Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Graham Gouldman

Transcript

Graham Gouldman · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Webstats podcast. My
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: yesterday is the one and only Raham Goldman Ram. You're
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: bringing ten c C to the States. Why now?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Why now? Well, that's a very good question.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I think what's happened is that I've been touring as
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: ten CC for many, many years now, and even though
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: I'm the only original member, we've just been doing better
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: and better selling out wherever we go, and have obviously
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: caught the eye of some American promoters who are you know,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: want us to come over And I'm really delighted to
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: be coming back. It's a long time since we were
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: over in the States.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, I remember seeing you on the Bloody Tour tour.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: When was the last time ten CC was in the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: United States?
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Well, actually there was a gig. There was a one
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: off gig in New York. It must have been about
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: maybe fourteen, maybe fifteen years ago even and it was
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: an in and out thing.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Why we just did one one one gig. But before
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: that it was we're talking about sort of mid seventies
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: with the original lineup.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I saw at the Santa Monica Civic.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So someone comes to the show.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: What might they expect, Well, they're going to get all
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: the all the hits and more. You know, we had
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: eleven big hits in the in the UK and various
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: other places in the world, so you're going to hear that.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: You're going to hear also various album tracks that we
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: like to play and that our fans have quested. There's
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: going to be one new song in it as well
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: that I feel entitled to put in. It's a song
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I wrote about the James Webspace telescope, and because it
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: was about it is astronomical, I asked Brian Made to
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: play on it, which he did, and he plays guitar
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: on it. He does back in vocals on it. It's
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: called Floating in Heaven.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Great and I noticed that Kevin Godly joined you with
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the Royal Albert Wall. How did that come to be?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Well, Kevin and I have always remained good friends ever
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: since he and Loe left the band, and as it
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: was the Albert Hall a special, very special place to play,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: as anybody will tell you, I thought it'd be a
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: nice idea for Kevin to join us to sing the
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: appropriately titled Old wild Man, which was what he sang.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Actually what happened was he appears on our screen singing
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: somewhere in Hollywood from our sheet music album. And so
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: what happened was when the song is finished and he
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: walks off the screen stage right, and then he appeared
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: stage right walking on to the stage. And it was
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: really quite a moment. I mean, the audience were gobsmacked.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Actually he sang, he said a few words, he sang
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: all wow men, and then we did cry, which was
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: a big Goblin Cream hit, and it was really quite
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: a moment, quite emotional, I have to say.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And I love that song A Dog up in Beverly Hills. Yeah,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it's crazy. And one has to ask, we're are Eric
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and lawl today.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Eric I haven't heard from for years and years. You know,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know what's happened with him lol. I know
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: has been active. In fact, quite a few years ago,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: we were rehearsing in the same place that Loll was
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: rehearsing with a bank called the Producers that he has
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: with the Trevor Horn, and he was actually rehearsing in
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: the in the room next to us, and I had
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: a very nice chat with him. As it happens. But
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen for a while. It's really Kevin is
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: the only one to have any constant to contact.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: With and when you play shows in the UK and
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'm a continent, are these basically people who remember the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: big hits from the seventies or are there any younger
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: generations who've discovered ken CC.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I think there's three generations now. There's the more mature
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: audience that you would expect. There's my eldest kids age,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: which is in their forties, and there's a younger crowd coming,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I mean twenty plus coming as well, and that's really
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: gratifying to see.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I love it when I see younger kids in the audience.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: You know, maybe they've listened to our music because of
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: their parents listen to it. It's played in the house
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: or by the internet.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, the Tennessee C Records who owns those, but.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Well they're with the Universal now. They were with various
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: other record companies, Phonogram UK Records, which was our first label.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I think I think Hypnosis have actually got that those
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: first albums that were on Jonathan King's label, but the
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: others are with the Universal.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And at this lead deep the way we have major
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: label accounting. The royalties come in from the Tennessee ce
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: records or do they still say because of all the advances,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: you're in a negative position.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't think.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I think all advances a long time ago or were
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: paid off. So yeah, roads are still still paid Yeah, okay.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And in terms of your songs, who owns those songs now?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Well, some of the songs are with various various publishers
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: throughout you know, they're with loads of different people. I
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: have a deal now with BMG, who I find very
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: good to work with. Here my music publishing was which
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of the songs are with. In fact, the
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: bulk of the TANCC ones, if not all of them,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: are now owned by Sony.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And at this late date, with so many people selling
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: their rights, is that something you would contemplate?
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I have contemplated it full stop. And what have you thought, Well,
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: I've thought I've thought that it's I look at it
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: in two ways.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: There's a financial side of it, but there's also the
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: emotional side of it. And I tend to think of
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: the emotional side of things.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So we would not anticipate reading you selling your rights
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in the near future.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I'd say never, say never.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to your you were first known
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: as a songwriter. The first song you wrote that had
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: international traction was for Your Love, which was covered by
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the Yardbirds. How old were you and how did you
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: write that song?
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Okay, I was nineteen when I wrote it. One record
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: that had a massive influence on me was The House
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: of the Rising I loved the chord sequence in it,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: and it's kind.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Of the chord sequence of the House of the Rising
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Sun is kind of.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: The opposite of what musicians called that C A minor,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: F and G. Do you know that kind of You've
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: heard it a million times, But the House of the
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Rising Sun went from a minor to C, then to
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: D then to F.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: So it was kind of like it turned that chord
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: sequence on its head.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: And I use that chord sequence, particularly the first two chords,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: going from the minor to the relevant major and a
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: lot of songs. Not only was it on for Your
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Love but Heartful of Soul No Milk. Today, I don't
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: know whether it's it's obvious to people that it is
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: the same sequence, but those two chords have been very
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: good for me. So I wrote the song and my
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: manager at the time said, this is a great song.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Why don't we get it to the Beatles, So I
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: said that, I think the Beatles were okay in the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: songwriting department. But as it happened, the Beatles were doing
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: a Christmas show at the Hammersmith Odion being supported by
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the Yardbirds, and I think that gave our publisher the
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: idea to give it to the Yardbirds, because you knew
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: that at that time they were looking to have sort
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: of more commercial success.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: You know, they'd been a.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Really well known with R and B band, really, but
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: they decided that they wanted some chart success, I guess,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: and that was one of the reasons why Eric Clapton
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: actually left the band. I think that was the last
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: straw fame of them recording what he thought was a
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: commercial song.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: So you know, today you make a demo and that's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: passed around. Is that what happened? Did you cut a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: demo for four Your Love?
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I cut a demo and the demo had the bongos on,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: but it didn't have the harpsichord on that the odd
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Birds put on it. And the story goes that the
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: they went to the studio and expecting them to be
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: a keyboard or an organ or some sort of keyboard
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: but not harpsichord. But there was a harpsichord in the
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: studio and they decided to use that, which I think
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: was a stroke of genius and divine good luck.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: And how did you first hear their version?
