Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Welcome to conversations. My guest today is Graham Goodman. Now,
Speaker 1: Graham was one of the original members of ten CC,
Speaker 1: responsible for some of those great songs, but he also
Speaker 1: wrote songs for other artis some tremendous songs for big names.
Speaker 1: But he'll be here on Saturday, August I with ten
Speaker 1: CC at the Adelaide Entertainment Center. Graham Goodman, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the program. How are you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I'm very well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought? Now I know your age and
Speaker 1: it's very did you ever think that you'd be still
Speaker 1: doing rock shows or music shows as you need eighty.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not, But then we never thought about that.
Speaker 2: We just thought. I was never aware of any sort
Speaker 2: of time limit at all. I think if I wasn't
Speaker 2: in you touring with the band, that I'd be still
Speaker 2: be involved with music, either writing or do producing something
Speaker 2: like that, because it's something I've always loved and it's
Speaker 2: the only thing I can do really well.
Speaker 1: It's start when you were when you were young, Yeah,
Speaker 1: truly young. Yeah, it's the story true that your mother
Speaker 1: identified that you know, you were more inclined to the
Speaker 1: music and the arts rather than traditional school work, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both my parents did. I mean I was very
Speaker 2: lucky that both my parents were artistic. They recognized I
Speaker 2: had a gift at an early age and I didn't
Speaker 2: do very well at school and that didn't bother them
Speaker 2: at all. Actually, and now they always encouraged me when
Speaker 2: I started, you know, being creative. There was really encouraging.
Speaker 2: I mean it could have gone the other way. Had
Speaker 2: I been better at school and shown some sort of acumen,
Speaker 2: then maybe they would have encouraged me to you know,
Speaker 2: get a proper job, but they didn't. They encouraged me
Speaker 2: in my music and fortunately it all worked out.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Manchester, North of England. Yes.
Speaker 1: Were your mum and dad musical or artistic in any way?
Speaker 2: My dad definitely. My dad actually used to help me
Speaker 2: with lyrics. He came up with song titles the songs
Speaker 2: that I wrote in the sixties for people like the Yardbirds,
Speaker 2: the Hollis Herman's Hermits. He was very involved with writing
Speaker 2: the lyrics for all of those songs. And my mum
Speaker 2: was used to run the fan clubs for the various
Speaker 2: bands that I was in pre TENDSEC so they were
Speaker 2: and they were both involved in amateur dramatics. Although my
Speaker 2: father could have been a professional writer had things have
Speaker 2: been different, but he was bringing up you know, we're
Speaker 2: sort of working class family and for him to take
Speaker 2: the chance of being a full time writer would have
Speaker 2: been too risky, I think for him.
Speaker 1: But what did he do? That was his job?
Speaker 2: Well he had he was in the in the in
Speaker 2: the fashion business. But when people say what did what was?
Speaker 2: What did he dad? Do? I say he was a writer.
Speaker 2: He wrote, you know, he wrote plays, he wrote poetry,
Speaker 2: he wrote articles for newspapers and most importantly for me,
Speaker 2: helped me with my lyrics.
Speaker 1: Well, I did hear the story, and I'd love you
Speaker 1: to recount it. If the inspiration for the Holly song
Speaker 1: no Milk Today.
Speaker 2: That that was? That was buzz stop. Actually, well there's
Speaker 2: two songs actually mentioned there, but no Milk Today was
Speaker 2: his idea completely. He'd been to visit one of his friends.
Speaker 2: His friend wasn't there, and he turned on the doorstep
Speaker 2: and there was an empty milk bottle there. He came
Speaker 2: back to me and said, I've got an idea for
Speaker 2: a song, No Milk Today. I told him it was
Speaker 2: a dreadful idea, not knowing what was he had in mind,
Speaker 2: of course, but he explained that, you know, it was
Speaker 2: what the milk bottle represented, the fact that love had
Speaker 2: there was no love in the house, every everything had
Speaker 2: gone from the house, and that he came with this
Speaker 2: beautiful line, the bottle stands forlorn, a symbol of the dawn. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we did. We've completed the song, fortunately, and it was
Speaker 2: a very big hit for Hermit's Hermits.
Speaker 1: The bottle stands forlorn, the symbol of the dawn. I
Speaker 1: hope you played him. I hope he gave him royalties
Speaker 1: for that?
Speaker 2: I did you did?
Speaker 1: Did he get credits? Did he get writing credits for it?
Speaker 2: Do you know? Right from the start we never actually
Speaker 2: he was never credited, but I always talked about him,
Speaker 2: and I'm not quite sure why that happened. It could
Speaker 2: have been Goldman Gouldman, but maybe his name was on
Speaker 2: top of stamp, right on top of mine.
Speaker 1: So you're an eleven year old kid, you're showing an
Speaker 1: aptitude for music. What what is inspiring?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: What? What music are you listening to?
