dumped,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and don't don't don't on a piano, and I go,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I'm a one man band, you know, so and that
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: would come straight off the lyric sheet, you know, or
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the poetry sheet. So I was using what I've written
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: between twelve and sixteen. That's was the first album that
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: was all of my poetry from those days, the basis
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of those songs, the basis of the lyrics. Let's go
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: back to the beginning. Where did you grow up? Shore
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: on My Sea a little town between Worthing and Brighton
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in Sussex, right on the English Channel, fifty miles south
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: of London. Yeah, on the coast. How far from Brighton?
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: It was in between, I say, about seven miles from
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Brighton and about six miles from Worthy. The whole Branton
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Mods and Rockers thing. Was that amplified in the media
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: or was that real and something you were aware of? Oh?
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: That was truly real? Yeah, yeah, I mean we England
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: basically had had of you know, after the war, which
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: costs England all its economy, you know, because it puts
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: so much into it. Even though your Yanks came over
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and helped us out, we still had to pay for
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: so much ourselves. So I mean I grew up when
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: when I was fourteen years old, I still had a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: ration car really, so there was still rationing of some things.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: You know. I grew up without sugar. I've never had
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: very much for sweet tooth, so I think I'm getting
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: one hour's I'm getting older. But we didn't have candy
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: bars and things like that, you know, so it was
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: all very basic, rough stuff, and our our politics became
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: very safe, you know, very authoritarian. This is where the
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Conservative Party came in um and basically you know, trying
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to tell everybody we're so lucky to be free from war. Uh,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that we must kind of be prepared to do it hard.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: So you've got a youth that came up in the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: in the fifties, i'd say, and then into the sixties
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that was very disgruntled. You know. They didn't understand why
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: when all the American kids had drive ins and and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: rock music and and you know, girls were allowed to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: wear bikinis, we didn't have that, you know, so they
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they kind of, I don't know, they felt that they
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: were left out, you know. I mean when Rock around
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the Clock with Bill Haley came out in England, it
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: was this phenomenon, you know that all the kids would
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: go to the cinema to watch it. Now, wow, can
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: they really get away with that? You know, so everybody's
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: dancing and jiving. Nobody would dance and jive in a
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: in a concert or anything in England. You know. It
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: took a little while and visits by Bill Halian, Eddie
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Cochrane and gene of Vincent before that happened. Um, and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that was into the sixties, you know, fifties, the fifties,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: none of that happened. So the early sixties descent in
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the youth was growing in England and I suppose the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Mods grew out of that. I mean I was on
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: mod um at school. Uh, and then the slightly older
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: guys would be the Rockers. They had all the motorbikes,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the Mods took on the scooters just to
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: be different than than the rockers. And in Brighton, you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: as the Mods came into being bands like the Small Faces,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: the Kinks, um, you know, them playing the music that
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the Mods liked, Um, the the there came a clash
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: of culture with use. You know. The rockers were teddy boys,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you know. They they kind of like live life, loud
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and rough and very leathery, and the Mods were kind
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of really stylish and bespoke, a little quieter spoken. I mean,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: later we got skin heads out of Mods, but that's
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: a kind of different thing because that kind of almost
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: leads you to punk. But basically us Mods, I mean
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: we went to great tailors and had fabulous looking suits,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: you know, in silky material and really cool shoes. We
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: wanted to look clean and bespoke, you know, rather than
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: the rockers who looked like they were covered in oil
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: from their motorbikes. So you had this clash going on,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and it all happened in Brighton, and the who I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: suppose was the big mod band that I left out there,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and and and the who are kind of you know
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: with my talk about my generation describes it all. Really,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: you know. I hope I die before I get old.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Did you have a scooter? No? No, I couldn't have
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: had one. I mean we had no money. That was
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: for rich mods. I had a bicycle. You're singing in church? Yeah,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yet you want to be a fine artist. How do
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: you ultimately get into the music business? Happened really by accident.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I had a pretty good career as a graphic designer,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: commercial artist, illustrator, even designed type typography. UM. I had
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: a pretty good career. I left art school after only
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: one year of a two year course. UM. I was
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: supposed to Uh, I was supposed to do longer and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't, um I I. Um yeah. I cracked out
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of that and got a job straight away. And all
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: of my friends at art school, UM were They was
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: still working around a very boring what I thought were
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: very boring graphics scores. Uh. And I had a job amazing.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I'll probably digress for a moment here, because I've worked
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: in a studio in Brighton. I had this gorgeous girl
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that I fancied like mad in the studio who came
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: from Detroit and one day said her American boyfriend was
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: coming in to town. So she said, I'm going to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: London and I said, what can I come with you?
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And she said, yeah, I was looking for some companies,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: so I'm thinking I'm in here. Of course I wasn't.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: So we went up to the Strand Palace Hotel um
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: in Covent Garden and a big wooly head guy, tall
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: wooly head guy opened the door and immediately hustled her
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: into bedroom. I just sat on the sofa, I got
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: my harmonica out and started playing. And he stopped what
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: he was doing and rushed into the room, picked up
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: a guitar and started playing with me. And that was
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Jimi Hendrix, who's just a little bit. What was Jimmy
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Hendrix's girlfriend doing working with you in the art studio,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. She'd kind of come on some bad
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: times with the family and decided to move to England
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and she was working very studios. She was pretty good,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: good designer, good good illustrator as well, and we did
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of projects together, so you know, we got
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: on very well, and she just said, yeah, I used
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: to go with this guy as a rock as a
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: rock guitarist, but he had no money, so I gave up,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you know. But he was a good lover, so you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that was that was why she wanted to see him again.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: And and so anyway, so me and James Marshall Hendrix
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: as he announced himself to me, or James Marshall, I
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: think he just called himself. Um, I didn't know who
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: he was, but we were we were playing. He's a
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: really good guitarists, great blues field and you know, and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: we just play some blues together and he reckoned. I
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: could play the harmonica pretty good as well. And you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: so we jammed away while she sat frustratedly sat by
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the door until she dragged him back in the in
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the bedroom. And then we we went back down to
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: to to Brighton, where we worked and where I was
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: living at the time, and she said cheerio, and I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: didn't even get a kiss. And and and about four
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: weeks later, because he told me he'd come into London
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: on the invite to make a record by this guy
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: who was the bass player of the Animals who have
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: seen him play and all that, you know the story,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and so he made this record and I went to
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: my favorite records store in the in the in Brighton,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: in the this area called the Lanes where she's just
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: walking streets and record shop called Fine Records. I remember
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: it so well because that's where I picked up most
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: of my material, you know. Um. I and there's this
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: massive poster on the on the on the wall, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and the record cover. I'm going, that's that guy,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: and there he is, Jimi Hendrix. And about a week later,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I'm in London and I go with some friends to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a club called the Speakeasy because i've I've just done
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the record cover for a group called Humble Pie, which
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: was Peter Frampton and and uh Steve Marriott from Faces
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: from the Small Faces and I think it was Greg Ridley,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the bass player. When I've done the you know, did
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: the cover and the photos of the cover, I kind
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: of got chatting to him and he gave me his
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: his we didn't have mobiles in those days, his home number,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: and I phoned him and he said, oh, if you
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: in London, you know, let's hook up. And and then
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: he said to me said he you know, we all
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: go into the speakeasy. Do you want to come? And
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: so I said, yeah, yeah. So I went down there
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: and walking onto the stage, there's all these guitarists, They're
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: all the major guitarists are in the room at the time,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going, wow, you know, that's Sarah Clapton over there,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: that's Jeff Beck, and that's Steve how from Yes and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: all these guys are there, you know, and I'm you know,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: just constract. I think it's Harry Nilson who was doing
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the Big U. But halfway through Harry's set, on walks
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Jimmy and I'm in the front row, you know, and
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling kind of embarrassed. And I look up at
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: him and he recognized me, and he jumped off the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: stage and gave me a hug. And all these guys,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I look at me, who's he And I just say, yeah,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I know him, Yeah, yeah. I remember Jeff Beck sidling
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: up to me and said, hey, do you know And
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I told him the story. He said, you lucky bastard,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and that was it. You know. There you go, being
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. Sorry, I
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: digressed and digressions digressions of the space of life. Don't
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: worry about it. I'm a famous digressor. You played the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Harmonic with Jimmy Hendrix. Ya. How do you ultimately start
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a music career? I was, as I say, doing commercial art.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I was in London. Um, I took on a studio
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: in in Hammersmith and and you know, we rented it
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: big studio space, and I had a lot of artist friends,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: mostly illustrators. You know. I should say that I did
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: some record covers in this time. I did uh, Bob
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Marley covers, clubs, scar covers, yeah again for Humble Pie
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: and people like that. You know, a lot of Ireland
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Records traffic a lot of those bands at the time,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you know, so I kind of and every now and then,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: like with Greg, I'd get to meet some of the
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: guys in the band, you know. So, so I was
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: kind of close to that. But anyway, I booked this.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I had this huge studio and I had a lot
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of artists who were working with me. And I wasn't
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: very good at collecting money. I've never been a good
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: businessman in my whole life, which comes to another part
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: of the story later. But uh, and I ran out
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: of money and I couldn't pay for the studio and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I couldn't pay the rent, and it was up to
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: me to do that. So I don't know, I just
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: kind of I left the keys on the doorset one
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: day and I just I left. I left it of
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the guys left them a long note saying, you know,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: if you really want to carry on with this place,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you've got to come up with the rent, and up
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to you. You know. I think that they they caved
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: in and didn't bother when they found out how much
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the rent was, you know, because they've been all there
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: on the cheap. They were just paying me, you know,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: a smidge in to be in there. And I was
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: just gladly giving them a space because it was a
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: creative hub. And I got work out of it as well,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: you know, some work. But as it was drying up,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: you know, there was no option and no money, so
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I had to leave and I packed up my flat.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I went back to my hometown. I had some friends
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: who had a houseboat. They lived on a houseboat um
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: on the River Raida, the river that went through Shoreham
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and just near the sea the mouth of the river.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: This is lovely houseboat. And I stayed on the houseboat
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: for a year. I had a nervous breakdown. Really I
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I couldn't draw and paint any longer. My graphic abilities
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: just passed me by. But luckily, at the same time
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: as He's marvelous cusps in one's life happened a bunch
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: of friends came to see me on the houseboat. One
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: of them we lived on a houseboat a little bit
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: further way of the mate of mind from school, and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: he was now long haired and planning guitar, and so
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: he said, oh, I've got a blues group. I said, oh,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: that's great. I play harmonica, and so he said, yeah, well,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: why don't get together for a jam next week, you know?
