Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest tonight is the one and only Peter Nude,
Speaker 1: a k A. Hermit of Hermit's Hermits. Peter, so great
Speaker 1: to have you. It's great. It's great to be hit Bobby.
Speaker 1: I listened to your podcasts, and as you know, I've
Speaker 1: been reading your left Sets letter for as long as
Speaker 1: it's been out like a fan. Okay, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for being a fan, and I'm certainly a fan of
Speaker 1: you and your work. But we're here in Hollywood at
Speaker 1: the studio. You dropped your wife off at L a X.
Speaker 1: You live in Santa Barbara. Yeah, I live in Santa
Speaker 1: Barbara and I my wife and daughter are going. My
Speaker 1: wife's family have a house in the south of France
Speaker 1: and they like to go via Dublin, so they've dropped
Speaker 1: him off at L a X. They flying to Dublin
Speaker 1: and and to Nice and I'll join them in about
Speaker 1: two weeks now. One of the reasons I asked this
Speaker 1: is you got married when you were twenty what twenty
Speaker 1: one birthday, and you have been married to the same
Speaker 1: woman for fifty years exactly. We had our fiftieth wedding anniversary,
Speaker 1: and the only person who showed up actually Mickey Moost's
Speaker 1: wife and and Mickey mostly was my producer. His wife
Speaker 1: and Tom Jones were the only people that we knew
Speaker 1: that is still around from our wedding. Okay, so we
Speaker 1: all know what being a rock stars like you were
Speaker 1: as famous as anybody in the world. How did you
Speaker 1: find this particular woman to marry? Um? It was very
Speaker 1: it was. It was a strange one. I went to
Speaker 1: the Bag of Nails to see Jimi Hendrix, who was
Speaker 1: like newly in town. I think Eric Burdon had mentioned him.
Speaker 1: And I went to the Bag of Nails and there
Speaker 1: was a girl there and she was with another with
Speaker 1: her sister, and they were speaking Hebrew and obviously I
Speaker 1: can't we can wrote of Hebrew, and they were speaking Hebrew,
Speaker 1: so that I because I could speak French, and they
Speaker 1: were French, having spent some time in Israel. And the
Speaker 1: guy who was with them said, would you dance with
Speaker 1: my sister? And were they were aware of who you were? No,
Speaker 1: absolutely no idea and the kid would snicks you know
Speaker 1: then nothing about me, And of course they knew who
Speaker 1: Johnny Halliday was, but there were no other people in
Speaker 1: their lives musically, and we we met and we spoke
Speaker 1: a little. I had schoolboy French, you know, like a
Speaker 1: pretty good schoolboy French. And you know, we actually gave
Speaker 1: me her phone number and it was Ambassador double two
Speaker 1: six and I kept it on a card and I
Speaker 1: went away. And five months later I was in Hyde Park,
Speaker 1: which is a big park. It's like walking in Central Park.
Speaker 1: And I saw my future wife's sister and I walked
Speaker 1: over at said, who where's your sister? And she said,
Speaker 1: she's back in England. She's staying my mother's place on
Speaker 1: Cleveland Square. That's the Ambassador double two sixties. I said, great,
Speaker 1: So I called her and she had no intent, no
Speaker 1: intention I have ever seen me again. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: she had a dentist appointment the next day and a
Speaker 1: headdressed as performance. So eventually we went out to dinner
Speaker 1: with other friends. Um, and you know, she found out
Speaker 1: I was the real real thing. Then another time, then
Speaker 1: we separate again. I went on an American tour and
Speaker 1: we she saw me singing on the television on Top
Speaker 1: of the Pops and her sister said, look that's the
Speaker 1: guy that we that you danced with that night. It
Speaker 1: keeps calling, and you went out to dinner with Francois,
Speaker 1: and all those people actually goes, oh my goodness, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. And she makes a joke. He said
Speaker 1: he used to draw pictures of beds and wardrobes and things,
Speaker 1: and I thought he was a furniture senter, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, I never learned Hebrew, but my French
Speaker 1: got much much better. I only learned French because I
Speaker 1: had a good you know, you're always good at the
Speaker 1: things you have a good teacher. I had a great teacher,
Speaker 1: father Murray. And and I I went to I was
Speaker 1: I went to the evenings. I went to the Manchester
Speaker 1: School of Music because my dad thought I was. I
Speaker 1: needed to be a musician, knowledgeable musician. And there was
Speaker 1: a library nearby, the Manchester Library, and on the second
Speaker 1: floors where I would go to do my homework because
Speaker 1: it was very quiet, and there was there was the
Speaker 1: art department. And there was a picture in one of
Speaker 1: the books of Bridgie bard Do. And I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: going to learn French so bad that I can walk
Speaker 1: up to Bridgitte bard Do one day and and and
Speaker 1: pick her up. You know, that kind of school boy,
Speaker 1: and of course it wasn't Bridgie, but it was someone
Speaker 1: even better, which is my wife Mary, much much better. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you meet her the second time, then she goes
Speaker 1: back to France. How does it ultimately okay, well, how
Speaker 1: how it gets going is I come back to England
Speaker 1: and I say no, no, no, no no, excuse me. She
Speaker 1: moves to Spain. Her mother has a house in the
Speaker 1: Ibis in the Baliaric Islands, and I decide to rent
Speaker 1: the place next door, which was pretty cool. And I
Speaker 1: moved into the place next door, and her mother really
Speaker 1: likes me, and I end up spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking to the mother, who's very interesting, not the
Speaker 1: lots of Second World War intrigue and dead husband's from
Speaker 1: the Holocaust and the great, great interesting stuff for me.