Speaker 2: Okay, so right, I got my first guitar when I
Speaker 2: was eleven. That was a big turning point, A massive
Speaker 2: turning point actually. But the music I've been listening to
Speaker 2: we talking about sort of late fifties. We're listening to
Speaker 2: a little Richard Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2: Then we're moving into like sort of early sixties motown,
Speaker 2: all the sort of great British bands like the Animals,
Speaker 2: the Kinks and then the Beatles, which was the biggest
Speaker 2: inspiration for me and millions of other aspiring songwriter musicians.
Speaker 1: That's intrigued to me because those are all like rock
Speaker 1: and roll songs basically. Yeah, But TENCC was more a
Speaker 1: softer rock. I would have.
Speaker 2: Thought, don't, I won't, I will refuse to pigeonhole soft
Speaker 2: rock rock, hard rock, alternative art rock. I've heard it all,
Speaker 2: and to me, it's TENSC music because if you think
Speaker 2: of that, we had three number one records in the UK.
Speaker 2: One was Rubber Bullet with loll singing, the second one
Speaker 2: was I'm Not in Love with Eric's singing, and the
Speaker 2: third one was Dreadlock Holiday with Me singing. So I
Speaker 2: can't think of more three more different kinds of records,
Speaker 2: which shows a versatility of the band and the fact
Speaker 2: that we had so many different influences and they you know,
Speaker 2: they all showed themselves on those records.
Speaker 1: There's so many questions and I've always from that answer
Speaker 1: you gave me the can I go back to the
Speaker 1: one that intrigues me most, Dreadlock Holiday. It's such a
Speaker 1: different piece of music to the stuff. It's a real
Speaker 1: reggae feel. Yeah, it must have been inspired by something.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely was. I mean what we were Eric
Speaker 2: and I were writing after we'd both been on holiday
Speaker 2: to the West Indies. I'd been to Jamaica and Eric
Speaker 2: had been to Barbados, and we were talking about various
Speaker 2: things that happened to us, and I had the guitar
Speaker 2: and I started playing the opening guitar chords, you know,
Speaker 2: that little roof, And when we got to the so
Speaker 2: we did. We were writing about our experiences, as I say,
Speaker 2: But when we got to what was going to be
Speaker 2: the chorus. I remember the conversation I'd had with someone
Speaker 2: in Jamaica at the hotel that we were staying at,
Speaker 2: and we were talking about sports, and I said, what
Speaker 2: about cricket? Do you like it? He said no, So
Speaker 2: I'm surprised, he said, I love it, so he kind
Speaker 2: of gave me. He gave me the line did you
Speaker 2: get through? And it just sort of the memory of
Speaker 2: that conversation sort of came back into my head as
Speaker 2: we were, you know, writing the song, and it was
Speaker 2: it was perfect.
Speaker 1: That song, to me, tells the story of somebody is
Speaker 1: being threatened or being held up.
Speaker 2: Well, well it's it's it's a that's part of it.
Speaker 2: But what the song is really about, and the video
Speaker 2: that we made for it shows it, is that it's
Speaker 2: this sort of white guy trying to emulate West Indian cool,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's just failing at it miserably. That's
Speaker 2: really what the song's about. And it's you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of our songs are not about anything specific, and
Speaker 2: you know, I like it when people put their own
Speaker 2: spin on what song's about. I mean that that's not
Speaker 2: not as ambiguous, say, you know, as other songs that
Speaker 2: we've written. But but that song has been very good
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I love it. So we're going
Speaker 1: to go to the break with breadlog Holiday. Graham Gorman
Speaker 1: is my guest. Folks. Ten CC will be here at
Speaker 1: the Adelaide Entertainment Center on Saturday August, the second back
Speaker 1: after the break. Welcome back everybody. Graham Gordman, the original
Speaker 1: member of ten CC, is speaking to us. Are you
Speaker 1: in Manchester? Graham?
Speaker 2: As as we say, I'm in London at the moment,
Speaker 2: it's London, it's home. Yes.
Speaker 1: So you're an eleven year old kid, you get your
Speaker 1: first guitar. What brand was it?
Speaker 2: I don't remember. It was a a cousin of mine
Speaker 2: brought it back from from Spain. I think customer Fiver
Speaker 2: if that. It had a really high action, but it
Speaker 2: didn't matter. I absolutely fell in love with it just
Speaker 2: holding it, and I actually wrote something the first day
Speaker 2: I got it. When I say wrote, it was like
Speaker 2: three chords with using one finger, but it was something
Speaker 2: and it was a start. So the combination of getting
Speaker 2: the guitar at that time, being encouraged by my parents,
Speaker 2: and probably as importantly the music that I had listened
Speaker 2: to from well, I started becoming aware of music when
Speaker 2: I was about six or seven and loved it. So
Speaker 2: all those things went into my DNA. You could say,
Speaker 2: who taught you?
Speaker 1: Who taught you?
Speaker 2: I'm self taught.
Speaker 1: You're self taught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a lot of a lot of my
Speaker 2: contemporaries are self taught. We didn't what we wanted to play.
Speaker 2: You couldn't learn to say, you couldn't go to a
Speaker 2: music school and learn to play the blues. Say, you know,
Speaker 2: you learn yourself. And I always thought that. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm big on chords. I know a lots of chords,
Speaker 2: and I sort of would struggle to find what I
Speaker 2: was hearing in my head. But because I struggled and
Speaker 2: then I found it, I never forgot it. So it
Speaker 2: wasn't like I learned it from a book.