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: So we did and we started a band immediately, and
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: because I had its loud voice, I was the singer.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: And we went from band to band to band to band,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and eventually a guitarist who I really liked working with,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: who was top notch in the local musicians um, who
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: also wrote songs, came and lived on the houseboat with me.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: He was he had the next the next room on
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the boat, big old boat it was, and we started
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: writing songs together and we decided to go. We had
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: a band and we decided to go to an audition,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: and we went to the audition. It was for the
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: you'd have heard of the Melody Maker of course in England,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the famous newspaper. So they had a battle of the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: bands going on. So they did it as areas and
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: so southwest. I think we were called that area, which
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: was Kent and Surrey and Sussex um and we won.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: We won our heat. But the thing was so badly
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: organized that in the end I think that they they
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: press gained a couple of bands from London and forgot
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: about our heat that winners, you know, and we got
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: to have pushed out. We never even went to the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: final show. So frustrated with that, we saw another ad.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: We saw an advertisement um in the local paper, the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Evening Arcuts, and it was saying, you know bands, bands, acts, artists, comedians, conjurers, whatever,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: you know, a new talent agency is starting. There will
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: be a big audition at the Pavilion Theater on Saturday
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that da da da da da dah. This is in.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: And we turned up at the audition and we went
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: on stage, probably the last people to go on. There
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: were lots of bands, uh, no audience in the theater
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: you know, just all the bands watching each other, and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: we went on last, and the guy was holding the
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: audition ran over and just said, you're it. And we
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: sang a song I remember called Gypsy Dancer that me
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: and Max Chetwynd, the guitarists, wrote together, and he stopped
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: us halfway through and just said start that again. And
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: we started again, and then he stopped us halfway through
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and he said start there again. And I think he
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: was checking that we could play it, you know, and
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: he just turned around he said, I'm going to give
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: you a job straight away. I want to manage you.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Your voice is amazing, you know, And all of the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: other people just sidled out the room and it was
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: left with us, and there we were, and Patches was
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the name of the band, and I don't know started
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: getting talking to David's and he told me he didn't
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: really want to manage a band. It was just his
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: dad's idea. You know. His dad was fairly wealthy, and
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: his dad wanted him to do something legitimate. And he'd
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: played drums before for this guy called Adam Faith. It
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: was a pop singer. So one day he said, after
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: we'd tried a few different avenues, and David and I
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: had started writing songs together, me all based as I
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: said before, on those old lyric books, those old poetry books,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: you know, putting my lyrics in there. And he had
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: these kind of beach boys kind of come Beatles kind
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: of pop uh melodies that I would put my acerbic
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: lyrics to, and and we had something. And I was
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: a ying and yang kind of thing. It was very interesting.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: There was these kind of very almost sad autobiographical lyrics
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: going with these bright kind of um but very dramatic
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: kind of melodies. So we had something I think that
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: was quite unique. It was a bit like I suppose
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Bernie Taupin and Elton John could be. Because again you're
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: meeting I suppose I had some eloquence to me, and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: David was had this kind of pop musicality, you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: which is very much Elson and Bernie, you know. Um. Anyway,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: we went to see Adam and I thought he wasn't
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: very interested. I was left to sit in the car
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: while he and David pow world. And then he came
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: running out to the car and he said, right, I've
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: booked you in the studio tomorrow. That's it. Get the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: band together. So I went straight back, got all the
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: guys together, said come on, we've got to get the van.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Mike the drummer, had to take a day off work
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: and get the van kind of filled up with petrol,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: which was quite a job in those days because we
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: didn't have any money. Throw all the gear in the
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: back of the van and straight up to uh, straight
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: up to Olympic studios and yeah, and then we were
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: making a record. You know, we're not knowing what we
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: were doing. I think the drummer turned out to be
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: pretty app And in the next room the Who were recording,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: and I don't think Daughtry was there or Towns was there,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: but Entwhistle and Who and Moon were there, and Adam
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: called Mooney in during a break and he actually played
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the drums on that first single while So and Meet
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the drummer came in and listened to it. You know,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Keith wasn't there, but he's listening to a Playbank going yeah,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I did pretty well there. It was the same part,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: but it was much better played, you know. So um,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's kind of it's funny when
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: you look back at those times. We really didn't know
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: what we were doing. I mean David and I. We
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: sang a song on the B I sang a song
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: on the B side that we've both written together. The
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: A side was David's song Living in America. I think
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: the folks in America they got it good in America.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Not my lyric, you know, but it was it was fun.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: You know, here we were suddenly you're looking at another
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: career because Adam. You know, one of the powerful things
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: about Adam was that if he said something was going
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: to happen, he had the ability to make it happen.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: He had incredible contacts in the in the in the business,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: in the whole world of show business, and in the media.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: You know, he could just open doors. Remember once with him,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: just after Patches had been a single, Living in America
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: had been released, we strode up to Radio one. Radio
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: one was the big sort of you know, the big
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: real McCoy BBC. Radio one was was the biggest broadcast broadcaster,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: biggest station. And on Sunday they used to read out
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the charts. Everybody would tune in the whole country. The
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: audience ratings were off the wall, you know. So Alan
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Freeman is upstairs halfway through the charts, when Adam turns
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: up with this young aick um and and his new
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: album and his new single sorry and meets the job's
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: worth at the door. We called him job's worth, it's
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: more than my jobs will to let you in here, Mr.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: But but no they actually Adam faith and well, I'm
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: going up to see Alan Freeman and said, well, of course,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: of course, go on up, so he knew where to go.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: We walked straight in the red lighters on on the
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: door outside and his producer is kind of looking at
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: us rather alarmed, but we breathe in and Adams says,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: take that rubbish off and put this on. This is
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: your next and that was it. We get our first airing,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: you know, on on the Alan Freeman Show Sunday night
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: with the biggest audience in England watching. Okay, that's relieve
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the fantastic. But then the record stiff, the record still stiff. Yeah,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I mean I think fifty copies. I think my mom
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: brought twenty. Um, yeah, fifty copies were sold. I think fifty.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: It was on the Warner label, um, Warner Brothers label. Uh.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: But but Adam wasn't daunted. I mean, the whole thing
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: was not happening, but he just said, let's go on
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and make the album. So he'd met Richard Branson, you know,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the Virgin guy of course. Um, of course was just
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I mean Richard just had a record store in those
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: days and a record label that he just started, and
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: he bought this crazy studio, this manor house with a
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: barn next to it in Oxfordshire called the Manor, and
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: lots of people recording up there, you know, Van Morrison,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the Grand Bond Organization. Uh. And he had an engineer,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Tom Newman there who was working on a little project
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: by this unknown guy called Mike Oldfield and it was
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: she ended up being called Tubular Bells, and that was
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: going on at the same time, and you know, Mike
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: was in the studio when we weren't in the studio,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: and me and Patches were in the studio most days
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: and then Michael take over and do the Witching Hour
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: at night. We were all staying at the place. You know,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Michael was very friendly. Um, I didn't really understand his record.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: It sounded very a bit silly to me at that stage,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: but of course, you know, when it was finally finished,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: it was awesome, you know, changed the world kind of
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: thing um. But you know, sometimes when the records being made,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: you don't understand it. Likewise, Michael would kind of come
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: into our sessions and say, said, your band is not
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: very good, are they I say, yeah, I know, but
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: I mean we we're learning, you know, we're learning, and
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Adam's going to sort it out. Well. About four or
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: five days in Adams sacked the band and broad in
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: session players. And this was awful for me because my
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: friends were leaving out the door and you know, and
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there on my own with David. Of course,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: David's my friend, but these are all new people. You know, Leo,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? And I'm trying to be Leo
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Sarah at the same time, because we've come up with
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the name Leo. So Jerry has become Leo Sarah And
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: okay a little bit slower. Why not Jerry because I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: as known as Jerry the harmonica player. I used to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: sit in with bands with Georgie Fame and you know,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: and I play with people like Ginger Baker and in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: in in Alexis Corner's blues band, and I used to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: see Bill Wyman a lot. I sat in with so
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: many bands, you know, Um, there were the you know,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: in the rhythm and blues time. I once got up
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: with John Mayle. I played with Muddy Waters and a
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: folk club, you know, um, and everybody, oh, there's Jerry
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: the harmonica player. And I thought, oh god, I can't
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: be known as Jerry the harmonica player. And I was
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: and I was going into a new world, you know.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Here I was suddenly with this guy who was a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: bloody pop star, you know, a huge star. I was
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: doing television series at the time, Adam Faith. Everybody knew
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Adam Faith, and already there was an article in the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: press about this Adam Faith that discovered this new talent.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: And of course, a few weeks later, you know, the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Roger Daughtry album is released. So but that's a very
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: significant but that's later. Yeah, that's later. I'll get into
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that later. And of course, you know what I was
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: gonna say is, eventually Daltry will be selling Leo Saya
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: as his coat, as his songwriter. You see. So that's
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: kind of relevant in a way to mention that. Now.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: But I had all these people around me that were
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: really believing in me. So here we are at the Manor,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I've got all these session guys come in, they play amazing.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the songs are soaring. Suddenly we're really doing well.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: And then Adam Face just turned around and said, look,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: I can't afford to do any more recording. Um, you know,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I just don't have the budget. So we stopped. And
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: then we were down in Brighton. I think I put
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: on a gig and and and Adam brought a guy
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: along called Keith Altham and very famous music writer and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: publicists later publicists for the Beatles, the Stones, the Trogs,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Jimi Hendrix, of course famous for being the guy that
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: persuaded Hendrix to set light to his guitar. Um. Keith
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: came down to see the band. He was writing an
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: article about me in the New Musical Express and which
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: was a fabulous article, which again it was a little
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: bit of a thing to live up to. But he
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: saw the band and he said, look, Roger Daughtry, he
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: was looking after the who at the time. He said,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Rogers built a studio and he needs a guinea pick
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: to try it out. You're looking for a place to work.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Let me give Roger a call. So he gave Roger
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: a call and he came back and said, yeah, Roger says,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you guys come up to the studio, you don't have
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: to pay, you know, It's like you can have it