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: I think I was sent an ascetate the by the
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: publisher and it blew my mind.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, blew your mind to what ded we? Was it
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: similar with your vision of the song?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: It was similar, but it was really the It was
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: the harpsichord that was the big difference.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: They had kept the bongos. That was that's for sure.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And when it became worldwide hit? What was that like
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: It was fantastic, as you can imagine, wonderful.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: It was kind of like, you know, I'd known from
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: an early age that I wanted to be in music,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and I didn't know in what way, but music was
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: and still is my my great love. And you know,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: this was validation, I guess.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So now you have this hit other acts, I'm calling, well,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you wrote this for the Yard Words we need songs?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, that really? You know.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I I.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Wrote two songs for the Hollies, look Through Any Window
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and bust Stop. I wrote Heart Full of soul and
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: evil hearted view for the yardbirds no milk today, for
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Hermit's Hermits. There were some others, but those are the
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: kind of, you know, the major ones from that period.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the beginning. You're from Salford,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: outside of Manchester.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of North Manchester. Yeah.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And what was it like for you growing up? Would
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you still fear the after effects of the war?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Not really, but certainly the austerity. I remember going with
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: my mum to the to the grocery store and she
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: would have a Russian book still, so I didn't know
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: anything else, so it didn't feel like austerity to me.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: But we were a sort of working class family. We
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: didn't go out to restaurants, we didn't go on luxury holidays.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: But I lived in a lovely part of North Manchester,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: an area where there are lots of other kids of
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the same age as me. I didn't have any brothers
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: or sisters, but I certainly have had lots of friends
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: and it was a very happy and artistically it was.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: We were listening to me and my friends were listening
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: to music from the ages of you know, like nine,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: ten eleven, listening to American music. We had radio Luxembourg,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: and I actually became aware of music about the age
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: of seven, and my parents always encouraged me with music.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Of course, I think we talked about this before. My
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: dad was very helpful with me with the writing lyrics
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: with me for a lot of those early songs. So
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: I grew up in a very encouraging atmosphere. My parents
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: were both involved in amateur dramatics, so every Friday night,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: lots of different people would come round to the house,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of theatrical types, which was great.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I loved that, and I remember.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Myself sort of sitting at the top of the stair
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: was listening to all this chatter going on downstairs, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: maybe there was some sort of show business, although I
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: don't think of myself being in show business, but I
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: suppose I am in reality. I got that bug from
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: from these people that came to visit the house.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And at what point did you start playing an instrument?
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be a drummer, so I started playing
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: when I was about seven. My mum had a handbag
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: that had like a serrated surface, and I used to
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: use clothes brushes to like do that, and I play
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: along to whatever was on what was called the light
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: program on the radio at that time. But then when
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I was the most important thing that happened. When I
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: was eleven, a cousin of mine bought me a guitar
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: he'd been on holiday in Spain, and that that and
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: the time that it was the music that I was
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: listening to, that was really a massive turning point. So
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: we were listening to Me and MA contemporaries were listening
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to Little Richard, Chuck Berry, the every Brothers, Buddy Holly,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Ricky Nelson, all these great records coming out of America,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: and I guess those records are still in in my
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: sort of DNA today. And then we also had the
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: there was a skiffle era came up, which said that
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: sort of informed us that we could make music ourselves.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Whether we could play or not was another matter, but
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: it didn't seem to matter. It was just getting that
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: love of playing with other people that has never.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, skiffle was a big English thing. For those people
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: don't know, take a second and describe skiffle.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, So it's like like kind of country stroke folk music.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: But it was the first time that if you can
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: imagine that, the main thing that people were listening to
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: was sort of big band music. So it's not it's
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: impossible to form a big band, well not impossible, but
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: highly unlikely that you're going to be able to perform
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: a big band with your mates. But when we saw
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: people like Lonnie Donegan, who was doing things like Rock
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Island Line playing with he was would playing guitar and
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: have another guitarist, have a bass player and someone playing
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: like a washboard instead of proper drums. Suddenly it was
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: like we could hunt around these We didn't have guitars
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: lying around the house, but certainly it was sort of
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: very homemade sort of interestruments. Like I think like instead
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: of a bass, you'd have a like a broomstick handle
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: with a piece of string attached to a like a
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: wooden box, and it would make some kind of sound
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: similar to a like a double bass. So it was
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun and really sort of introduced a
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: lot of people to playing together with other people.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And other than like I mean, was this kind of
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: like street corner singing rapped today where everybody had a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: skiffle group.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of skiffle groups.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there were a lot of them, and like one
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: of the boys had a guitar, but he couldn't play it,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: but it didn't seem to matter. He had it, so
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: he sort of held it and hit it or scrummed it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: God knows what sounded like. But it was a lot
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: of fun. That was the main thing. It was fun
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: and we enjoyed it. And after the I think after
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: the the skiffle era, the next main thing was Cliff
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Richard and the Shadows. That had a massive influence on people,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: particularly wanting to play the guitar.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: That was major.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: And then, of course the most clon and thing hand,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: which was the Beatles. And if I had any doubt
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: about what I wanted to do with the rest of
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: my life, that was okay when I heard them.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: We know the Beatles. Certainly they were on Ed Sullivan
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of February sixty four. Liverpool is really not that far
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: from where you grew up, but if you don't have
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a car, could be, you know, might as well be
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: on the moon. But we hear all these stories. There
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was a scene in Liverpool. They played in Hamburg. They
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: broke a couple of years earlier, at sixty two in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the UK. How did you discover the Beatles? When did
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: they break it? How much of a scene was there.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: What did it feel like In the UK.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: The beach was when the beat was broke, it was
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: how can I describe it? It was massive, absolutely massive.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: It took over all my friends and my life. We
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: became we fell in love, we became obsessed with them.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: The first time I saw a picture of them was
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: on a cover of a magazine called Mersey Beat. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: so out of this era where we had artists in
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: you know, nice suits, with nice, you know, expensive Fender
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Stackcastic guitars with very neat hair, suddenly we had these
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: four guys with what appeared then to be really long
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: hair on these having these guitars that we've never seen before,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: wearing different sort of clothes, looking quite scruffy, standing in
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: like a bomb site. And it was absolutely breathtaking, That's
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: all I can say. And of course that combined with well,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the first record that we all heard was Loving Me Do,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and the b side of that was just phenomenal and
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: it changed people's lives.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: It was that big.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: In the US, we had the British invasion, but with
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: these acts Dave Clark five, did all these acts exist
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and they just got ah grease to the top or
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: was it more like this is big, we all have
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to form bands, we all have to make music.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Well, they were. I think they were my biggest inspiration.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: I think the most important thing that happened to me
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: by the Beatles was being encouraged to write songs, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: it encouraged you know, loads of other people to write songs.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Suddenly here was a band that was completely self contained.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I mean before that you would have to go down
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: to a place like the Denmark Street, which is a
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: kind of timpanale of London, and sort of go and
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: ask for if you could, go into a publisher and
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: ask for us for something to record. But with the Beatles,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: they were like saying, you know that you can do
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: this on your own.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, the Beatles hit You're like sixteen, At what point
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: do you start writing? At what point do you form
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: a band?