Speaker 1: So that intrigues me. Eleven year old kid learning to
Speaker 1: play chords was self teaching to play chords.
Speaker 2: But lots of it's not unusual, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of my contemporaries do. They did the same thing. You know,
Speaker 2: I can't speak for anybody else, but when I speak
Speaker 2: to people of my sort of generation and musicians, it's
Speaker 2: pretty much the same story. It's pretty much the same influences.
Speaker 2: They got a guitar that they paid for on high purchase.
Speaker 2: It used to be called or they never ever you know,
Speaker 2: going to the guitar shop and their parents putting down
Speaker 2: the deposit and had to pay twelve pounds of I
Speaker 2: don't know, three pounds a week or ever, it was
Speaker 2: still that the guitar was paid off. And having this,
Speaker 2: I mean, like the first sort of proper guitar I had,
Speaker 2: I think I was about fourteen or fifteen, was a
Speaker 2: Fender Stratocaster, which was like the king and still is
Speaker 2: the king of guitars. And I remember going with my
Speaker 2: parents to get the buy the guitar. Then when I
Speaker 2: got it home, I'd keep it in my bedroom with
Speaker 2: the case open. So the last thing I saw at
Speaker 2: night was this beautiful pink strat and it was the
Speaker 2: third thing I saw in the morning. And I still
Speaker 2: feel exactly the same way about that, about that that
Speaker 2: particular guitar.
Speaker 1: Now in nineteen sixty three, stratig find Strata Caster is
Speaker 1: worth a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not a lot of money. Yeah yeah. I still
Speaker 2: I don't have the original one, but I've got I've
Speaker 2: got three very I've got two nineteen sixty twos and
Speaker 2: a and a reissue shadows Hank Marvin Resue one as well,
Speaker 2: so I've got three very nice ones.
Speaker 1: You were influenced by Cliffordge. You know the story of
Speaker 1: your Guide to the cliff Ridgard and the Shadows concert.
Speaker 1: Can you really like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I love Cliff and the Shads. And I
Speaker 2: went to the concert with my dad actually knew somebody.
Speaker 2: I think it was at the Free Trade Hall in
Speaker 2: Manchester and it was sold out, but my dad knew
Speaker 2: someone that worked there and got the tickets and it
Speaker 2: was just amazing. And I mean things have come in
Speaker 2: a way come full circle in that when we play
Speaker 2: in Perth, Yeah, coming up in our Australian tour. Hank
Speaker 2: Marvin has been to a couple of our gigs and
Speaker 2: we'll be inviting him again and he actually I put
Speaker 2: out a new solo album last year. The album is
Speaker 2: called I Have Notes, and Hank plays on one of
Speaker 2: the tracks.
Speaker 1: He was a guest on Conversations not that long ago, Okay,
Speaker 1: he was Adelaide with these well these more jazz influenced
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: He's doing that sort of yeah, like gypsy king type
Speaker 2: type music. Yeah, yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I was also intrigued that your dad wrote a poem
Speaker 1: about that time you saw.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was called We found it. After he passed
Speaker 2: away in ninety one, we went through all my mom
Speaker 2: and I went through all his papers and we found
Speaker 2: this poem that was unfinished, but it was called Cliff
Speaker 2: and the Boy. It was so so lovely, and you know,
Speaker 2: it tells how it was, how much of an influence
Speaker 2: it had on me, how it changed me. And it's
Speaker 2: true it was lovely to have that.
Speaker 1: How did make you feel reading that? Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a visit from the past from you.
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, very very special, I must say, very special.
Speaker 1: Did you think of putting it?
Speaker 2: I'm going to. I'm going to read it when we
Speaker 2: when we finished, I'm going to get it out. We
Speaker 2: Actually I went through all his papers with my mum
Speaker 2: and a friend of his who's a who was a novelist,
Speaker 2: friend of his, and put together a book of his work.
Speaker 2: So when people say to me, you know, what was
Speaker 2: your dad like and what did he do? I could
Speaker 2: go just read this various articles, stories that he wrote,
Speaker 2: various experiences he's had. So it was something tangible that
Speaker 2: we created of the represented you know, part of what
Speaker 2: his he was like.
Speaker 1: Did you consider putting that poem to music or putting
Speaker 1: music to that poet?
Speaker 2: No, I haven't. I never thought of it. Never thought
Speaker 2: of it. Actually I'm thinking about it now. Never consider
Speaker 2: that who knows.
Speaker 1: Did your mum work.
Speaker 2: My mum, well, she she was a housewife. She looked
Speaker 2: after me and my dad. During the war, she worked
Speaker 2: making Lancaster bombers, like all her contemporaries, everybody you know,
Speaker 2: indeed the war effort.
Speaker 1: My stepman was from Sussex, all right, young lady during
Speaker 1: the war and she talks about those days. Yeah, probably
Speaker 1: don't get enough appreciation for what they did now.