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: for free. He'd just be delighted to have someone try
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: out the room. So and you can stay next door.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: There's a little pub called the Kicking Donkey, and you
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: can stay at the Kicking Donkey, which we did, and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: we went up then started recording, and the second part
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: of silver Bird was made in that way without Adam
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: having to shell out any more money. And you know,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: everything was kind of he's and breezy and and it
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: was lovely working at Roger's. And it was also great
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: spending time with this rock icon who turned out to
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: be the nicest guy, you know. I mean, there was
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: a connection you see, with Adam, which was very good
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: because Adam Faith and Roger Daltrey were born on the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: same street in acting. You know, Adam a few years
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: older of course, so these guys will be had lots
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: to talk about. They talked the same language, they had
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the same accent, you know, so that the connection was
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: a dream connection, you know. And then one day Roger
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: just turned around and said, look I love these songs.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: You know, um, before you finish it all up. Have
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you got any more songs that you haven't put on
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the album? And and David and I said, well, yeah,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: we've cut loads. You know, we're we're even writing for
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the next album. He said, could you give me some
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: of the songs? And we said what, and he said, yeah,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: I want to make a solo album. Roger Peter has
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: made a solo album. Big Townsend has made a solo album,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: So I want to do one. I want to show
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: him he's not the only one who can go solo.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: So he said yeah, right. So David and I looked
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: at the list of songs we had and we got
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: the tapes out, the old Grundig tapes that we've made
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: of these things, and yeah, we we decided we had
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: quite enough and we talked to Adam about the idea
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: and he said, it's great, it's a good idea. I'll
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: produce it Roger. Roger wanted Adam and David to produce it,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: do it in the same style, and do it there
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: in the studio. So that's how they started off, and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: they made the Daughtry album. Decided to hold up my album.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: So my album is already a year old when the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Daughtry album came out, decided to hold it up because,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: as Adams said, and Roger agreed, Look, you know you
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: can do more good for Leo by telling everybody about
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: this songwriter. He said, yeah, if it's a hit, everybody
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: will want to know anyway, and Giving It All Away
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: hit the top twenty I think on top forty or
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: something in America, went into the chart there and when
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: is the charts in England? The album went into the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: charts in England. So everybody was talking about Roger Daltrey's
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: solo album when it came out, and and everybody was
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: talking about this song right, and so was Roger. And
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: every interview said, wait, do you meet this guy. He's fantastic,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: what a talent, great voice as well. His songs are fantastic.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I just had to do them, you know this, This
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: was it. So I had Roger Daltrey, the lead singer
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: of the Who, probably the biggest band in the world
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: at that time, you know, as my publicist. Not Bad
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Ain't That's how I found out about you. I bought
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: that album Giving It All Away one and bad That's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: why I don't buy your record, absolutely really yeah, So
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: so that all kind of opened up the doors. And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: then when we released my record, the reaction was fantastic.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: So you could say it all happened overnight. I mean
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: he didn't, as he's can tell from the album being
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: held up a year the longest station took towards it.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't all that simple, but when it
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: was released, it all happened so quick. You know. I
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: went on tour with Roxy Music supporting them. We want
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: to tour in England? Who put that bill together? Because
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I don't see the music as being in the same spectrum,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: well in a way, you know in England, Um, you
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: had let's take it. I always use that term rack jobbing,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: you know, when every everybody's in the same I mean
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: we live in a rack jobbing world, now, don't we.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: I mean your radio show would should not appeal to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: someone doing heavy metal and vice versa. But in the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: seventies in England, if everything went together, you know, there
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: was no categorization. Um, people wanted variety. You know, England
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: had grown up and think as well. And it's an
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: important thing to say this, we've grown up. All of
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: our American acts that came over came over in package
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: to us. So you know, you'd get Freddie and the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Dreamers on the same bill as Eddie Cochrane and Buddy Holly,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: and you'd get Desert Connor, who was basically a crooner,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: on the same bill as as Buddy Holly. You know,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Daz has got Buddy's last guitar. Um des sadly has died.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Now I think the guitars belonged to somebody else, but
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: you know, Buddy gave him the guitar. They were on
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: tour together and you'd get these package acts, you know,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: so we saw everybody together. So I think England was
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: really into you know, a variety show kind of you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: live thing very much. Comedians on with the Beatles were
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: always opened up by comedians, you know, and the Beatles
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: would open up for comedians or classic singers like Shirley Bassie,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: you know, people like that. So our radio wasn't so
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: uh kind of programmed out to kind of think that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: a novelty song would be played right next to Status
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Quo or something like that, you know. And so I
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: think in the English audience is wanted to be surprised
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: on stage and we were. That bill was put together
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: by a chrysalists agency. We were with Chrysalis Records, and
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the Chrysalists agency looked after Roxy music and me, so
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: they put they put it together. After after one show
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: where I wasn't getting really much reaction, I decided to
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: dress like the record cover, the Piero, the white face.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: So we had the same team who had helped me
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: get that image together for the record cover. The back
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: of the record cover inspired by this amazing movie called
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Les Enfante Parody, which I had loved as a as
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: an art student, where this guy, director Marcel Khan, had
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: got John Louis Baptiste, this amazing French actor, to portray
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: himself as the Piero, like Piero and and Harlequin, the
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: famous French stories in this movie made during the last
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: year of the German occupation of Paris of France, and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: it's an amazing movie. Um, and I love this character
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: and when I I'm digressing again. But I'll give you
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the background to how it no no keep going, I
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: keep going, and how that came about. Roger Daughtry had
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: a cousin, Graham Hughes, wonderful photographer who shot the Daughtry cover. UM,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: and Roger suggested I went to see Graham, which I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: did in London, and I went to a studio and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: he'd just been doing a photo shoot, a fashion photo
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: shoot for Vogue magazine. And in the background, well, there
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: was a girl that remember the Rocky Horror Show. There
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: was a girl called Little Little Nell who was this
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: amazing actress and character in the Rocky Horror Show. She
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: was in the shoot. And that guy played Frank and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Furter Um he was in the current member his name
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: of the actor, you know. He was in the shoot
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: with these models, and in the background was a piero.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: And Graham's straightaway. For those in America, we're talking about
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: a clown, a clown, yeah, but but the French piero
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: is different than the happens for those out of the loop.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, yeah, Well, if we talk about clowns, you've
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: got two different clowns. You've got three clowns. Really that
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: you've got Ill Paliarchi, okay, is the white faced, sad
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: narrator of most of those operas. Ill Paliarci is kind
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: of he's a fool, but as well, he's a wise fool.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: In France, Piero is the moralizer, he's the teller, of
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the story. Harlequin is the bad, mischievous guy in England.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: You've got Coco, the clown as famous for all the circuits.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: So he's just there to entertain the kids. He's a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: guy with makeup on, basically, not much more than that.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Um but Piero is a very serious character. He'll tell
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: you a story and you you're inclined to believe him
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: because he's he's expressionless in his face and he usually
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: tells the story and mine ala Marcel Marcel. You know,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Marcel Marceau took on the Piero character and basically told
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: his story and mime. He was a mime artist. Um so,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: so I loved Piero for this kind of blank faced
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: guy that you would listen to what he'd say. He
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: would the storyteller, and I was a storyteller. In my songs,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: they were all about me, you know at that time,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: they're all about my life. Um silver Bird and Just
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: a Boy are basically autobiographical albums. Yeah, they were all
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Leo telling you his story. Okay, so you got to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: the photo shoot and you see the Piero in the background. Yeah,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: I see this picture, and Graham says, at the same moment,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: So how do you see yourself then? Because he knows
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: all about me from roger Um And I said, like that,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just instantly reaction and point to
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: the piero and he said, great, that's Julian. He said,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: he's from Belgium. He's a street clown and basically he's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: here for a few days. Why don't I bring him
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: in tomorrow? And he said you could try on his
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: outfit and I went, well, okay, yeah, you know, it's
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a fad of company, isn't it.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: You know. I wish I had my big mouth. But
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: and he's got this makeup girl called Kirsty Climo, who was, Ah,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: she's one of the best theatrical makeup girls in the world.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: And she was a friend of his, and he said,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to bring Kirsty. And I knew of Kirsty
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: already because of friends of mine who were actors, and
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I went for Kirsty client he said, yeah, yeah, she's great,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I'll get her in. She can do the makeup. She
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: she knows how to do Piro because she'd done Pally
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Archie for the opera, you know, so hey, come on,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: you know, so I had her, and I had this
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: wonderful beautiful guy, Julian with his with his suit. The
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: only glitch was he was about six ft tall or so.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: So basically most of them. You see the gatefold inside
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: cover if anybody's got that of Silver Bird, and you'll
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: see me kind of crouching down, and that's because the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: trousers are pinned up, you know. You can't see the
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: pinning for the sort of like the bodice over the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: top covering it, you know. But but that was it. Um,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and I was in his suit and they wouldn't let
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: me look in the mirror, okay, until it was all done.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: Kirsty was about an hour putting the makeup together, and
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Julian was kind of fussing with the suit and getting
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: it right, and they found me that somebody went out
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: and found some white dance shoes from Cabizio and they
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: put on me and Um, Kirstie had developed this black
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: bathing cap and cut with the little pointed bit in
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: the middle, you know, perfectly to fit. So all this
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: is I think they brought a hairstylist to make sure
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: that the hair was all pinned in because I had
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: a huge hair at that time, you know. So finally
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Graham is all a jumping up and down. He says,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: this is incredible. You look at me. I can't see myself.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: All I can do is feel this awful white Lechner
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: panstick makeup all across my face, and I know my
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: hands are in gloves. I feel like my body has
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: been taken away somewhere. You know. It's like weird, weird,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: weird weird, but it's exciting at the same time. And
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I've literally metamorphosized. I mean, you're talking about Jerry becoming
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Leo Sayah, he became Leo Saya at that moment, you see,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: because there's no way that Jerry could ever be recognized again.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: So I walk out. They right, Grahams has finished, and
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: I walk out, and I walk out in front of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: this full length mirror, a whole huge, great, big mirrored
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: glass plane pain and I see myself and I just said, yes,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: that's it. I can go on like this. And it
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: was just incredible that we did the photo shoot, and
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: you know, afterwards, took off the makeup and Cursty said,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: he looked amazing. She said, when when you decide to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: do it for real, I'll be there. I said, for real,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I thought we were just doing the photo and it