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I'd already started forming bands. I was already doing that anyway.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: But the one thing that the Beatles did, I guess
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: was I was with a band and it was kind
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: of like a cabaret band and which so we did
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: have Fender stratocasters and the suits, and I was getting
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: really fed up with that and we used to rehearse
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: at a club in North Manchester called the Jewish Lads Brigade,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: and the deal was that we you know, there were
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: a few bands that rehearsed there and they give us
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: a room for free and we would play at their
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: you know, social events.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: That was the deal.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: And one in one of the other bands was Kevin
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Godley and I used to listen to him playing and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I thought, God, he's really fantastic.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So I decided to.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Leave the Mockingbirds, took two of the boys with me
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: and nicked Kevin from this other band, and we formed
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: a band called the Mockingbirds, which made we made a
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: few records, nothing really happened, and that disbanded.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Really not long before we phoned tezc.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so, how many songs did you write before you
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: wrote For Your Love?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think very many.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: I can't actually remember, but it might be, you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: a handful, I would say.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Before I wrote for Your Love.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And were you disappointed? I mean, it was great you
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: had this huge success. What was your dream to be
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: like the Beatles and record the songs yourself and have success?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I was just blown away that a band that actually
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: loved the yards I was a big fan of theirs anyway,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: had recorded one of my songs and it had been
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: a big hit. It was amazing to me. I was
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: very very happy.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I thought, if I'm going to be like a jobbing
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: songwriter for the rest of my life or well, who knows,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: then that's that's that's okay by me.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And you say your father helped you with the lyrics,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: was more about.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: That, okay. So when people ask what did your dad do?
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: I say he was a writer. He wrote plays, he
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: wrote stories, he wrote poetry, but he never actually did
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: it professionally because he couldn't afford to. He had a
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: regular job. But his passion was words, and I think
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: I inherited that. So I would write a lyric and
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: he'd go, let me have a look at that, and
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: he'd make it better. Sometimes he'd come up with like
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: song titles and parts of songs, I mean, whole chunks
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: of lyrics as well. So he was really but I
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: was really lucky that I was, you know, living with
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: a lyricist there happened to be my dad.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I'll give you an example.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I came home one day and he gave me this
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I'd given him a song title idea, and he presented
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: me with this first verse of bus stop and it
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: was bus stop wet day, she's there. I say, please
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: share my umbrella. And I looked at the lyrics and
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: I heard the melody in my head and I just
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: sort of finished it. Not all the lyrics, because he
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: finished a lot of the lyrics as well, but I
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: wrote the song in like, I don't know, ten minutes
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: or something, just because of that lyric that he gave me.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: You wrote the song it was a big hit for
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the Hollies. When you finished in ten minutes, did you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: see to yourself, man, this is a hit? Oh this
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is just another song I wrote.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: I actually I very rarely do it, but I thought
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: there's something special there.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You do for your Love? The
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: next big hit is hard Full of Soul. Had you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: already written that when For Your Love was a hit
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: or did you write it subsequently?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I wrote it especially for the adverts.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: That's a lot. That's a lot of pressure. So how
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: did you actually write it?
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel pressure.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I just thought I should, you know, I should write
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: write another song, and I'd love to get another song
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: with the advert since I'm kind of in so to speak,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: and I just had this guitar riff that had this
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: sort of very sort of Indian Indian field and the
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the the lyric my dad helped me with with the lyric.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: The title actually was from my manager at the time.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I had this title, uh, and so you know, it
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: just everything seemed to seem to fit, and I said,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: I sent it to the man know that they went
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: into the studio with a setar player to record, to
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: record the song, but the it didn't work out, and
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: then Jeff Beck just nailed it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, how did you come up with a line sick
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: in heart and lonely?
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I think that was actually one of my dad's lines.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: It was, yeah, it's.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: So sad, and then tell us about look through any window?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, look through any window?
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Was the idea for that came on a I was
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: on a train with a friend of mine coming out
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: of Houston stayed in London going back up to Manchester.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: And actually his name was Charlie. He was he was
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: a friend of mine was he was also a co
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: manager as well, and we were slowly coming out of
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the station trying, you know, we were passing these houses,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: trying to look through the windows of the houses if
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: we're good.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: To see what was going on. And he said, look,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: look look through thrillly of those windows. What can you see?
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Or something like that he said, And I thought, that's
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: that's a that's a really good idea for a song.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And how did it get to the Hollys.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: The Hollys after bus stop they.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Came round to my my house, and I think there
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: was Graham Nash definitely, and Tony Hicks, and I think
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: I played them some other stuff.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I think I actually played them no milk today. I
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: think I've just started.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: But obviously they didn't record that, and so we sort
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: of had some sort of relationship. And bus Stock was
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: another song that was specially written for them. We did
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: a gig with them with the Mockingbirds as a support
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: act to the Hollies, and I said, I've got I've
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: got another song for you, and I remember going We
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: went into the smallest, quietest room in the place there
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: was Stoketown Hall, and I played it to them. I said,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: it's great. I made a demo of it and.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. The Hollys and Herman's Hermons were also from the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: same area you were.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Well, they were from the north of England. I mean
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: They were from Stockport and I was more north Manchester.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: But yes, certainly not that far away from each other.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we always heard in America about the scene in London.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: To what degree was there a scene in the Manchester area?
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, very much, so, very much so.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: We had there were loads of clubs, you know, it's
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: a university city, loads of coffee bars that had musical
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: acts on, great clubs that we would go to. I
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: mean I got with my mates on a Saturday night.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: We just go around all the clubs, checking out all
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: the bands and watching the guitarists and looking at all
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: their equipment. And Saturdays we kind of spent going around
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: the music shops. So there was It was a very
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: it was a fantastic scene in matter and still is.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And so how did you write no Milk Today? And
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: how did that get to Herman's hermits?
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, so, uh, my dad went to see one of
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: his friends.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: His friend wasn't in.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: But my dad noticed on the doorstep there was an
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: empty milk bottle with a note in it. And in
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: those days, milk was delivered to people's houses and if
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: you didn't want milk, you just put in a note,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: no milk today. And he came back to me he said,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: I've got a great idea for a song, no milk today.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I said, that's that's horrible, it's terrible, terrible. He said,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: you're missing the point. It's the the milk bottle represents
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the fact that the lovers left the house as no
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: one in the house anymore. And he came up with
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: that brilliant line, the bottle stands forlorn, a symbol of
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: the dawn, so poetry.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: So I wrote the song.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: We wrote the song, and my manager at the time
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: was the manager of Herman's Hermits, So no problem.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, your father is helping you with all these songs.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Does he want credit and money?