Speaker 2: I remember taking her to the RF Museum, Royal Air
Speaker 2: Force Museum, which is not far from where we lived,
Speaker 2: and they had a Lancaster bomber then, and she looked
Speaker 2: at it and burst into tears, kidding. A lot of
Speaker 2: memories there, just of I brought back so many, you know,
Speaker 2: she used to tell funny stories about her time. Then.
Speaker 2: It obviously brought back great memories, even though it was
Speaker 2: in wartime.
Speaker 1: Did she tell you what part she has modern? What
Speaker 1: party you built?
Speaker 2: She was doing sort of secretarial work.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Andy, are you an any child?
Speaker 2: I am? Yes.
Speaker 1: Did that influence you negatively or positively?
Speaker 2: Do you think positively in that? I think if I
Speaker 2: was an amateur shrink, I would say that the fact
Speaker 2: that I was always was helped forming bands and working,
Speaker 2: you know, bringing people together. I think that maybe I
Speaker 2: was trying to sort of get brothers in a way,
Speaker 2: or that I've never had any brothers, but I feel
Speaker 2: like the boys that I've worked with, particularly some of
Speaker 2: the boys that i've worked with for that one of
Speaker 2: the guys, Rick Fenn, who actually lives near a baron
Speaker 2: Bay here, and I have worked together for like fifty years,
Speaker 2: over fifty years together, and so I think that I
Speaker 2: that was my wanting to be have brothers.
Speaker 1: Your drummer, Paul Burgess has been with you for that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been with a bit longer because Paul and
Speaker 2: I met in when in nineteen seventy three when the
Speaker 2: original ten c C went on the road, Paul joined
Speaker 2: us and has been with us ever since.
Speaker 1: Graham Goldman, original member of ten CC, is my guest. Folks.
Speaker 1: We'll take a break Graham and the band. Graham and
Speaker 1: the Band will be here on August at the lad
Speaker 1: Entertainment since a Saturday night. Can't miss it. Back after
Speaker 1: the break, Welcome back to conversations, everybody. If you just
Speaker 1: tuned in, I'm chatting with Graham Goldman. Graham, the original
Speaker 1: member of ten CC, a young fellow growing up passionate
Speaker 1: about his music, encouraged by his mum and dad to play,
Speaker 1: gets his first guitar when he's eleven, teaches himself to play.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do that, but they do it.
Speaker 1: And can you remember your first band? Tell us about
Speaker 1: your first band.
Speaker 2: The very first band I had when I was at
Speaker 2: primary school and I'm not sure how old I was,
Speaker 2: but it was me and I had a drum, not drums,
Speaker 2: a drum. My friend Joel had a guitar that he
Speaker 2: couldn't play, and the other boy, his name was Guy.
Speaker 2: We built like a bass made out of a like
Speaker 2: a like a broomstick, a piece of string and on
Speaker 2: a attached to a box. And it was sort of
Speaker 2: during the skiffle era. I think that was a very
Speaker 2: important I should have mentioned that before, but that period
Speaker 2: Lonnie Donegan in particular, and the skiffle era was really
Speaker 2: important a lot of I think it encouraged a lot
Speaker 2: of people to pick up a guitar, and really, God
Speaker 2: knows what the noise was like that we made, but
Speaker 2: it was something and we enjoyed it, which was the
Speaker 2: main thing. So that was the first band. But then
Speaker 2: things got a bit more sophisticated, and I was in
Speaker 2: a band called the High Spots and the Cravats, and
Speaker 2: then the sort of band that first started to do
Speaker 2: something was called the Whirlwinds, and we were very much
Speaker 2: based on sort of like Cliff and the Shadows. We
Speaker 2: wore suits and had friendly guitars like a lot of
Speaker 2: other bands, and that was a lot of fun until
Speaker 2: I got fed up with the sort of music we were playing.
Speaker 2: We were doing a lot of cabaret shows. I didn't
Speaker 2: like the songs that we were doing, and myself and
Speaker 2: Bernard and Steve the guitar player formed a band with
Speaker 2: Kevin Godley, who I'd met at a club in North
Speaker 2: Manchester that we all used to rehearse at, and we
Speaker 2: formed a band called the Mockingbirds. So that was the period.
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like seventeen eighteen now nineteen maybe, and
Speaker 2: we're playing we're semi professional. Nothing ever happened, but of
Speaker 2: course one of the great things about it was it
Speaker 2: forged relationship between myself and Kevin Godley, and Kevin was
Speaker 2: very friendly with LORL Kream, So immediately we've got like
Speaker 2: three quarters of what was to become tenseec oh.
Speaker 1: My goodness are you. Did you have a day job
Speaker 1: as well? Did you have to have a Yeah?
Speaker 2: I worked in an outfit to shop, but I eventually
Speaker 2: got the sack because I was playing with the band,
Speaker 2: having to leave early to go to gigs or arriving
Speaker 2: late the next morning because I got back late from
Speaker 2: a gig, and the guy that owned the shop did
Speaker 2: me the biggest favor. I have to say. I wasn't
Speaker 2: cut out for a to be working an outfit a shop,
Speaker 2: but I did learn certain things about how to fold
Speaker 2: the shirt.