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: was clicking with me that I was, yeah, becoming somebody else.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: So we did the first Roxy show and I was
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: just went on in jeans and nice shirt, you know,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. Nobody really noticed. They all talked and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: waited for Roxy to come on. You know, Brian Eno
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: had left the band, by the way, at that time,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: he was the very much I suppose in a way,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: Brian used to dress up in a similar kind of
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: over the top way. So the so the glam rock
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: crowd would like to come for him, you know, um,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: but Roxy would being a bit more serious. Now. You know,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: Brian was in a white tuxedo. They're all looking very sophisticated. Um.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: And the second gig, I'm in my dressing room, I'm
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: making up and we're putting in the outfit. My wife,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Janice now has made the suit for me, um, and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: she's a really good seamstress. So I had this fabulous
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: kind of satin silk suit with the little you know,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: the three velcro stuck on bobbles, you know that you've
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: got on the front, the red spots for the cheeks.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: The eyes were dramatically done, the black bathing cap in place,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: well pinned, and the gloves on and the white shoes
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: and I walk out in front of the band and
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: there's this reaction from the audience. We're playing Sheffield City Hall.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I think it absolutely packed because Roxy are a big band.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: You know, they don't know who LEAs Sarah is really.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: But the moment I woke up, there's and someone shouted
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: he knows back and the I played five songs in silence.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: There wasn't applause, there wasn't anything, and there wasn't a
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: murmur anybody. Nobody was talking in the room. Everybody was
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: just craning their eyes to see. And I didn't say
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: a word. I just sang five songs and with the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: mime and the hands going all over the place, just
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: like you've seen in the videos. And then I said
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: thank you very much, and all of a sudden, the
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: place broke out into applause. All of Roxy music or
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: on the side of the stage watching this, by the way,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: and the chance started. They started shouting Leo, Leo, Leo.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: This is all on the first night of the clown.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: It was just incredible. And they were still shouting Leo
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: when Roxy went on, so they weren't very happy with me,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: but I carried on the tour. Brian actually thought it
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: was great. He kept coming up to me and saying,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: fabulous image, fabulous image. So we we went on the
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: tour and we went, you know, we completed the tour
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: almost we gone into France. I think we played a
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: couple of gigs in France, we played some in Germany,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: and then the management just turned around said you've got
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: to get him off the tour. He's getting too much applause.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: And my record was rocketing up the charts. The show
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: must go on, and their record was not doing so well.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but that was my That was how it started. Okay,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: so you finished the tour with Roxy Music. What's the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: next step. Well, we went on a tour. You know,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: now we're now we're appearing as the Piero and everything's
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: going well. The records are hit, the album's are hit.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: So I toured England and then we just got this
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: invite from already we were we were with Warner Brothers
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: in America, so we just got this invite from I
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: think it was I can't remember the agency, but to
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: come and do do the States and arrived in Los Angeles. Um,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: we had all the makeup and the outfits of course
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: ready to go. And Terry O. Neil is my photographer
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: by this time. So the first thing we did was
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: go down to Santa Monica Pia and do lots of show,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: lots of shots of the piero and and I think
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: that they used that as publicity because nobody knew what
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: I really who, what I really looked like, which was
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: quite interesting. In America, they'd never seen Leo Saya apart
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: from the record cover and and and of course the
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: piero on the back. And I went straight to Memphis
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: where we started playing in a club supporting jjkle. Um.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was called the Mississippi something alright,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: just outside Memphis. And again the reaction just started went
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: through the roof. You know, it's just incredible. Everybody's loving
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: this thing. J. J kle didn't know what to make
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: of me. He used to perform with hardly any lights on,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and we had to bring in lights for
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: my show because he just didn't have enough. Um, but
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: it just went mad. We had a week in Memphis,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: then it was a week in Boston. And then it
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: was just all over the country. We ended up going
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: to the bottom Line in New York um and hit
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: all the papers there. You know, the record started to
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: be a success. At the same time, Three Dog Night
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: have recorded The Show Must Go On and that's higher
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: up in the charts. Oh, they decided just not to
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: release my single, I think because the Three Dog Night
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: was version of The Show Must Go On, which still
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: annoys me, because they were singing we must let the
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: show go on, whereas the song is I won't let
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: the show go on, you know in the chorus, you know.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: But there and they had circus clowns, you know, going
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: back to Cocoa the clown. You know, they've seen me
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: performing in in London. I think at Top of the
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: Pops they're probably on the same show and or else
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: watched it on the TV and thought, hey, let's cover
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: that song. So that's what they did, and you know, um, oh, well,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: you know it's they just didn't quite get it, I
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: don't think. But it didn't matter. There was a hit,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and that was the American tour. We just
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: everywhere we went. By the time we got to Los
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Angeles and Robert Hillban was writing about us, and then
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: San Francisco where Ben Fong Torres was writing and rolling
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: Stone about me. You know, you couldn't climb any higher,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: really it was. It was quite an incredible um. I
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: began a friendship with with with Ben actually at that time,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, which followed me all the way through my career.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: So har does Long Talk Glasses end up becoming a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: huge check While we were there on that first tour,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: I think we recorded one man band. I do believe
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: that's Rykuda playing acoustic guitar on that Wow. Because Adam
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: tried to do some recording out there, didn't tell me
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: about it. Of course, this is typically what he'd do.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: He just went into a studio, here's this song. I'll
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: play it to you and see what you can make
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: of it, you know. So so, but we eventually came
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: back and started recording the album. Uh, straight after that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: American tour. The rest of four was spent in the studio,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I think mostly recording just a boy. So and I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: Long Till Glasses were really me writing lyrics inspired by
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: my favorite movie, The gold Rush Charlie Chaplin. What a
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: great movie. Yeah, and you know the scene, the scene
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: where he goes into the bar and he's got to dance.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: He's not really dressed for the part, but he kind
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: of pretends he is, you know, And and I thought
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: about me. I was thinking about me in America. I
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: was just I was shell shocked over the reaction in
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: America because everybody said, you know, why do you need
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: to dress as a clown? You can sing, You've got
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: all the you're really talent. I'm going yet, really, because
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, I'm never going to be as good
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: as my heroes, my American heroes, Otis Redding and Ah,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: you know, Wilson Picket and even Bob Dylan and you
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: know all of the great American artists, Sam Cook, Wow,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: you know Elvis. I just thought I was going to
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: be a bit player, you know, in the music scene.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: But they kind of thought I was really special, and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: they persuaded me, you know, take off the makeup, show
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: your real self. You're a good looking guy, you know,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: come on, you can be a big star. So I
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: was kind of a bit embarrassed by all of this,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: and I felt like the guy in the gold Rush
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: who goes into the bar. You know. I was traveling
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: down the road feeling hungry, and cold so or a
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: science saying food and drinks for everyone. Food and drinks
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: is like, you know, the American riches. You know, all
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: of this can be yours, girls partying, fast cars, clubs,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: you know, best hotels, fame, um, groupies, you know. Um.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: And and I didn't really know how to handle it,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: you know, so I I was very shy. Um. So
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: the song is all about, you know, he says, Oh,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: I can't dance, like I'm saying I can't sing, you know,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not really no, I'm not that good. And and
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: the song kind of gets to a point where he
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: just says, oh, he's just so fed up with this
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: barracking going on from everybody, and he just turns out
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: and said, oh all right, okay, hang on, wait a minute,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: and he says, you know I can dance, you know.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: So in other words, it's America. You see, if you
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: believe you can do something, and you show the confidence,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: then you can do something. You know, all you have
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: to do is bullshit everybody into saying you're brilliant, and
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: they all think it brilliant. So that's how it seemed
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: to me. It was an easy ticket. Um. And that's
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: what that song is about. It's about the metamorphosis to
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: where you can actually think, why not give people what
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: they want and stop being so petulant about it? You know. Okay,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: So ultimately you break up with David Courtney and you
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: end up working with Richard Perry. How does that happen? Well,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Adam was always very crafty, he claimed. When we went
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: for the third album another year, which I'm very very
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: proud of. Um, he claimed that David wasn't interested in
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: working with me any longer because basically wanted to do
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: his own project, which actually was patently not true. I mean,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: David wanted to do his home and album, but there
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: was always going to be time for that because I
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: wouldn't been away on a se x month American tour
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: very soon anyway, second tour, and David had plenty of
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: time to do that, you know. Um. And when I
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: phoned David well, I found he changed his number. But
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Adam had set all this up, you know. He said
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: to David, you shouldn't be working with him. You're good
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: enough to do it on your own, you know. He
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: split us up basically, so I had a bass player
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: I was working with as a wonderful guy. It was
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: in you remember the band super Tramps. Well, Frank was
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: a founding member of super Tramp, but he left because
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: basically the band had no money. They weren't going anywhere.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: So Frank had to get jobs as a as a
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: jobbing session musician, you know, and work with other bands
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: to to you know, to make a living. So he
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: turned up in one of my roadies houses, um staying
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: in a flat there, and there was a piano there
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and Frank was always playing piano and I thought it
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: was great pianist. He was a bass player, and I
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: asked him to join my band, and he joined the band.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: But it turned out he was really talented, and I was,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I was frustrated with David. But I was
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: coming up with all these songs, um and ideas for songs,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: and I'd start singing melodies to them, you know, and
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: I and I played some to Frank and he said, okay,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: got onto the piano and started fleshing them out. You know.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: So I had a new writer, and he was taking
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: my mellow melody, you know, my melody ideas and then
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: taking them further. And then eventually, of course he would
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: come up with some melody ideas but basically I was
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: much more in control. So even though I had lost David,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: I was very happy because I could actually kind of
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: make the words fit the music, you know, because I
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: can imagine what the music was going to be. I
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: didn't have to wait for a for a songwriter to
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: give me a melody to sing to. So the whole
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: process became closer, you know. With Frank. So we made
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: this record another year and I thought was great, but
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Adam was patently getting less interested in being my producer.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: He brought in Russ Ballard. Russ Ballard was, oh god,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: I can't remember all the bands Argent there you go
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: at that time. But in an earlier version, Russ was