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Well, he got money. He did get money. There was
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: kind of like a tacit agreement that like the name
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: of Gouldman, like his name would be directly on top
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: of my name. So he never once said, and for
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: some reason it never occurred.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: To us that he, you know, it should be Goldman Goldman.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I think he was happy that I was getting the credit,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: although but I always credited him with what he did,
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: and he was financially rewarded as well.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Was there a tacit agreement? I had to, you know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: just with the money? How did it work?
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Uh? Do you know what?
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I can't remember, but he was happy and I was happy,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: so everyone was happy.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Okay for your love hits? How long until you get
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the money? And what do you do with the money?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: You're quite interested in the money, aren't you. God?
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, because when you might when you're nineteen and you
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: have a hit in America, when you're nineteen and you
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: have a hit record, the first thing somebody does is
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: buy a car.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, I got a nice jacket. Actually I did backar
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: It took several several months, and I don't think I
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: even't got an advance or anything not In the early
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: days anyway, it would take maybe nine months a year
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: for the money to come through. But I wasn't that
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: sort of bothered about that. I you know, I did reap,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: you know, reaped the reward, so to speak.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: So I guess. Yeah.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: The first thing was a really nice jacket from a
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: place called Jaga that did sort of quite high end stuff.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Well did your parents say, yeah, you know, you may
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: never have another hit you better put this with your
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: borrower mits for money in the bank.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: They never said that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: I don't I think they were, you know, they were
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: always in both my mym and dad were very very encouraging.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And I was lucky to have that in a way,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: because a lot of my contemporaries were being I guess
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: encouraged to get a proper job or you know, a profession,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: which was fair enough. But I was lucky in that
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: my parents recognized that I had a gift. I was
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: terrible at school. I was just dreaming about music all
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: the time I was. I didn't get any degrees or
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: anything at all, but it all worked out for me.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So as we say in America, you dropped out of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: high school, you'd never finished high school.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just left the school that I was at
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: When I was seventeen. I got a job through my
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: parents had some friends that had a gentleman's When I
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: say gentlemen, that's putting it. That's a bit of a stretch,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: a gentleman's outfit to shop lear Salford Docks, and I
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: worked there until I got the sack. Because I was
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: playing with the mockingbirds, leaving work early or coming in
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: late the next day, got the sack my manager who
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I had met who actually lived near me. Harvey said,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: you know, this was a good thing. He paid me
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: a retailer to write songs basically, and within six months
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I'd had a hit.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And going back to some of your heres, how'd you
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: write listen to people?
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Listen people that? Yeah, I wrote that one on my own.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I think that was a song that was one of
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: the earlier songs that I'd written that wasn't picked up
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: by anybody, And I think it was through Harvey having
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: his involvement with Herman's Hermits, because it was in a
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: film call when the boys meet the else If Memory Serves, and.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: They were looking for songs for it. I know that
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: was quite a big hit in America back in the day.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Youtub great record too. Okay, So you have all these hits,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: then you hit a dry period and you go to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: New York to work with the kings of bubble Gum yea.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: And that seems ridiculous looking back. The idea was that
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: they wanted to I think they wanted to move away
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: from the bubblegum thing and I wanted to work with
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: writers that had more sort of pop credentials if you like.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: And I met them, I liked them, went to New York,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: stayed for about six months there.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: If that.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Got fed up with it, and I said to them,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: I had a bunch of so as I said, I'm
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: involved in a recording studio and with some other guys
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: back in the UK, I don't want to stay here
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and record them here. I'm going to take them back
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: with me and record them with these friends of mine
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: back at the studio that I was a partner in
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: back in Stockport, and that was Strawberry Studios. And the
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: guys I was want to work with were Kevin and
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Lowell and Eric. So there were several reasons why the
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: four of us came together, but one of them certainly
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: was this sort of every cloud has a self fanning
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: of leaving cousins and cats recording the songs with them,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: with Kevin and Lowell and Eric.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: So when you went to work in New York with
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Kazanets and cats, had you ever been to America before?
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: I had, And I'm trying to think what the reason was.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: And I've been there because Herman's Hermit's were did a
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: tour with the Hollis in America and I went. I
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: went out on that tour with them just to sort
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: of basically hang out, which was a great experience.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I loved it. So I think that was the only
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: time I've been before working with them.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: The six months in New York? Were you lonely or
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: was it a dream? Here I am in New York
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: for six months.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I think I was more lonely and get me out
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: of here. But you know, I did it. I stuck
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: with it as much as I could.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I might. You know, I can't be said it's definitely
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: six months. It was around that time anyway, but it was.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: It was quite productive, but I just didn't didn't feel right,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: and I'm glad I didn't. It didn't feel right because.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: You know, that went towards what happened there, went towards
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: the formation of TENNESSEEC.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: So tell us how you got involved in Strawberry Studios.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Strawberry Studios had a different name, and it was owned
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: by Eric and a guy called Peter Tatasall, but they
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: wanted to expand. I'd met Eric because his band, the
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: mind Benders were.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Their offices.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Their manager's office was the same office as my, same
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: building as my manager Anyway, Eric and I met got
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: on very well, and Eric said, we started the studio,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: but we need more. Do you want to become a
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: partner in studio? Let's build a proper studio in the
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: North of England because at that point anybody wanted to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: make a record would have to go down to London.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Really, I thought it was a brilliant idea. There were
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: so many musicians.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: In in the North of England that would use it,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: we thought. And so that's how I got involved in it.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And how about the other two members who became members
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: of Tendency? See how did they get involved?
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Well, they both Loll and Keaven were at the JLB working,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: you know, rehearsing with their bands, so we knew each
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: other from that from that that place.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: So Strawberry Studios. How long before you went to New York?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Were you working in an owner at Strawberry Studios?