Speaker 1: Which very important.
Speaker 2: At least I got something out of it.
Speaker 1: So are you writing songs at that age of seventeen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started dabbling really and really encouraged by the Beatles.
Speaker 2: That was the main, my main inspiration and still the
Speaker 2: sort of benchmark for me of what I'm I sort
Speaker 2: of try and achieve. And then I wrote I was
Speaker 2: actually still in the shop when I started writing for
Speaker 2: Your Love, which became the first song that was recorded
Speaker 2: by another artist, the Yardbirds that became a hit in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by this story. The record company rejected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the record company rejected the Mockingbirds version of it,
Speaker 2: and accepted did. We recorded two songs, One was Fear
Speaker 2: Love and one was another song, which was horrible. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so because of that, you know, sort of a negative
Speaker 2: turned into a very amazing positive that the Yardbirds at
Speaker 2: the time were looking for to be, you know, something
Speaker 2: more commercial. They wanted to hit because up to that
Speaker 2: time they were like a rhythm and blues ban fantastic band.
Speaker 2: I mean I'd seen them with the original band with
Speaker 2: Eric Lapton, and I saw them with Jack Beck as well.
Speaker 2: It was amazing, big influence on me. So to be
Speaker 2: a fan of theirs and then have them record one
Speaker 2: of your songs was great.
Speaker 1: See I'm intrigued by the story where you opened for
Speaker 1: the Yardbirds and then and then you know this in
Speaker 1: the following sit they're singing your song. Yeah it was
Speaker 1: a positive or negative?
Speaker 2: Oh No, I thought it was a positive, definitely. What
Speaker 2: it was was they were on a program called Top
Speaker 2: of the Pops, which was like the major weekly pop show.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you got on Top of the Pops
Speaker 2: you almost guaranteed a hit. So they used to have
Speaker 2: warm up bands to keep the audience entertained while they
Speaker 2: were sort of setting up camera angles and lighting et cetera.
Speaker 2: And we were actually one of the band and I
Speaker 2: think we did it a couple of times, was a
Speaker 2: warm up band for Top of the Pops and on
Speaker 2: this particular week, the yard Burst were ondoing for Your Love.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of a strange situation, but I was
Speaker 2: very happy about it.
Speaker 1: I know it might sound as I'm being overly commercial
Speaker 1: and money grabbing here, but you still get you still
Speaker 1: get royalties for songs like that going back fifty Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah they yeah, yeah, you still got you still got paid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're still yeah, generate ro rotters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So when did when did TINCC really start there?
Speaker 2: Well that was in seventy two, so that was when
Speaker 2: we released our first single, Donno in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: So I met Kevin and Lowell and Eric. I met
Speaker 2: because I, my manager at the time, had an office
Speaker 2: at an agency in Manchester called Kennedy Street Enterprises and
Speaker 2: I met Eric. Then we became friends. He was with
Speaker 2: Wayne Fontana and the mind Benders that eventually became the
Speaker 2: mind Benders after Wayne left and I joined the mind
Speaker 2: Benders for a very short period right before their demise,
Speaker 2: but Eric and I sort of hit it off became
Speaker 2: you know, friends and call it the music colleagues. And
Speaker 2: don't quite remember how Kevin and Loll and myself and
Speaker 2: Eric all came together. I knew how I met Eric,
Speaker 2: but not surely quite sure how Eric and sorry, Loll
Speaker 2: and Kevin joined us. However we did. Eric had started
Speaker 2: a recording studio with a guy called Peter Tattersall and
Speaker 2: was looking for investment, which so I invested in it
Speaker 2: became a partner, and that became Strawberry Studios, and that's
Speaker 2: really what became the home of what would become TENSEC
Speaker 2: because at the time, before we were the ten c
Speaker 2: C or called ourselves TENCC, we worked as a kind
Speaker 2: of like session band, you know, like the house band,
Speaker 2: so people are coming and record stuff and we'd be
Speaker 2: the sort of backing musicians. Then we did two albums
Speaker 2: with Nil Sa Darka, and that one of them was
Speaker 2: actually just prior to us being becoming TENSEC and one
Speaker 2: was just after. So we were doing all sorts of work.
Speaker 2: So working with him was great. I mean, we were
Speaker 2: making football records. We do anything because we enjoyed it,
Speaker 2: you know, it didn't matter that it wasn't necessarily our
Speaker 2: taste musically, but it was just a joy to do it.
Speaker 1: So those sixties, in the seventies, early seventies years, they're intriguing,
Speaker 1: like the glamour of being a rock star, the clothing,
Speaker 1: the heir, the lifestyle. You strike me as a much
Speaker 1: more conservative person than Yeah, but what we were like
Speaker 1: in those days, we were.
Speaker 2: We were never rock stars. We were musicians, you know.
Speaker 2: We we weren't remember that we were born in the studio,
Speaker 2: not on the road, so we had our own studio.