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: Adams guitarist and on silver Bird. Going back to Silverbird,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: he's the guy who plays the banjo on The Show
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: Must Go On and most of the guitars on that record.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: Um So, Russ came in with Adam as co producer
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: and Russ is brilliant, great producer and a fantastic pianist.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: You have no idea how a guitarist could be. I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: think it was trained on piano. Um So, he's playing
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: piano on the album. Didn't play any guitar. Frank's playing
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: piano on the album as well, and we've got a
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: great bunch of in the band, some of the guys
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: that have been on the first album. We you know,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: we we we made another year so quickly because Adam
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: he said, I just want to do it in two
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: weeks because I'm busy. So we made the whole album
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: start to finish in two weeks and no chance for
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: retakes and anything. So I kind of I suppose a
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: rough and ready approach, and the mix isn't perfect, but
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: we did get some great strings on there, and I
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: think it's one of my finest albums personally, So okay,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: close that out. Um. For some reason, I think I
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: had wisdom tooth operation. I failed to make the American
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: tour so we couldn't promote it, and Adam I think
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: influence warners to kind of like go quiet on the
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: album dot spend much money. I think at this time
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: he was discovering that he could actually get them to
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: pay a lot of money out and put it in
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: his pocket and not give most of it to me.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: So that was basically the most opera endi that he
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: discovered he could make money out of an artist you know,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: so that's what he started to do. He's a bit
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: of a rogue like that. So um, so there we were.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: We went to America to talk to producers because he
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: was wanted a new producer. I I wanted Jerry Wexler
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: or Ralph Warnaker. Those two were the guys that I liked,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: or maybe even Tom Dowd. Although Tom Dowd's record of
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Atlantic Crossing was a little bit too mainstream for me,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I didn't although I'd heard, of course what
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: he'd done with A. Wretha and all of those, you know,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: those great acts that the Allman Brothers and everything Tom
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: had done, you know. Um, but Adam just came back
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and he went and did all the meetings, and he
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: came back and said, look, I don't nobody's interested, only
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: Richard Perry. When Richard Perry, Um, okay. Richard Perry is
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: a very glossy producer. You know, he makes very sophisticated records.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: He makes records are almost a pedantic And the only
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: one I really like is the Neilson Schmilsen album Schmilsen
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: in the Night, you know, the orchestral one which is
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: which is glorious, which they made a movie off, you know,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: and the video is fabulous, and I don't know something
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: about that record, and of course Harry's great talent, you know.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: I thought that that was pretty good. But I didn't
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: like his record without Gulf Uncle, and I didn't like
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: his record with Barbara Streisand and Martha and Martha reeves
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Na not very much. So I went in there kind
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: of thinking is this all there is? But Adam had
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: very carefully shoehorned me into working with Richard. Richard had
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: seen me apparently play at the Trouper Door when I
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: went there in and fell in love with the act
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: and just wanted to produce me. So he'd been badgering
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Adam to get to get get me together with him.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: So we met up and I didn't take to Richard
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: very well at first. He was a crazy guy. There
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: are a lot of drugs around. It wasn't my kind
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: of scene, you know. And I wanted to do my
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: own songs. I mean, that's all I did was I
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: was a singer songwriter. And he turned around me and said,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: I don't completely hear I don't like your last album,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: and I don't I don't hear you just as a songwriter.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think your voice is the best quality
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: you've got. I went, what so he said, let's find
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: some covers. And I'm in this situation where I'm kind
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: of thinking this is I'm going to pack this all
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: up and go home. This isn't working. But we both
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: agreed that we like motown and soul music. So we
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: ended up going into the studio and cutting Tears of
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: a Clown Um Reflections the Supremes Um what becomes the
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: broken Hearted? I believe um. And it was a fantastic
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: session because he brought in the best musicians. Wow, the
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: a team, you know, I mean really Larry Carleton and
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: all this great Mike o'mardian on piano, Wow, you know,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: Jeff Picaro on drums, Will he Weeks on bass. You know,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: there's an incredible band. The vibe was great. All the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: guys loved me, and I loved working with the band,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: so you know, jamming with them was was a pleasure.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: And then every now and then we just had to
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: serious up and do a song for Richard uh And
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I think there was potential, you know, I saw the
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: potential like I saw that I could hold my own
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: with great musicians. You know, afterwards, I'm out drinking with
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: all the guys, and Willie's coming around to my house.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: Come on, car let's just do some Hendricks. Let's jam,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm thinking ship. These guys are now
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: my friends. So the whole project kind of took me over,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: as it were, and we started off. You know, I'm
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: semi happy because I want to do my own songs.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: I keep playing songs are Richard when he keeps nah,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: I don't see that. A bit too British, you know,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. And one day we're jamming in the
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: studio in between takes for When I Need You, which
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: we've been working on, you know, to get this song
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: good by Albert Hammond and Carol Baya saga, lovely song.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: Um And and I'm I don't know, I'm just having
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: fun because Jeff Picaro and I used to we lived
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: just around the corner. He was in Kirkwood Avenue and
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: I was on the corner of Kirkwood and Laurel, opposite
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: the County Store. You know that that spot, of course,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: um and I was renting this house right on the corner,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: and and he and I used to He used to
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: pass my house and he took his horn as he
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: came by in his corvette. And then I didn't drive
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: at the time. My driver, David would be ready driving me.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: And we're traveling together, you know, pretty much in convoy
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: down the Melrose Avenue to Studio fifty five o five
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: on Melrose. Now now, now, um, what do you call it? Um? Uh?
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: What's that studio? Paramounts Now, Paramounts parking lot. Unfortunately it's
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: not a studio any longer. And and on the way,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: you know, we'd listened to music and Jeff turned around
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: it to me and said, hey, did you hear that's
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: song today? I said, you want that? That one with
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: that high singer. I said, yes, things just like you.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: Shame shame, shame by Shirley and Company. And I started
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: singing it in the studio and just playing the drums
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: and shame, shame, shame, shame on you because you can't
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: dance too, you know, with the falsetto, which I always
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: had this great falsetto from being a choir boy, you know.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: And and we start jamming. Now the rest of guys
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: pick up on it. Dump dump the Ray Parker Jr.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Is playing guitar. Groovy guy groovy guy. He's playing this
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: incredible rhythm guitar and I start, you get acute way
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: of talking, and it's just a jam. It's going on
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: for about fifteen minutes, and I'm unknown to us. I mean,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: you know, Richard, it was a change tapes moment in
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the studio, track real to real. So you know you've
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: got to wait till the next tape is on. Line
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: it up and then you can carry on recording. But
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Richard had kind of I was I was thinking, he's
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: letting us go a long time, you know, before he
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: come on, guys, let's go back to the track. He's
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: going on a long time before this this eventuality. And
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: of course in the studio, meanwhile, Howard Steele the engineers
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: telling me, He's saying, this is great. Get that tape off,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: put a fresh one on, you know, start recording now
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: now now get this. Don't lose it. Don't lose it.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: And we didn't know all this because in the end
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: he just turned around to us. Okay, guys, very nice,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: but let's get on. We've got to cut this track today.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Come on, time as money, guys, you know, we carry
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: on with recording when I need you. About two weeks later,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: he calls me up to his office and he's made
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: put it onto a cassette and this jam session. He said,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: that is your hit, he said, on my life. I say,
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: it's one of the biggest things I've ever heard. That
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: is your hit. You know how we got to get
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: a chorus, We've got to finish this thing. But that,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: he said, is a crossover hit. He said. And the
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: year before we've had Staying Alive, you know, the oh
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: no no jive talking, the bigs jive talking and you
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: know which a Reef Martine record produced, you know, with
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: the bags, and he said, that is your jive talking.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: He said, that thing is gonna It's incredible. I can
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: really do something with this. So there was a guy
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: called Vinnie Pancier who was producer and co writer with
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of people work with Ringo Star on the
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: records that Richard did with Ringo Star and and we
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: called Richard called him in. He had a bad back.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: I remember he had some major problem where I've got
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: to go and see my car practical Leo. You know
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: all this American stuff that I didn't admit. This little
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: British guy didn't understand the pedantry of it all. You know,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: Richard's got to get his joints rolled just so you know,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: And and everybody's got these, you know, the chair and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: the studio is not right. I'm we have to take
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: a day off so I can go shopping for chairs.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: These are the guys I'm working well. I just want
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: to get on with this fucking record that I've has,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: costing me a fortune. So we have five minutes to work,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: and we managed to kind of take it up to
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: another key and we have the chorus, put it on
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: the cassette, joined the two together and we've got a song.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: So next thing that happens is, I don't know. There's
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: a call from Donald Fagan, who we both knew pretty well.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: He's got a great band that's come down from New York,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: but he's got a rights block. He's got nothing to record.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: And Bill Schnay, his engineer who's sometimes engineered with us,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: has got producers workshop his own boutique studio up there
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: with Chuck Rainey in town and Michael and Mardian and
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: Larry Carlton and Steve Gadd has come down with Chuck
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: Rainey from New York and he says, you've got this
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: band is incredible. Donald's got nothing to record today? Do
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: you want to come in? And Richard said, I think
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: I've got the tune for that. So we went in
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: and he brought it, brought in his reel to reel.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: There were two machines going and they were spinning the
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: two two reels together and dubbing onto Steve Gad's drums
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: onto that. You know, I don't know how that worked,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: but the band is all, you know, playing and I
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: don't know somehow out of it. We just Steve had
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: this incredible drag drag snare field which is famous for
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: you know, He's playing away um and Bills recording it
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: all and Richard's over the moon and and I'm singing
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: next door to to Steve, and Steve and I are
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: getting on like an absolute house on fire with all
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: the musicians, you know, and and we come out of it.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: We've got you made me feel like dancing, And there's
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: still a little bit more time to go. So Richard says,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: can we do another track? And Bill says, he, I
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: don't know, you know, what do you got? They play
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: how Much Love? And the guys just say yeah. Actually,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Richard t was was came down from New York and
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: he hears it and it said, I was complete, bang
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: out gospel tune, you know for for piano. Anyway, I've
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: written it with Barry Mann who wrote he Lost that
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: love and feeling, you know. So it was a fantastic
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: little tune. Um. So Richard's on piano, and yeah, we
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: got that done in an hour or half an hour.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: So we came out of that studio with a three
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: hour session with two songs, two hits. So you have
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: this great success with Richard, you continue to work with Richard,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: how do you break off with Richard? They didn't want