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: You mean before we went to New York with with
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: with tenn CC, with the original.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: No No No, with ksiands and Cats.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, probably months, not that long.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So you come back, you cut all these songs for
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: casidds and Cats. What else is going on at Strawberry Studios?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: What's keeping the doors open.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we were looking for business, so I was
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: happy to that, you know. That was another motive for
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: bringing the songs back. We were doing all sorts of stuff.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: We were doing football records, we were doing recording choirs.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Anybody could come in. It was just any old stuff
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: we would do. We would like. We became kind of
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: like a session band before we started recording in downtown downtime.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I should say, not downtown.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Songs that we'd written just for our own amusement, and
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: that became the basis for our very first TURNCC album.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: So we we you know, we didn't. It was almost
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: like not a conscious decision to form a band. It
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: was just that we were kind of like enjoyed each
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: other's company. We made a nice noise together, and we
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: were lucky that we had the studio. Not only that,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: but the fact that Eric was an engineer as well.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: So a lot of the time I always think that
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of the records benefited by the fact that
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: there were just four of us in the studio, no
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: one else's opinion, and no one else to ask, you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: to worry about.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: At what point do you start working with Neil Sadaka,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: how does that happen.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: We did two albums with Neil, one pre TENCC and
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: one post TENSEC. So Harvey, who was my manager at
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: the time, he'd met Neil and knew that Neil was
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: going to a place called Badly Variety Club in near
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Leeds in the north of England, and has suggested to
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: him that he record with me and keV and Lowell
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: and Eric at Strawberry Studios. And the upshot of that
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: was that I went to meet Neil at the Queen's
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Hotel I think it was, and he'd agreed to this.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: I think we'd agreed to sort of say, well, let's
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: see how it works out, but sort of time wise,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: it worked out for him because Leeds wasn't that far
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: from Manchester, so he could come to record during the day.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: So I'll stop or I should say. Anyway, I went there.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: He played a load of songs. I recorded them onto
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: a cassette player, took them back to the studio and
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Neil came in and we recorded these songs. We made
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: that first album, The Trailer Days are over, in like
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: two weeks. It was great and one of the things
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: that was great about it was not only it was
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: Neil that the consummate professional, but as oppose to these days,
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: he would the setup would be that me and Loll
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: and Kevin would be in the studio with Neil. Neil
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: would play the piano, but he'd also sing the lead
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: vocal at the same time. So the record was almost finished.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: I put based on later and we do backing vocals
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: and any other overdubs.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: But that was the That was the beauty of it,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: that the fact that you know everything. A lot of
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: the recording was made in lack in that one take.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Great And when was the last time you had contact
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: with Neil Sedaka?
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: It's quite a few years ago, maybe about twelve years ago.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: He came over to do an interview or he was
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: here and the idea was that he and I would
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: be interviewed together, and it was lovely to see him again.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I must say.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the first TENCC album, how much of that
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: is already recorded before you try to get a record deal.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: This quite a bit of it was recorded because we
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: just we were just.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Doing what as I say, recording in downtown just for
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: our own pleasure. But the way that record came about
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: was that Eric and I'd written a song called Waterfall,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: and Apple Records, the Beatles label, were quite interested in it,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: and we thought, well, in case they do go for it,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: we should get a B side ready, and because Erict
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: in the A side, you know, we said to Kevin Oile,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: you should come up with a B side and that
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: B side was a song called Donna. And as we
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: were recording that, we thought this, there's something special going
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: on here. We sent it to Jonathan King, who ran
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: UK Records at the time, and he said, I love it.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: He came up to see us, he said, have you
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: got a name? We said no, we weren't. We weren't
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: a touring band. He said, I had a dream last night.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: I was standing in front of the Hammersmithhodian and on
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: the hoarding it said TENCC the best band in the world.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: We said, okay, that'll do. We didn't even discuss it.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: I don't think I don't remember. There was no alternatives.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: We just thought, yeah, that sounds.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Good, okay. There was an incredible sense of humor, certainly
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: on the first album. Yeah, was was that just your personalities?
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Was that conscious? You know what was going on there?
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: It was it was unconscious that the whole thing about
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: ten CC when we were recording was we just did
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: what we wanted to do. We didn't keep an eye
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: on the charts, we didn't keep an eye anything. We
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: didn't listen to the record company, we didn't listen to anybody.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: We just did what we wanted to do. And I
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: think that's why it worked.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: We didn't care. We just wanted to do what we
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: wanted to do.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. But like the opening track, Johnny Don't Do It? Yeah,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I mean it was like a sad tire of the fifties.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it was.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Actually it was kind of like a follow up to Donna,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: which was also a kind of do what pastif? And
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: I love that track. It's so great. It was a
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: complete flop when we put it out as a single,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: but a great track.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: We were very good at copying other people's styles, whether
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: it was that the Beatles or Beach Boys. We were
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: very influenced by Well you can hear all our inferences.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I think they're pretty and sparent okay, and then tell
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: us the story of Rubber Bullets.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: So Rubber Bullets was a song that Kevin and Lowell
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: had started and I think they were thinking about, you know,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: like James Cagney films like Angels were dirty faces, you know,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: where the priest tries and keeps the boys calm, and
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: it's always Irish for some reason. And and they couldn't
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: finish it.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: They wanted a.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: They wanted a different a part to it, like a
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: kind of a bridge, and they said, do you want
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: to to help us finish this song? I loved what
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: they'd already done, so I did, and I wrote the
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: sort of middle slow section and some of the lyrics
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: as well. We've all got balls and brains, but some's
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: got balls and chains. I think that was one of
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: my contribution lyrically.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, this record was not a commercial or radio success
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: in the US. How successful was it in the UK?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I don't I can't remember it did. I think it
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: did quite well. It did quite well. We got a
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: lot of support from people like John Peel. I don't
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: know if you're familiar with John.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Peele, the radio DJ.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, radio DJ, and and lots of other people got
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: great reviews. I wouldn't say it was like that, but
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: it was obviously not a worldwide smash or anything, but
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: it certainly established us and established our sort of style
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: how we worked not that we were thinking of we
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: have a style. I mean, one of the things about
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: TENCC was that because we had the principle of whoever's
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: best for the job gets the job. We had different
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: singers on different tracks, different guitarists on different tracks, whoever
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: was the best, as I say, would get the job.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: And actually we had three number one records in the
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: UK and they the three of them have different singers
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: on Brother Bullets, has Lol on I'm Not in Love,
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: has Eric on, and I sang on Treadler Holiday.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, did you tour on the first album?
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: We did?
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: The year after or actually the same year it was released,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: we did, and that was a bit of a shock
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: as well. The first gig we did, we went because
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: we were born in the studio, so we weren't really
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Eric had some experience of being on the road, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: so did me and Kevin Lob but not to the
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: same extent as Eric, because he'd been with Wen and
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Tarn and the mind Benders and the Mine.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Benders, who were really quite successful.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: But we got went out on the stage and we
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: were met with these screaming fans and it was just
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: not expected that that would happen, so but quite a
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: nice surprise, I have to say.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: But we didn't expect it because we expected people to listen.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, you go back into the studio to cut a
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: second record, you know, did you feel any pressure? What
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: was going through your mind?
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: Then?
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: No pressure, because it made total sense that we do
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: another album. We wanted to do another album. We were
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: loving working together. You know, the studio was our playground
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: and we were doing, you know, being successful with the
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: records that we were putting out. We had four Street Shuffle,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: we had other tracks. So we made the sheet Music album,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: which a lot of.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: People consider our best album, and it was all going,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: all going really really well.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, whilst Reed Shuffle that got radio. We're play on
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: FM in the United States. But it's an interesting record
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: in that it continues to have a life because of
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: all the shenanigans on Wall Street it does. So is
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: that something that you feel on your end, that you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: people all of a sudden, you know you have a
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: y end to leave your market cetera.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm really pleased that it does.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: You know, it does seem to come up whenever there's
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: some sort of financial crisis. I'm very happy about that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Okay? How about something like the Sacral Iliac? Where does
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: that come from?