Speaker 2: This made a massive difference. I think that we weren't
Speaker 2: used to a sort of you know, sex and drugs
Speaker 2: and rock and roll lifestyle on the road. So when
Speaker 2: we first went out playing gigs, we were like cutting,
Speaker 2: kind of like shocked at the that there were screaming
Speaker 2: girls and things. But really, you know, let me put
Speaker 2: it this way. We had our moments, but I don't
Speaker 2: go into but we were never We never threw a
Speaker 2: television out of a window.
Speaker 1: Disappointing, Sorry about that. Did you meet the Beatles in
Speaker 1: those days?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we actually some of them. Well, I worked
Speaker 2: with Ringo Star with the Bring I saw on the
Speaker 2: All Star Band, which was brilliant. I did two tours
Speaker 2: with him and would have done more if not for
Speaker 2: my tend C C commitments. I think it was in nine.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what year it was. It was early seventies,
Speaker 2: but Paul McCartney's brother, Mike mcghear, who actually saw a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, recorded an album at the studio and
Speaker 2: Paul produced it, so he was coming in. I think
Speaker 2: it was seventy four seventy three. We were making the
Speaker 2: sheet Music album, so we were recording during the day
Speaker 2: and then late afternoon Paul would come in with Mike
Speaker 2: and they and his musicians and they carry on recording.
Speaker 2: So the actual studio was absolutely crammed with equipment and
Speaker 2: it was but it was brilliant that you know, Paul
Speaker 2: was around and we used to hang out with him
Speaker 2: a bit and that was great.
Speaker 1: Didn't realize he had a brother actually that he was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's he's a step brother. Do you know the Scaffold?
Speaker 2: Have you heard of the Scuffle? There are Liverpool trio
Speaker 2: poets and they had quite a few big hits. Literally
Speaker 2: the Pink is one of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've heard of that.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So that's Mike, Yeah, lovely.
Speaker 1: Guy Graham Goodman is my guest with ten CC. They'll
Speaker 1: be here in Adelaide Saturday, August the second, Adelaide Entertainment Center.
Speaker 1: More to come after the break. Graham Gordman is my
Speaker 1: guest on conversations, an original member of ten CC. The
Speaker 1: band is back together and they're touring Australia. They'll be
Speaker 1: here in Adelaide on the August the second. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you move out of the studio onto the road. How
Speaker 1: did you adapt to that lifestyle and how and when
Speaker 1: did the big hits start to come.
Speaker 2: Well, we'd already had when we went on the road.
Speaker 2: We'd already had Donno was a hit, and I think
Speaker 2: Wall Street Shuffle as well. So and also we had
Speaker 2: two albums out, so we had quite a lot of material.
Speaker 2: So Eric had already been in a band that had
Speaker 2: been on the road forever, and I'd been in more
Speaker 2: not as much with the bands that i'd been and
Speaker 2: I was more of a semi up to that point
Speaker 2: and have been semi professional as a musician, and Kevin
Speaker 2: along not at all. But we adapted to it really quickly.
Speaker 2: We enjoyed playing. It was a lot of fun, it
Speaker 2: was creative, it was something we all wanted to do
Speaker 2: so that was why I was so good. We really
Speaker 2: loved it.
Speaker 1: I sent you got a little bit annoyed with me
Speaker 1: when I tried to categorize your music when I said, soft,
Speaker 1: I do want to read this quote. They didn't rely
Speaker 1: on any mede your celebrity status, but on the art of
Speaker 1: making highly sophisticated rock master works. In the sequy Poppets.
Speaker 1: The result was some of the greatest pop records of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Big accolades. It's a big accolade. Yeah, that's lovely, Yes,
Speaker 2: thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Did you think you were highly sophisticated.
Speaker 2: I thought we were more sophisticated than a lot of
Speaker 2: our peers. But there were other bands that were as sophisticated,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean when I think of our contemporaries,
Speaker 2: I think of like People band, although we're quite different,
Speaker 2: but sort of our aims are the same. Was Queen
Speaker 2: because of their musicianship productions. I think lyrically, we were
Speaker 2: on our own note. I don't know. We were just
Speaker 2: very very we We were different, you know, we had
Speaker 2: Our music has been so diverse, you know, it's hard to.
Speaker 1: It is dread like Holiday is so different too. I'm
Speaker 1: not in love for instance.
Speaker 2: Correct, there you go. And also there's another difference, actually
Speaker 2: a big difference between us and Queen, I should say,
Speaker 2: is that whoever got the did the job best got
Speaker 2: the job. That's why we had three different singers on
Speaker 2: three different number one records, where it would always be
Speaker 2: generally and I know that Queen did have other had
Speaker 2: Roger and the Brian sung as well, but it was
Speaker 2: generally Freddy's voice that was the recognizable one, and Brian's
Speaker 2: guitar was instantly recognizable, whereas with us we would have
Speaker 2: different people playing guitar or particularly in the singing. There
Speaker 2: was more to do with the lead vocals where we
Speaker 2: had we mixed it up a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you play bass in the current.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I played some guitar as well. I'm a guitarist,
Speaker 2: but I play bass as well. I love the bass.
Speaker 1: How do you play bass and sing at the same time.
Speaker 1: That's always intrigued me.