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: to do it any longer. I mean, he just he
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to move on. Also, he was very expensive. I
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: think that that was a you know a problem with
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: for Adam. Although we were getting great success all around
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: the world. That you know, when you've got records and
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: the producers taking twelve percent of the record as well,
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: that was his fee. You know, he would take a
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: long time to make records, a lot of editing. Uh,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: It's just it's something that we couldn't sustain. I think
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: either side, he wanted to move on to other things
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: as well. You know, he had a chance to um
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: Make Records, also started his own label. I think he
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: started recording the Point of Sisters and he had his
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: own label. He had his He moved to two Planet Records. Yeah,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: he moved. He put an office in Hollywood Sunset Boulevard,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: and you know, he wanted to go in a different direction.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: I think he wanted I think when maybe we couldn't
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: pay him enough, you know, so he wanted to kind
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, get people who would pay him more.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: You know, he was very money oriented, Richard. And so
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: then you go back with David Courtney while I was
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: still in l A, you know, and I was now
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: enjoying living in l A. And you know, the lovely
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: thing about records is that you always kind of like
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: reap the success a year or two years after you've recorded.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: So nineteen seventy nine, I'm still living off it. You know.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: I've got a great last record we made, just called
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: Leo said, because nobody could think of a title. But
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: we've got Raining in my Heart on there and a
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: hit in the UK, I Can't Stop Loving You, a
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: song by this lovely guy, Billy Nichols that has really
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: been a big hit there. And so we had a
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: fine record, you know, to to live off. And I'm
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: touring and David turns up again. He's living in l A.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: We're all talking again and becoming friends again. He comes
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: to a few shows. He says, look, I'd love to
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: produce you again. And I said, well, you know, you'll
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: have to square it with Adam. He said, no, Adam
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: thinks it's a good idea. And by this time David's
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: done quite a few records as a producer, and he's
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: very in with Duc Dunn and Steve Cropper and all
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: these guys. He knows all the guys I worked with
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: as well. He hadn't worked with Jeff Acaro. But I
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: brought Jeff in and Steve, Luca Thur and a few
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: guys from my sort of side in Michael Amardian as well,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: you know, um uh and and we just we just
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: suddenly got recording. We went to Sunset Sound and recorded
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: here very quickly. U Umberto Gatica was the engineer who
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: famous Engineer later on was one of his first ever
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: records he cut. But he was amazing, and you know,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: we had a fantastic team. I brought in Billy Payne
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: to play keyboards, who was who I loved working with
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: because I used to jam with him and Lowell George
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: all the time, you know, up in the canyons. And
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: so I asked Billy if he'd be like he said, yeah,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: I love to man, you know. So David Lindley, we
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: brought him pedal steel guitar, you know, and so we
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: made a fantastic record. But I don't know why the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: record company wasn't really, I mean, they know. I suppose
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: they'd spend a lot of money on the Richard Perry projects,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: you know, because Richard was very demanding producer director type,
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: you know. Uh, and now David was a bit softer,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: so I think a little bit less money got spent
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: pushing that in a um. I thought it was a
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: bloody good record really, So then you go to work
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: with Alan Tarney. How does that happen? Well, running out
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: of money and to live in America, you know, and
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: me and my wife Janice were kind of thinking we
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: can't keep this up, you know, it's just crazy. So
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Chris Wright of Chris List Records plays me this song
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: by this guy Alan Tarni when I was visiting London.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: He says, you should think about working with this guy,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: and the song was we Don't Talk Anymore Cliff Richard,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: and he says, you know, the great thing about this
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: guy he plays everything himself, just him and the drummer,
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: and it's got a unique way of working. And I'm
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: kind of At this time, I'd started to build my
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: own studio and I was going in this direction myself,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: and I was thinking, oh, this is interesting, and he'd
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: really love to work with you. So I met with
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: Alan Tani and he had a couple of great songs
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: that we went straight into the studio and recorded R
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: G R G Jones Studio in Wimbledon, and they both
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: ended up on the record and we decided to make
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: an album from there. You know, we got on really great.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I loved his technique, just him and me in the room.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: Trevor Spencer would then come in and play drums. One
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: of the last things after, you know, we worked off
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: one of Trevor's drum loops. At the time, technology was
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: in its infancy, but Alan was already mastering computers and
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: there was this crazy system where you could put in
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: one note at a time and it made a very
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: interesting kind of sound. Because we were all discovering sequencing
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: at the time. You know, there's this way of making
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: records lynn drum machines and and and sequences, you know,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: working off computers. And while it was all very metronomic,
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: if you put human instruments to it, like guitars and
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: bass and vocals, he got a great kind of sweat
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: off it. I don't know how to describe it, but
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's a fascinating thing, you know, that humanity and
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: robots together, virtual AI, early AI, I think. And so
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: we made this record and right at the end of it,
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: we were we had an extra day of studio time
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: and we didn't know what to do with it. So
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: we sat around watching TV trying to think of ideas
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: we thought would do a cover. You know. First off,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: we had a slowed down version of Don't Be Cruel,
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Don't want to be a Tiger, you know, really slowed
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: down like that, you know, Um, no, treat me nice?
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: Was it Treat me Nice? And one of those anyway,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: because Tigers played too rough whatever that song is, you know, um,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: so oh, it wasn't going anywhere, you know, And we
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: were watching the TV and an ad came on for
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: the Greatest Hits of Bobby V and Bobby V made
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: an album when Buddy Hollyod died. They were both with
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: Coral Records, so the crickets. Coral didn't know what to
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: do with the crickets, who are incredibly talented themselves, so
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: they put Bobby V Meets the Crickets and made this
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: record six and the hit out of that record was
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: a song called more Than I Can Say. So, um,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: there it was on the TV. Well, yeah, I loved
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: you more Than I Can See, and Alan and I
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: both looked at each other. We both loved that song
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: in our past, you know, and he said, let's do that.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: So we went in about one o'clock. This one. We
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: actually had to rush to a record store to find
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: the original record, and those days you couldn't call up
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: anything on the internet. Of course, there wasn't an internet.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: So we went to a record store and somebody found
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: a shrink rack copy behind the desk and had just
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: been reliving only only only just came out Greatest Shits
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: of Bobby V. And they're on it. Track eight or
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: so is more than I Can Say. So we spin it.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: We kind of get the cords down and you know,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: and we started working on it. We find the right
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: key for my voice. Um, and by midnight we've got
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: it mixed, finished, ready to go, all the vocals on it, everything,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: and well it wasn't mixed. I mean, we still got
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: it mixed, but there it was a great use of
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: that extra day that we hadn't calculated. And I ad
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: on faith and everybody turned around and said, that is
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: your single, you know. So that became the first single,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: more than I can say, the only song on there
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: that I didn't write, and there it was. It became
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: my comeback hit in America. So that to biget. How
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: do you end up working with the Reef? I've made
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: a Reef a few times in London and I really
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: liked him. I mean we had mutual friends with some
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: of the guys with the bigs and and he just
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: he was coming into London. I think a Reef was
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: trying to find something new, so he was linking up
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: with a lot of songwriters there and finding songs, you know, um,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: and I think I think he just kind of I
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: was really into British talent at the time, and he
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: made a call. I got a call, and so Reef Martin.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you'll know him, of course, I
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: know you, and he said, Um, I am in London
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: and I am staying at the Mayfair Hotel and I'd
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: like to meet up and I said, great, come over,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: he said now. So I went straight over and he said, look,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: I want to make a record with you. I love
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: living in a fantasy, love all your records with with Richard.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: You know, Um, could we could we talk about a project?
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: And I said, great, Well, I'll get onto the record companies.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: He said, I've already talked to them. And I said,
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: I'll get onto Adam. He said, I've already talked to him.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: He said, we're starting now. He said, listen to these songs.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, he played me a load of
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: songs and I played him a load of songs that
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: I had written, um, some with David Courtney that I
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: hadn't got round to recording yet. And he said, I
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: think we got an album. So we went to New
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: York started recording. Then we went to l A and
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: recorded some more. But this was a time when a
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: few nefarious things were going on with Adam. Unfortunately. Yeah.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: It was, like I said, he was trying to sort
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: of get money out of the record company and money
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: wherever he could and for projects that he wanted to do,
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: and you know, it was not really there all the
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: time as the manager. I was hanging on to him
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know where else to go. Um And
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: when it came to we finished the record and I
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: was very proud of it. Barry Gibb wrote us a
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: song hard Stop Beating in Time, and there was a
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: lovely song by a bunch of guys in England called
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: have You Ever Been in Love? We had two major
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: signal singles on there. The title track was the song
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: David and I wrote David Courtney and I wrote yet
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: again called World Radio. So the album was called World Radio.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: We took it to warn us and they said, look,
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: we don't have any budget for this. I said, but
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be on Solid Gold next week with
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: Dion Warwick, you know, co hosting, and I can, I can.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: They want me to sing some of the songs. They said, yeah,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: well good luck with that, but we don't have any
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: budget for a single. So I go on this show
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: and I sing these two songs and the audience goes mad.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: TV goes mad. In America, everybody loves it and they
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: can't buy the single. What can you say it's like
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: it's a disaster, It's really it was a really sad moment.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: Who do we blame? Do we blame Adam? Do we
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: blame the people who Warner Brothers? Well, one is, weren't
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: that easy to get on with at that time. I
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: mean I signed to Joe Smith. Joe Smith at this
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: time had gone. It was Mo Austin. I mean, Moe
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: Austin is the guy that in seven when I got
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: my Grammy, turned around to me at the Grammy party
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: afterwards and say, hey, Leo Seria or later, you're going
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: to win one of these things. So, I mean, he
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: didn't even know I had won a Grammy because it
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: was so you know, in in raptures over all the
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: Fleetwood mac Rumors Grammys at that time. So I had
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: a company that was a bit disengaged with me, you
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: know in America, and you know, and then when I
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: deliver something, they're just thinking of how much it's going
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: to cost to sell. You know. I don't think there
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: was a I don't think there was anybody really listening
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: to the record, you know what I mean. Okay, but
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: let's go back to Adam. Now, you believe Adam is
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: stealing from you. You ultimately sue Adam. What's going on there?