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: That was a song that I wrote with Kevin Godley
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: and I'm both here and I have a fear of dancing,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: so we came up with a dance that people who
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: can't dance can do or don't do, called the Sacral earlier.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: And it's just an kind of a nonsense song.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: But if I don't really listen to our old stuff
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: that much, but if I have listened to it recently
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: and I just think it's so clever, I love it.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: It's so weird.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: And then how about the Worst Band of the World.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: That was a song I wrote with Law and Well
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: that was based on the what Jonathan King saw on
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: the hoarding of the above the Hamma Smith Odeon, which
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: was the worst band, which was the best band in
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: the world. So we thought, well, we'll be the worst
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: band in the world.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: So how does the third album end up being a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: mercury as opposed to UK.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Because we wanted to go on We wanted to go
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: on the road and it was going to cost a
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: lot of money, and one of the reasons being that
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: we thought the audience should hear us as near as
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: dammit like the record.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: So it meant.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Basically trying to take a recording studio on the road
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: to have that quality of sound. And I think Jonathan
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: didn't have the money that we needed.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Our contract had come to an end.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: I think it was I can't remember the actual details
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: of the contract, but anyway, we were going to sign
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: with Virgin and something happened and we ended up with
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: on Phonograph. On Phonograph. Now, whether that's a good thing
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: or a bad thing, we'll never know, but I think
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: we were pretty upset when I think we've given power
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: of attorney to our managers because we were all going
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: away and he signed us to Phonogram instead of Virgin.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: I know that Richard Branson was not too pleased with that,
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: But however, we did very well with that label, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: of course you know I'm Not in Love and consequent
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: records were released on there very successfully.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, the original soundtrack was that seen as a concept
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: album from the band or was that just a title?
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: No, it's it wasn't a concept album. But we always
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: thought that our songs were very visual or created. We
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: wanted them to create pictures in your mind. Like a
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: lot of songwriters do. I'm not saying with the only
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: people I've ever thought of that. Yes, So that was
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: the idea, and we were very lucky that right from
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: the second album we put out sheet music, we'd met
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: up with Hypnosis, and this was Hypnosis, the not Merk.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: This is the Hypnosis. The album covered designers who we
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: worked with for many years and I'm still working with
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: on my solo stuff.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: So they were a perfect match for us.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: And of course this was in the days when artwork
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: was really really important, when you could sit down with
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: an album and if you were interested, you could see
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: who played on this, and who did the who mastered
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: the album, who published it, you know, all the details
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: that you wouldn't don't necessarily get now unless you would
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: go looking for it.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Working with Hypnosis, to what degree did they come to
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: you with ideas and you approved them? What do they
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: basically said, you paid us, we'll deliver something that'll be it.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Well, what used to happen was they they come, they
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: come to the studio and they'd come with about maybe
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: fifteen different ideas. We'd already sent them the album, so
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: they'd already steep themselves in the album.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: So they might pick up on a line of a
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: song or just get the.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: General vibe of the album. They come to the studio
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: and sort of turn the studio into.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: An art gallery.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: They'd pin pictures of these rough ideas for a sleeve
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: on the wall and we would walk round like an exhibition,
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: which is brilliant, and we'd reach an agreement and that
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: would be it. I mean sometimes that one album that
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: we did was Deceptive Benz and it was an title
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: I came up with because we had a studio in
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: Dorking and I used to drive from London down to
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Dorking and on there was a road sign on one
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: of the roads that said Deceptive Benz, which was I
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: thought a very subtle thing for the Ministry of Transport
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: to right rather than rather than dangerous bends, you know.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: But it struck me because you know, the guitar bends
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: DB's are how you measure sound, and it just sounded
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: nice that this is interesting. And they came up with
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: all different ideas, originally of things happening on roads, which
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: we didn't kind of take to. But then they came
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: up with the idea of the diver on the front cover.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: If you're familiar with it with the beautiful woman in
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: his arms, and of course he was suffering from the
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: benz and that is so typical of hypnosis to come
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: up with.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: An idea like that.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: Great brilliant genius and I worked with Storm right until
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: his passing in two thousand and twelve. I think it
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: was he actually did an album cover for me, a
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: solo album cover from me called The Love and Work,
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: and that was one of the last projects he worked on.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: And going back to the original soundtrack, did everyone agree
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: that One Night in Piris would be the opening track,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: because that's a unique, lengthy, almost nine minute opening track.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, we did, although I think Eric and I did
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: edit it somewhat. I think it was going to be longer.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: I think, in fact, that the original idea was for
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: it to take up side one of the album. We
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: thought that was a little excessive, so I remember we
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: did cut it down a bit. But what a wonderful
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: piece of work that is. I have to say, a
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: Kevin Love genius song.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: So what was the genesis of a Martin love So.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: I always wanted us to write a love song, but
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: we've avoided it because it was you know, everybody's writing
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: love songs, and but I said we could write a
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: great one. Eric came up with the perfect title, which
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: was I'm Not in love and you can read into
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: that what you will. And the song was written really quickly.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: I had I had this sort of opening, these two
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: chords that open open the track. And when the song
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: was written really quickly, we recorded it as a kind
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: of a Boston over and hated it and we erased it.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Anything we didn't like we erased. We were worried about
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: people getting hold of it. Is it kind of a shame, really,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: it would be nice to hear that person now. But anyway,
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Kevin came up with the the song stuck with us.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: We all liked the song. Kevin came up with this
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: idea of a different rhythm and why not do it
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: just with voices and nothing else. We thought, wow, this
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: is like a revolutionary idea. How the hell are we
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: going to do it? Well, what we're going to do
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: we need to do a rhythm track. So we made
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: a rhythm track really quickly, which was myself, Eric and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Loll and Kevin. Just like the bass from Sound came
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: from a.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Mini move.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: I played electro rhythm guitar and Eric played keyboard, and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: even at that point we thought there's something happening here.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: But we pursued the idea of the of doing it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: all with voices, the idea being we do all the voices,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: but we needed a backing track as a sort of
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: guide for us to sing to. Then we take the
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: backing track off, but everything sounded so wonderful as we were.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Everything every idea we.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Had worked, and that meant we had a great you know,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: something good was going on. And when we finished it,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: we just used to play it back to ourselves, turn
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: the lights off in the control room, lind the floor
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: and listen to it and tell each other how great
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: we were. But nobody ever said this could be a
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: massive hit. We just thought this is like a fantastic
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: album track. But then when we played it to everybody
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: else and everyone said.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: This could be big, and you know, there's a video
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: online about leayering the vocals, how did you ultimately do it?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we made loops of every note that we
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: needed that we flew back into the multi track and
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: ended up using the mixing desk as an instrument, so
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: we didn't have all that we needed to mix all
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: these I think they're about thirteen tracks of with different notes.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: We needed to mix them down to a stereo pair,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: so we would all man like two faders each and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: move them around as the track was playing to get
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: this final stereo pair mix of the backing vocals. So