Speaker 2: I don't know, how do you do that? I don't know,
Speaker 2: you just do it. It's one of those things because
Speaker 2: people say, how do you write a song? You know,
Speaker 2: it's like it's a gift, you know, it's not clever, really,
Speaker 2: I mean, there are you have to be clever about.
Speaker 2: You can think about arrangements and instrumentation, but it's still
Speaker 2: always it's just instinctive. Really, I mean, you know when
Speaker 2: to not repeat that bit and I want to hear
Speaker 2: something new now, and then I want to hear that
Speaker 2: bit again. And why we have that, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's to do with at a very early
Speaker 2: age having an interest in music and just absorbing all
Speaker 2: different types of music, whether it's sort of classical jazz
Speaker 2: or rock or heavy metal or swing or whatever whatever
Speaker 2: it happens to be.
Speaker 1: Do you write music, Do you write, like.
Speaker 2: Physically write it.
Speaker 3: No, it's all done by Yeah, it's a gift though,
Speaker 3: you see you can't It's like you can't teach anybody
Speaker 3: to write a song.
Speaker 2: I see these, but how to write a hit song?
Speaker 2: The first thing I do is look at the author
Speaker 2: and see if he's written a hit song. And normally
Speaker 2: it's like a publisher or someone that's been around people
Speaker 2: that write hit songs.
Speaker 1: But well, you've had you've had had breaks over the
Speaker 1: years from the band. What did you go off and
Speaker 1: do when you had a break.
Speaker 2: During the nineties, I was not playing so much. I
Speaker 2: was always involved in music, so it was either producing
Speaker 2: or writing songs with other for other people. But then
Speaker 2: towards the end of the end of the nineties into
Speaker 2: the beginning of the two thousands, I got itchy and
Speaker 2: started going on the road again, but not as ten CC,
Speaker 2: but as a a kind of a semi acoustic show,
Speaker 2: which I actually still do as well as ten CC.
Speaker 2: I have something called Heartful of Songs, which is myself
Speaker 2: and three other musicians where I played songs from my
Speaker 2: complete catalog, not just TENCC songs.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's you can access it on YouTube if you
Speaker 1: just google. Yeah, a Heartful of Songs, and it's true
Speaker 1: to me. They're just just sitting there playing. Tell us
Speaker 1: the story about Robert Plant, lead singer of Zright. Can
Speaker 1: you share that story with us?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I met him at a festival in he wasn't
Speaker 2: he wasn't performing, but he was at the festival and
Speaker 2: a mutual friend of ours introduced us and he said,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you because when I auditioned for
Speaker 2: led Zeppelin, I sang for Your Love, which which was
Speaker 2: great to be I think you might be a part
Speaker 2: of one of the greatest rock bands in history.
Speaker 1: You're singing regularly when you're on tour. How do you
Speaker 1: look after your voice? What is there?
Speaker 2: I just try and look after myself generally, get enough sleep.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't when a gig finishes, we're all
Speaker 2: going straight back to the hotel and that's it. But
Speaker 2: there's no going to clubs or anything like that. I
Speaker 2: definitely wouldn't want to do that. Just try and get
Speaker 2: a good night's sleep, rest up, look after yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: keep yourself in in good condition. And it's the knowing
Speaker 2: that you've got to show up and be on every
Speaker 2: night or however many nights you're doing, and you've got
Speaker 2: to be one hundred percent. So that's that's the sort
Speaker 2: of driving force that makes you aware of you know
Speaker 2: that you have to look after yourself.
Speaker 1: The dynamics of bands and band members, there's always intrigue me.
Speaker 1: The tensions within the friendships, the breakups. Yeah, here some
Speaker 1: thoughts on there, some of your experiences in there.
Speaker 2: I think what happens is when you I mean, Tennessee
Speaker 2: is not a bad example of that, where we had
Speaker 2: four really amazing creative minds came together. Two of the boys,
Speaker 2: Kevin and Lowell, actually got fed up with the constant
Speaker 2: what became the constant cycle of writing, recording, rehearsing, going
Speaker 2: on the road. Then they are the record company. What
Speaker 2: another album, and the same thing happens again, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't fun for them anymore, and that's why they left.
Speaker 2: They were also developing something called the gizmo or the gismotron,
Speaker 2: which was an attachment that you put on a guitar
Speaker 2: that makes the strings of the guitar vibreak and sort
Speaker 2: of play constantly like a bell on a violin. And
Speaker 2: they started making an album that featured this contraption and
Speaker 2: it turned into a three album set and we kept saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we've got to go back on the road
Speaker 2: and we're going to start writing for the next album.
Speaker 2: They said, no, we want to do this now. And
Speaker 2: that was it. And it was like it was like
Speaker 2: a marriage in that, you know, like a divorce where
Speaker 2: both people on both sides wanted to try and keep
Speaker 2: us together. And I regret the fact that Kevin and
Speaker 2: Law left the band in nineteen seventy six. It was
Speaker 2: and Eric and I carried on to other and had
Speaker 2: a lot of success, but it wasn't quite the same
Speaker 2: because we had fifty percent of our team had gone.
Speaker 1: Did you ever catch up afterwards subsequently?