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: Well eventually, yeah, it was a little bit later that
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: I managed to extricate myself from all of that. And
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, if I just pack up with Adam, I
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: won't get my properties, you know, I won't get my
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: my master's, I won't get all the things that I
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: should get. Because he had me on a power of
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: attorney agreement very early in my career, so I signed
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: away everything to him. He could do anything on my
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: behalf without me even ever to consult with me. You know.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: So I had my publishing, we had the same accountant,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: we had, he had my record rights, he had everything.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: So to extricate myself from this guy had to be
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: done kind of carefully, you know. Um, And eventually I
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: think he just gave up. And you know, I I
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: got everything back, which was amazing. It's tough, but it
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: was I got everything back. Suddenly. I owned my whole catalog,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: owned my all my songs. He just gave me the
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: publishing companies. Um, I I owned all the records. He
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: gave me the record company that I was signed to,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: I mean production company, record company. You know that. Then
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: leases too, of course you know, you know has done
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: So I had all those companies. Um, I had all
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: those rights, and do you still own them? No? I
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: met a guy Hi, I still had a problem with
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: Chrysalis Records, where chrys Chrysalis Records in England had paid
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: out a very large sum in those days six and
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand, who enticed me to do another ten year
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: deal with them when ten years ran out in around Yeah,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: so not in three I discovered, even though I extricated
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: myself from Adam that I think it was but I
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: was still signed to Christlis and under the terms of
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: the old deal, which meant I couldn't get anything back
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: from them. So I questioned this and I got a lawyer.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: I found a manager in the end who got me
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: a lawyer who'd done a lot of great stuff for
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: else and John and he he managed to threaten um
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: Chris Lis Chris right quite heavily into giving up Um. Yeah,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: those those rights, um and I got free of them.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: But the guy who introduced me to the lawyer turned
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: out to be an even bigger crook than Adam was.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: And he just said, Okay, now you've got all your
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: rights back, You're really free, get on with your record.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: So I moved to the country in England. I was
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: off far away from London all of a sudden, living
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: in this beautiful cottage in seventy acres of land or so,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: you know, with the studio there and everything all going
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: really well, planning my next record, writing my songs, not
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: kind of knowing exactly you know, who I was going
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: to work with, but basically getting on with it, you know.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: And in the meanwhile, he was signing away all my
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: rights with a forged signature, back to Warners, back to
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: Chrysalis now with a label called the Hit Label, signing
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: away my publishing rights. It was an absolute mess. I
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: broke into its office one day because he changed the
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: locks on the keys my office actually, and found out
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: that he'd also managed to drum up about a hundred
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: and sixty thousand UM pounds on credit cards to take
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: his wife on holiday all over the world and do
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: things like that. So he was stealing money off me
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: with credit cards and yeah, and signing me to deals
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: that I couldn't get out of. So today, at this
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: late date, you own none of your publishing, none of
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: your master recordings. It was very interesting. We came to
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: you do remember a lovely guy called Bob Emma. Of course,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah. Bob and Sue a lovely couple. I
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: don't know if Bob's still around, but Bob was a
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: beautiful cat and he was with Warner Brothers. Okay, so
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: he was one of the old school Warner Brothers guys
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: still there. Rusty Ratte and all those guys had long
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: long left, you know. Um and Mol Austin's there running
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: the show, and his son is there as well. Um
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: and Bob is still there, and I don't know. Donna
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: Tell a marvelous Donna Teller Pigionetti, my partner, Um, who
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: had seen me go through all this rip off. She
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: was with me now, the new lady in my life
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: as it were. It's starting to get involved in the management.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: She's learning how to manage me, and she's learning how
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: to because we're in a ship, you know, we're we're
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: almost bankrupt. We had accountants telling us we should far
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: for bankruptcy and just give up the business and everything,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm thinking, no, I can't do that.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: So she heard from somebody in the business that Bob
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: Emma was coming into London. So she managed to get
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: a meeting with him at the hotel. I don't know
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: how she did it, but Bob sat down with him
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: and she said, well you know Leo say, and he said,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: I love Leo. And Sue was there as well, and
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: they said, oh we lovely or whatever happened to Leo. Well,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: Leo signed back with your label. Really they didn't even know. Um.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: And basically he gets no royalties. He's so his catalog
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: to you what. I can't believe Leo would ever do that.
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: He I saw a poster. Bob said, you know, he's
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: playing here in London. So they're in shock. And Bob
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: just says, look, Donna, I'm going to get his royalties back.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: So and he did. He got a deal I couldn't
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: get out of Warners. I'm still with Warner in Australia
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: and still with Warner in America via Rhino. I'm not
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: very happy about it because they never do a damn thing. Um,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: they never released anything. They're just you know, but they're
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: just holding onto me. They hold onto those those rights
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: over the last records. If I had enough money, i'd
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: be out of there. But I'd have to buy my
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: way out, you know, so um so. But we managed
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: to get royalties again. We got you know, suddenly, we
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: didn't get back royalties of course in the time that
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: Lynch had stolen them all. But this guy, Michael Lynch,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: that's what that's what his name was, the crook who
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: forged my signature. But we managed to we managed to
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: kind of get that back, and then gradually, of course
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: we got um we got an arrangement with Universal as well,
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: where he'd sold the songs to them, and we got
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: back publishing rights for them. They sold Universal sold off
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: to another company anyway, who look after it now? And
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the royalties are all pretty intact and since then,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the guys I've been approached with
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: Pride By, I was approached by Primary Wave, and I
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: was approached by quite a few people. I had a
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: very good friend down here, a wonderful music business lawyer here,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: a friend who who went to Primary Wave and represented me,
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: and and now I share my catalog and royalties um
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: with Primary Wave, basically my earnings. Okay, just so I understand,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: you don't own the records, you don't own the publishing,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: but your writer's share and your royalties are now with
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: primary works. Yeah, split with me with still of about
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: my company. And did you get a good check to
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: do that? Very very nice? Thank you. Okay, I've probably
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: sworn to secrecy over the over the amount, but it's
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: it's made life a little bit easier. You know. We've
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: paid off the mortgage of the house and all this
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff. You know. Okay, So now financially, how
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: are you doing? Yeah? Very good, very good. Okay, yeah,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: very good. I mean I'm not in the wealth category
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: that I should be in where, you know, along with
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: most of our contemporaries for what I've done, and I
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: suppose I can't really choose, you know, if I wanted to,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to, say, play Glastonbury, I don't really
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: have the kind of people behind me who could push
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: that because I can't really afford to hire pr and
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: promotion teams. You know, I'd love to be able to,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: but I work very independently because I work within my budget.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: You know. So let's go Bakistan. What happened with your
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: first wife? We divorced. She got fed up with being
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: Mrs Sayer I think, and she was she was going
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: for a tough time, and you know, we we split.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: That was it? And how was that for you? I
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: promised never to speak to her again. We promised to,
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: you know, to to not contact each other. What was
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: the basis, what was the inspiration for that? She wanted
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: to go back to her maiden name and have a
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: new life and not be Mrs Sarah any longer, you know,
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: because it's a tough thing for the women when you know,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: we go to American or business meetings, you know, and
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: they say, hey, Leo, nice of me. I said, this
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: is Janey's my wife, and they say hi, Hi jan anyway, Leo,
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: and you know, you're just She's She was a very
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: intelligent girl, and she didn't like that, you know, she
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: didn't like that she couldn't get the respect. It's a
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: man's world, isn't it, you know, and still very much
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: yeah so so so she needed a change, and she'd
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: been incredibly supportive of me in the time we were together. Also,
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I must say that I had met Donna
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: at this time and also was those you know, lining
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: myself up for a new life, you know, with with
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: Donna teller Um, which happened by chance. I mean, Janis
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: and I were going through a bad period you know,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: these things happen, you meet somebody else and there it went.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: But I'm glad to say I'm still with Donna and
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: very faithful now, you know. And that's been thirty six
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: years or so we've been together. Okay, so you ever
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: want to have children or that was something? No, it
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: never came into the equation. I mean, Jannis didn't want
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: them when we were together, and we would rather travel
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: than spend the time to make babies. So that was
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: the choice. And I think, you know, leaving that behind
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: then and going into now. Um, I don't know. I've
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: always been this very unusual operator. I'm very much, you know,
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: an insular person working within myself. So I suppose really siblings.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: I never even thought about it. You know. I'm lucky
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: that I've had women in my life have been very
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: supportive to my lifestyle. Um, but basically I think the
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: buck always stops with me, you know. That's so that's it. Okay,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: let's go back. You're working with Richard than David Courtney
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: again and Alan Tarney. You have some success, you're working
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: with our reef. You realize you're being ripped off, like
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: the story you're telling with Warner brothers where they're not
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: going to commit even though you're on solid gold. What's
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: it like to all of a sudden realize you had
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: your time, but you're not the priority anymore. And it's
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: a really good question, but you know how this business works.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: You know, one minute you're thinking about that, going oh God,
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: and you're talking to Janis and you said we've got
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: to go home. Then the next minute the phone rings
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: and you're on Midnight Special. What do you say? You know?