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: I don't think I'd ever been done before. What was
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: great about it was that as we were doing it,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: we didn't know what we were going to get because
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: it was just building up and building up and building up.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Of course, nowadays you wouldn't do that. You'd just go
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: to some sort of sampler and just just one keyboard
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: player could do the whole thing, but it wouldn't sound
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: like ours because ours was kind of flawed in a
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: way in that you know, things aren't perfectly in tune,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: notes of chorusing against one another. But it was fantastic
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: to be a part of creating something unique.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: I think, and.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: It becomes a gigeantic hit. What was that like from
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: the other side of the fence.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: It took us by surprise, I think, but meant that
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: we could. It elevated the band's position all around the world,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: no doubt about it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: So did you feel a pressure to come up with
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: something equally successful on how Dare You? The follow up album.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: I don't think we felt pressure, but there was a
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: feeling now that, particularly from Kevin and Lowell, that we
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: kind of they kind of done it. They were and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: I sense this in it when I if I listened
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: to that album, a little cloud gathering on the horizon
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: that they weren't entirely happy.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: They I think, gotten fed up with.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: The writing, then recording, then rehearsing, and then touring and
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: all the other stuff that goes with it. I think
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: things have got a bit predictable for them, whereas for
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: me and Eric, this was exactly what we wanted, but
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: they wanted also. They had come up with this invention
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: called a gizmo, which was an attachment that went under
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: the guitar, and the mate started making an album that
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: came out eventually called Consequences, which was three albums set.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: And during the recording of that, we were saying to them,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: you know, we should really get back to the record company,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: want something, and we should get back to being tense
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: s And they said, we want to finish this, and
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: you know it could have been handled better. I mean,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: Kevin and I spoke about this quite a lot. What
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: we should how we should have handled it. Whereas they
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: could have finished that we would have survived taking time off. Anyway,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: it didn't happen, and the up shot of it was
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: that Kevin and All left the band, which still upsets
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: me to this day that they didn't. I think we
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: could have gone on to do amazing things.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: But on the album before they leave, tell us about
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: art for art sake?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: Well, that was something that my dad used to say
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: to me. Now, my dad, it's quite a cynical phrase.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: Art for art sake, money for God's sake, But he
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: wasn't a cynical man, but he loved that phrase because
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: it was funny. So we had that title and Eric
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: and I just wrote the song. I mean, another song
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: that was written really really quickly. I can't tell you
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: that much about the actual writer. I don't remember that
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: much about the writing of the song. But you know,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: if you have a great title, it's you know, it's
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: a big it's a major thing.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: So tell us about the gizmo and the two of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: them really believed in it. Were you skeptical from day one?
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: I wasn't skeptical, but the problem with it was it
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: was very temperamental, as an instrument. It was an attachment
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: for the guitar that contained six wheels and these little
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: pads that you'd pressed down and the revolving wheel that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: had a kind of serrated edge would hit the string,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: so you get the effect of almost like a violin,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: and you could play the six pads and it would
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: create this really great noise. But I always said that,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: you know, it sounds great, it's got a million pounds
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: studio attached to it, so, you know, because it needs
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: to be multi tracked to make it sound effective. But
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: it was an interesting sound and they really believed in it.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: But I think that was, you know, a contributing factor
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: to them leaving the band pursuing this thing that actually suffered.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: I think, however good or bad it was, you know,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: the age of the synthesizer was coming in, and I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: think that would have really made it, you know, not
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: a commercial possibility.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: So the two of you saw Gern you and Eric.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: You have the album Deceptive Bens and you have another
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Gigea to get with the Things we Do for Love?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Where does that come from?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: I had this sort of these intro chords and Eric
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: we started writing the song. I remember Eric wanted the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: right song about suicide, said, this song is not this
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: isn't a suicide.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: This is kind of like a more definitely more upbeat.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: And to give him credit, came up with the title
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: you know Things We Do for love it. It's a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: great title. And we recorded it. We wrote it, recorded it,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: and we knew we had something special. In fact, I
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: remember at one point during the recording of it, Eric
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: was doing some backing vocals in it. He added one
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: harmony that suddenly said I said to him, I said,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: this is a hit now that it was like a
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: tipping point where if you're in the studio where something
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: happens and you go, wow, this is so good. And yep,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: that was a big hit for us in America and
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of places around the world.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Tell me about the middle where it's you have the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: scene song you talked about the rain and the show.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you you wrote about that once and you actually
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: picked up on the you said like the sort of
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: sixth chord about it. I'll give Eric the credit for
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: that part of the song. It's kind of sing song.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: I did sort of question it in my head a
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: bit at the time, I remember, but hey, it worked.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, the opening song, good Morning Judge.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that came out of a I think
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: I wrote you about this out of a conversation as
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: having my dad about people being institutionalized who spent they
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: continually going back to prison, and I was talking to
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: Eric about it and we thought that this is a
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: this is a this is a good idea.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: For a song, and I knew about that.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: There was there was a joke that I'd heard and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: the punchline was and good morning judge, and that was all.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: I don't remember the joke very well at all. I
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: can't remember it at all what the actual joke was.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: But the combination of having that title and and the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: general concept of it as someone who always gets into
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: trouble and there's a there's also kind of like a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: wats a boy to do kind of element to it
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: as well. And yeah, that was a good good record
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: for us in the UK certainly.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, And the second side ends with an eleven and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: a half minute track, Feel the Benefit. Once you get hooked,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: you can you almost can't dig it off. You have
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: to plead again and again. Tell me about feel the Benefit.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: So when I was a little boy, I used to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: come in from the cold. My mum would say to me,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: take your coat off, so that when you go out
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: again you'll feel the benefit. So that there's a there's
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: a title. That's where the title came from. And after
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: we'd done most of the recording on Deceptive Bends, we
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: had quite a few odds and ends musical odds and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: ends hanging around that we thought were really good. For
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: some reason, we didn't want to make them into songs
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: on their own, and we decided to put them together
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: and it kind of worked. Now had this sort of
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: John Lennony type intro guitar intro like I sort of
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: Dear Prudence type thing that I loved, and they just
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: think we just put the things together and it worked
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: because it's not a matter of just putting things together,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: you know. There has to be some sort of sense
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: to it. Why it works, I don't know, but it does.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have a huge success. The next album, Bloody
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Tourists Off has another record that has continued to live
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: and tell us about the creation of dreadlock Holiday.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, dread Loote Holiday.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: Was written at my house after both Eric and I
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: have been on holiday. He'd been to Barbados and I'd
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: been to Jamaica. We started talking about our experiences. I
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: was sat down with the guitar and I started playing
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: the opening chords to it and in this sort of
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: reggae sort of rhythm, and so we talked about our
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: various experiences. And then I remember that I'd been had
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: a conversation with someone at the hotel I was staying
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: at him in Jamaica, and we were talking about sports.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: I've talked about Manchester United and I said, what about cricket?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: Do you do you like cricket?