Speaker 2: Well, Kevin and I have kept in touch for all
Speaker 2: the time. We've done various projects together, and in fact,
Speaker 2: a few months ago we did we appeared together on
Speaker 2: a program called The Piano Room, which is on radio
Speaker 2: to BBC Radio two, and we played and sung together.
Speaker 2: We did I'm Not in Love, We did a new song,
Speaker 2: we did a cover version, and we've just carried out.
Speaker 2: Actually we're still doing stuff together because we enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Ringo star touring touring with us. You said
Speaker 1: that that was one of the most enjoyable things you've
Speaker 1: ever ever done. He's a lower profile of the Beatles.
Speaker 2: Tell us about Ringo Okay, Well, he might be of
Speaker 2: a lower profile, but he's undoubtedly one of the world's
Speaker 2: most influential drummers. I mean, his drumming style is amazing.
Speaker 2: I mean when you I mean, do you think of
Speaker 2: the contribution those drum parts added to the you know,
Speaker 2: the brilliant songs of Jonan and Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
Speaker 2: It was integral. So it's very important even just for that.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't quite get over the fact that I
Speaker 2: was playing with a beatle and in fact the album
Speaker 2: before last was an album called Modesty Forbids. The opening
Speaker 2: track is called standing next to Me, and it's about
Speaker 2: my time with Ringo and the All Star Band, and
Speaker 2: it just tells I just couldn't get over it. You know,
Speaker 2: I'd be playing away and when he came to the
Speaker 2: front of the stage, he'd be standing to my right
Speaker 2: and I'd be playing away and looking around and then god,
Speaker 2: it's ring Hoost. But he was lovely. It's very generous,
Speaker 2: very generous guy, very passionate about his music, does not
Speaker 2: suffer fools easily. Always wanted to play. I think there
Speaker 2: was one night there was one of the gigs there
Speaker 2: was a problem with the roof and they wanted to
Speaker 2: move the venue and some people were going, oh no,
Speaker 2: it's too going to be too small, and Ringo said,
Speaker 2: we're going to play. That's what we're here for. Who cares.
Speaker 2: We'll cut down the equipment. And I love that attitude.
Speaker 2: I'm right with him there on that. You know, we
Speaker 2: just we can manage with We don't have to have everything.
Speaker 2: You know, we're playing the songs and we'll go on
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: So when you're playing the same This leads on from
Speaker 1: that observation. When you're playing the same songs every night,
Speaker 1: how do you maintain your enthusiasm? You resist.
Speaker 2: I imagine myself in the audience and I'm hearing it
Speaker 2: for the first time. That's why I think, I think
Speaker 2: I've got what I've got a just give our All
Speaker 2: you have to do is do your best every night.
Speaker 2: That's the simple keep just keep that in mind. And
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how many people are there either. You know,
Speaker 2: people have paid for a ticket, so you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: there's like a thousand people or ten thousand people, It
Speaker 2: doesn't make any difference.
Speaker 1: Do you have a trick for maintaining your vocal cords?
Speaker 1: I know a guy's a singer in a band.
Speaker 2: Not really just by by trying to keep singing something
Speaker 2: that I'm I need to do actually, but there's a
Speaker 2: lot of muscle memory involved and trying to sing at home,
Speaker 2: I find out I can't sort of let myself go
Speaker 2: as much. But once you're on stage you can. You
Speaker 2: can do it.
Speaker 1: You've got a favorite song?
Speaker 2: Not really, you know, I love doing them all. They're great,
Speaker 2: you know, I there's no there's no song I go,
Speaker 2: oh god, I'm doing this again. But I mean, I
Speaker 2: gover knows how many times we've done. I'm not in
Speaker 2: lover or dad lot, but I don't think about it.
Speaker 2: But you know what the main thing is, when you're
Speaker 2: playing a song and you see the smile on people's
Speaker 2: faces and how you think you're it's a privilege to
Speaker 2: be able to sort of bring that much sort of
Speaker 2: joy to people. I mean sometimes people come up and say,
Speaker 2: you played that song and it had me in tears,
Speaker 2: And I think that's fantastic to move someone so much,
Speaker 2: and I hope in a good way. Maybe it's a
Speaker 2: memory of something or a relationship or somebody who knows,
Speaker 2: but yeah, just to be able to move people in
Speaker 2: a in a good positive way. But it's when they
Speaker 2: sort of smiling and having the you know, like we
Speaker 2: get lost in the music, they get lost in the
Speaker 2: the audience gets lost in the music as well.
Speaker 1: Graham, thanks so much for your time. I've enjoyed it immensely.
Speaker 2: Very good. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Sam here, welcome to LA When you get here, and
Speaker 1: I'll give you the final Primo here TENCC, You're bringing
Speaker 1: the Ultimate Ultimate. That's not a typo, the ltimate my
Speaker 1: Greatest Hits tour to Australia. We'll be here in Adelaide
Speaker 1: at the Adelaide Entertainment Center on Saturday August the two
Speaker 1: Graham Goldman, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: My pleasure. Nice talking to you, Graham. Cheers.
Speaker 1: Thanks folks for joining us