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a very g garious guy. Everybody seems
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: to like me. All the musicians that have worked with
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: still my best friends. I talked to rape Harker, I
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: talked to you all these guys all the time, and
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: we're all friends and we you know, I'm a guy
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: who just looks for the positives so very stupidly. I
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have put my books in order. I'd have just
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: cracked on. I mean, many other people, I think Bob
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: would have just stopped and said, right, you've got to
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: sort this out now. But I never did. I didn't
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: do until it was too late. And then when I
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: did sort things out and took on a different mindset
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: with it all, I think that I would by this
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: time had stated my case enough, you know, recording wise
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: and live wise, that I had a real legacy that
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: I could take a break from for a bit, you know,
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: and sort out the business side. But I think when
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: all that was going on, I was still kind of
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: like feeling that I was half proven, you know, and
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: there was still a lot of work to be done.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're only as good as your records, you know,
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: and you're only as good as your last live show.
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: So I was feeling at that time that I still
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: had to stay on the case and do the job.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: You know. Don't complain about these things. You're living. Well,
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: it's okay. So how do you feel about your legacy
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: at this moment in time? Proud of all of it,
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: even the mistakes. I like the whole way it fits together,
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: and I like being this kind of slightly obscure artist
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: as well. I mean, I'm not on everybody's lips, and
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not um, you know, I'm not headline in Glassberry
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: or Paying Maids and Square Gardens, where I think I
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: should be. Part of me thinks I should be. But
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: but I've still got a lot to you know, there's
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: still a lot of leeway for things to come, and
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of like that. I'm still hungry, I'm still ambitious.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm seventy four in May. I mean,
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: I can't really be looking at another fifty years, So
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: what what where do you go from here? But I'm
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: having a ball at the moment. I'm really enjoying it.
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: I'm joining the legacy, writing my book and doing all
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: the research and finding out that I've I've done more
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: than I thought, you know, achieve more because I've always
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: been looking at the ball right, you know, in player
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: that at the moment rather than looking back very much.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: Can you get a victory lap? Can you get a
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: manager or somebody involved who will get you on the
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: stage in Glastonbury, will get you one more time around
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: because you still have your voice and you have all
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: those hits? Well, who knows? Who knows? I mean the
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: only problem is that most people in this in this game,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: at this moment, have such a vested interest in everything
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: that they do or want to have vested interests. I mean,
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: it's all about money now, you know, the business has changed.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: So what's the manager going to do with Leo Saya?
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: He's going to want to make as much money before
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: the guy has a heart attack and kills over. He's
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: gonna want because he's used to getting it from young acts.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: He's gonna want everything. He's gonna want total ownership. So
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: where do I go? Who do I go to? That's
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: not gonna suck me over, because that's the name of
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: the game. We funk people over. Now, that's what we do. Well,
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: it's a separate conversation, although your points are well taken.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: So you don't have a manager today I do. I
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: have a manager in England and a manager in Australia
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: and they just get me work and look after the
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: business as it were, and Donna Teller oversees everything. Then
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: you have an agent. Who's your agent? Do you have
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: a worldwide agent? Not? Really? Not really? We um I
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: mean when we tour in England, we have an agent
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: there that puts all the gigs together and does a
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: very good job of that. He does a few other acts,
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: but he's not the biggest um. And I'll tell you
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: what I do have. I have an amazing lawyer, an
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: incredible accountants, both in England and in here, and I
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: split my business North and Southern Hemisphere. So basically, if
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: you like, when I play America, it will be with
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: the English band and the English team, and when I play,
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: say China, it will be China or Asia it will
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: be with the Australian team. So I have a band
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: in Australia and a band in England. And how many
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: gigs a year do you do and how many do
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: you want to do? Well, I'm just off to the UK.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: We're finishing an Irish tour that first off that we
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: started in but got broken into because of COVID, when suddenly,
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: you know, you couldn't have more than two hundred people
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: um in a venue at one time, So we had
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: to scotch those rest of those gigs, postpone them, and
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: then I'm doing the rest of those and a few
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: more in Ireland in August, and then I'm doing a
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: thirty six day British tour um and that's going to
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: be from middle of September to November, and then hopefully,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: with conversations going on with Primary Waive as well, at
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: the moment, I'll be coming to America next year. Well,
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: I certainly look forward to seeing you. Are you doing
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: these live gigs to stay alive or because you want
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: to do it. No, I'm doing it because I wanted
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: to it, and also it keeps me young. You know,
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: I've still got my hair and I've still got my voice,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: and I think working really sort of is import into that.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've we've all gone through a complete change
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: of life, haven't we. With the COVID times and everything
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: has changed. I mean, you know, every every reliable uh
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: let's say, everything that you could rely on was was
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: carted away, you know, so you had to kind of
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: change a little bit. I mean, I've been doing live
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: link ups with my band on Zoom just to keep
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: you know, us all kind of working together. I've been
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: making internet songs and releasing a lot of stuff on
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: Zoom I'm sorry. On on YouTube, I do a song
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: called white how did We get here? All about the pandemic,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: you know, because everybody's trying to blame everybody else. You
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: can see that one if you like. It's on YouTube.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: And then I did a song from Melbourne because when
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: that city did the hardest lockdown that anybody had known, um,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of completely decimated. And Melbourne
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: is my playtown. I live in near Sydne, me but
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: Melbourne is the place where all the gigs are. And
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: so I was kind of like writing a sympathetic song there,
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: you know, almost a rap that was actually and now
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just writing a song at the moment for the
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: Ukraine UM, which is basically on the angle of what
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: are we going to do with all the refugees, which
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: is an important question. So it's done like footsteps, like
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: a walk. It's called take a walk with Me. So
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: you take somebody through a song which is, you know,
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: a very classic kind of UM styled song UM, and
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: you're inviting someone to leave the city that's falling apart
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: but below them and saying you're always going to look
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: after them, never let them down. And I don't know
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: where to place the song, but I'll probably just make
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: a YouTube of it and put it out there and
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: be nice if someone from UNICEF or someone picked it
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: up and used it. But we'll see. I mean, I
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: work in a vacuum, Bob. I'm a very unusual guy.
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: I work. I'm like you know, m yeah, I'm like
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: vank gosh, I I work on this staff. I mean,
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: I actually hope that my legacy is bigger when I'm
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: dead than it is when I'm alive. Well, you're very optimistic,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: still working. We didn't plumb a lot of topics, like
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: your relationships with all of these musicians and stars. But
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: I admire your optimism and the fact that you still
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: you know, especially in light of the story you've told
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: about when you leased the Big Space and then it
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: devastated you and you had a nervous breakdown. Have you
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: ever been close to that feeling again? Was that one
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: and done? I don't know if you've heard of a
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: show called Big Brother, absolutely absolutely awful. I after chasing
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: a record deal a band about two thousand and five
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: or six, I um, I was invited to go on
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: Big Brother in England celebrity brig Brother, and I went
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: on there and they I just left England at the time,
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: and I think I said some things about leaving England
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: so glad to get out of here, so happy to
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: go to Australia, and they really seized on all of
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: that and gave me a rotten hard time. And I
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: ended up breaking out of there because I experienced incredible
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: claustrophobia and the fact that when you go in there,
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: they take your watch away from you, you know, they
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: take your your your They don't give you any pens
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: to write down with anything with. I was suddenly in
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: a creative vacuum, and I can't honestly say that. Many
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: of my fellow contestants were the most inspiring people to
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: be with as well, so they just gave me a
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: hard time. So I did half the show in mine,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: which I thought was quite fun to do. So I
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: was just doing hand signals, you know. The rest of
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: it I wrote, and my breath on glass panes. Some
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: of it I actually found a little piece of metal
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: and revealed all the cameras to everybody by taking panels out.
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: I went to war with the show basically, and I
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: found doing that. You know, I'm such a rebel. I
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: just I can't do anything like anybody else does. I
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: have to do it my own way. I'm born with
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: this gene of having to invent myself and and do that.
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: So I would actually say, I mean, my feeling is
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: that I'm a true artist, and you know sometimes that
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: people say that's very big headed or something you know,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: to say, But I know all the criteria that an
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: artist needs to have, and it's not a reliance on corporates, companies,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: other people even it's basically it all comes from me.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: Everything I do is part of this vivid imagination that
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: was born with that I've always had. I can dream
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: songs into being. I can create things from a blank
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: sheet of paper. Um So I just have to follow that,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: and that's that's that's my skill set. My skill set
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: is to trust myself, to listen to myself and to
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: follow myself. And most of the people in my life
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: now appreciate that and let me do it, and let me.
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: Let me make a mistake. If I make a mistake,
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: let me do something glorious. If I do it glorious.
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: But they know the only way to get something good
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: out of me is to let me do it. I
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: designed my own show. Um I I do everything. I'm
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: an autobiographer. I'm writing my book completely by myself. Nobody's helping.
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: I'm doing all the research by myself. It's been a
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: monstrous task. And to find stuff that I didn't even
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: know about. It's a revelation as well, you know. So
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I'm I think probably when
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: that book comes out and people hopefully get to read it,
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: if I can find the right publisher, and maybe even
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: we can make a biopic of it. I think I've
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: got to love a story to tell and the fact
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: if I'm a little bit obscure and a little bit
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: off the radar because of them, may I mean I'm
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: not living I'm not with Live Nation, I'm not with
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: Sony Records or anybody like that. You know, Um, I'm
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: very much off the radar um. But if people want
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: to discover me, they'll find something I think that is
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: very different and very unique. Well, certainly your conversation with
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: me today has been different, unique and intriguing. Leo. I
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for taking all this time with me.
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Bob. And I've always been a big admirer
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: of you, and I love the I love the column
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: and and the blog, and you're one of the good guys.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: So it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: Till next time. This is Barbed Worth Sex