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: He said no. I said, I'm surprised. He said, I
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: love it. Gave me the line, and so like a
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: couple of months later, when Eric and I were talking
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: about the you know, various different experiences while we were
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: both on holiday, this line popped into my head right
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: to the right spot.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: It was just perfect.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, from the outside, it looked like ten CC went
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: into a Denu mall. It was started feeding there. Certainly
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: weren't more successful radio tracks. What was it like on
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: the inside? After bloody tourists not good?
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Eric had had an accident.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: That really affected him quite badly, so he was out
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: of action for a year. I started doing other projects,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: and when we came back together again, it really wasn't
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: the same. We did an album that Andrew Gold was
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: involved with, and I loved working with him and continued
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: to work with him after Erica and I split up,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: but there was a general sort of malaise where everything
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: it was like our time has passed. And I remember
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: going into the record company with an album. I can't
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: remember which album it was. I'm playing it to the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: head of the label and you know, I don't know
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: if you know this, but when you're playing something to somebody,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: if it's something wrong with it, it's glaringly obvious that
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: this isn't very good. And I started sort of feeling
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: I could tell by his expression as well it wasn't
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: It was obvious. And then he said I want to
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: play something. He didn't say anything else other than that,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: and he played a private investigation by Direstrates, which.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: Was it was phenomenal.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: So I think we got the point that we'd better
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: do better, but it didn't happen. I mean, Eric and
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: I had a very very strange relationship. We did another
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: album with Gary Katz in New York that was a
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: complete disaster, even though we had some really wonderful musicians
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: on it, so it was enough we did. There were
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: some attempts at reunions that was just horrible and hard
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: had enough. There were other attempts to sort of revive us.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: Our American record company suggested that we work with the
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: late Andrew Gold, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: idea because I was a massive fan of his anyway,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: and to give him credit, we did record and he
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: co produced and co wrote three tracks on our ten
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: out of Ten album and all those those three albums,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: those three tracks were actually he chosen as singles, which
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, says that they were worthy of that.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: So that was a good move.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: And after that album, I'd had enough with Eric, and
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: the first person I contacted was was Andrew and said,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: I got a little studio at my house. Do you
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: want to come over for a couple of weeks and
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: just let's mess around there. He stayed for about yeah,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: stay for two months, I think, and we just had
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: a great time together, really clicked musically and on a
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: personal level as well. And you know, to the time
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: is untimely passing. We remained in contact with each other.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: We had joined the eighties, we had a band called Wax.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: We had a couple of hits, not in America unfortunately,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: but we did, you know, quite well. And we just
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: loved working together. And I actually think some of the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: stuff that we did together as some of the best
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: stuff I've ever been involved with.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: So what was it like working with the edge was
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: opposed to the previous people you worked with.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: He was very, very creative, He could play everything. He
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: was very good at everything he did musically, I have
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: to say, and he was just a delightful person to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: be with. It was funny, you know, we kind of
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: we loved each other. It was wonderful. I'd say, one
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: of my happiest collaborations and friendships. And I you know,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: I miss him very much to this day. So we
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: recorded three albums together. He did have a terrible problem
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: with flying, he didn't like that, and eventually we did
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: record After the third album, we actually both agreed that
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: if we didn't have any sort of significant success, we
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: would call it a day as far as being having
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: a band together, but that we would carry on working,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: you know, writing together, which we did do.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: So what's it like having this amazing success as you
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: talk about the record exec playing you dire streets and
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: you know you're doing what you do. You're as talented
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: as you ever was, but the game keeps changing. What's
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: it like to be in that position?
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: Well, we knew the game had changed actually before that,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: because with the the punk here that came in and
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: suddenly sort of whatever you like to call it art
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: rock or prog rock or whatever, was suddenly very out
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: of favor, and you know, everything got very very punkish.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: So I did sense that there was a big shift
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: in what was going on in music at that time.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: But I've always welt that one should just keep doing
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: what it's in your you know, do what's in your heart, right,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: what's in your heart, and things will turn out okay.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I feel in a way that I've had
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: sort of three important careers in my life. What one
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: is a writer in the sixties ten SC Definitely I'm
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: working with Andrew. So now I'm in a place where,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: you know, I have the TENSEC Band, which is a
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: touring band.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: I don't record under that name.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: It doesn't feel right to me, but it feels certainly
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: feels right to be able to go out and tour
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: the band and I make my own solo albums, which
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: I love doing, and there that's one of my you know,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: the great pleasure to me and something that I'll always
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: continue to do.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: So how much do you work when you're on the road.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: You're working, but in terms of creating, going in the studio,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: laying down your stuff, how motivated and how often are
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: you working?
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: Now? Well, I get bored very easily.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: So I love my family and I love my work,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: so I'm always doing something I can't sort of keep still.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: In fact, I did when I did this record that
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: I spoke about before with Brian May.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: Last year. At the beginning of last year.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: I started writing some songs after that and suddenly found
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: myself writing another you know, solo album which I've just
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: finished that's coming out in June. So there's there's always something,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: There's always something to do. And there's a couple of
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: other projects which are we'll see if they work out
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: at the moment. But I guess I'm of an age
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: now where you know, you really should just be doing
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: what you like, you love to do, and I'm lucky
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: enough to be able to do it.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: And how did you end up going out with Ringo Store?
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: I got a uh my, our agent got a message
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: from David Hart, who's their producer on the you know,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: the show's producer, and they said they sell up a
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: meeting and I walked into the office and they asked
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: me the stupid question, would you like to join a
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: band with Ringo Starr? And ye know, what's the boy
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: to do? I said, definitely, and and that's how it
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: came about.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: I think that.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think Richard, Richard I can't remember his
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: second name, who was with the bass player was taking
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: time out. They wanted somebody else, and you know, I'm
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: actually not quite sure how they landed on me. But anyway,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: I was absolutely delighted to do it. I had a
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: wonderful time. I really enjoyed it very much, and I
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: would have done another tour. I was asked to do
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: another tour, but I had tendency c commitments, so I
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: couldn't do it.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: So what was it like being out with Ringo in
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: his mad cap room?
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: It was fantastic, as you can imagine, slightly surreal. I
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: actually wrote a song about it called standing next to
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: Me because I'd be playing away and then you know,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: with Ringo wasn't playing the drums. It would be standing
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: to my right and I'd sort of look around and go,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: blood the hell, it's Ringo stuff. It was fantastic because,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: as I said before, the Beatles were my biggest influence,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: and obviously he's a major part of that. And I
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: wrote a song about it, be called standing next to
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: Me that describes my time on the road with Ringo.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: It was great, not only just Ringo but Steve Lucafer,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: Greg Berson, I, Greg Rowley, Colin Hay, just lovely guys.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: It was brilliant. I really loved it.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: Well bloody how it's Graham Goldman. I listened to those
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: records incessantly, dedicated fans saw you live. Graham. Thanks so
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: much for taking the time to talk to my audience.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: My pleasure, Bob Oh, it's nice to talk to you.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: And don't forget you can go see ten CC and
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: hear all these hits this summer in the US until
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left Sex