Speaker 1: So uh, we make this friendship. And one day we're
Speaker 1: sitting on the balcony of this little apartment of mine
Speaker 1: and we hear this voice Peter Noon, Peter Noon, because
Speaker 1: there are no phones or there are no communication this that,
Speaker 1: and and I got, yeah, I'm Peter Noon, what what
Speaker 1: is it? And he goes, I'm from the British Consulate
Speaker 1: and you need to come back to England immediately, and
Speaker 1: I got what. I think, something's happened to mynd So
Speaker 1: I come come downstairs. I go, what's going on? He goes,
Speaker 1: your record is in the charts. It's sunshine girl. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know it was out and I needed to
Speaker 1: be Everyone was looking for me to go on top
Speaker 1: of the pops on the Thursday. So, you know, it
Speaker 1: was easy in those days. You've got to the airport,
Speaker 1: you buy a ticket and you there's no tar, say
Speaker 1: there was nothing. You just went, oh, okay, I'll be
Speaker 1: back in two days. I went to England, did to
Speaker 1: the posts, went back to there, and then I said,
Speaker 1: I got to go to New York. My my manager,
Speaker 1: Charlie Silverman, is getting married in New York and my
Speaker 1: future wife's and I don't do planes, so I go,
Speaker 1: you don't do planes. Uh, So we had to take
Speaker 1: a ship. We took the America. I think we've called
Speaker 1: the United States the fastest ship on the ocean, and
Speaker 1: it was the worst crossing. Even the captain was sick,
Speaker 1: you know, And that was she took planes ever since then.
Speaker 1: So we went to New York, married, we went to
Speaker 1: the wedding, and then we set off and went to Mexico.
Speaker 1: And Porto Rico, and we did that show business stuff
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, let's get how about we
Speaker 1: get married? And she goes on, I'm not sure. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, you should see me on stage, but you
Speaker 1: see who I who who who I'm being some of
Speaker 1: the time. You may may not like that character. So
Speaker 1: we go to vis Baden and we're playing an American
Speaker 1: airport base in vis Baden, and she saw the show
Speaker 1: and she still wanted to get She said, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be fun to be married. You you'd be fun.
Speaker 1: You're a gentleman. And we got married. So how long
Speaker 1: did you know her before you got married? Well, I
Speaker 1: think September to November. I mean we I've I've finally
Speaker 1: got to spend a night with her in September sixty
Speaker 1: eight and we got married in November sixty eight. So
Speaker 1: when did you that I first met her in April
Speaker 1: six I think. Okay, so April to November. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just that fast. It was. It was really love
Speaker 1: at first. My pot everybody gets divorced. What's the secret
Speaker 1: to staying together? My wife has a very good sense
Speaker 1: of humor. You know, it's you know, it's really She
Speaker 1: still likes me quite a lot. You know, I am
Speaker 1: I'm amusing and I make fun of him self deprecating,
Speaker 1: which is good. You know, I say, watch out, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be naked and second stretch the lights often.
Speaker 1: You know, she likes all that kind of stuff. She's
Speaker 1: got a very good sense of humor. And she's from
Speaker 1: you know, she's from a dysfunctional type of Emily and
Speaker 1: I am as well. So we know that the family
Speaker 1: is the most important thing. So we know that keeping
Speaker 1: the family together is the most important part of the world,
Speaker 1: of the whole thing that we've got. Now, one would assume,
Speaker 1: being a young man on the road top of the charts,
Speaker 1: that you would partake as some of the things that
Speaker 1: were going on on the road. Would that be accurate
Speaker 1: before I got married? Oh yeah, so twenty one is young.
Speaker 1: But you just saw her and you said this is
Speaker 1: the one. Yeah, you know, I think I probably, um,
Speaker 1: I probably was looking for you know once somebody, I
Speaker 1: think Saul McCartney said, you know, you can you can
Speaker 1: have a full on life in show business. You can
Speaker 1: make show business your life, but you may want to
Speaker 1: take some time and have a life at the same
Speaker 1: time as being in show businesses, and I was really
Speaker 1: I thought, because of the nature of my childhood kind of,
Speaker 1: I thought it would be really important to concentrate on life.
Speaker 1: My parents, um, we're very busy when I was young,
Speaker 1: so we which made me into me, you know, because
Speaker 1: they were always gone. So I became very independent, and
Speaker 1: I thought I would like to have some settling thing.
Speaker 1: Some part of me needed to be settled. That's why
Speaker 1: I live in Santa Barbara. I live on a golf course.
Speaker 1: I've never played golf in my life, and I live
Speaker 1: on a golf course because it's a settled place, you know,
Speaker 1: it's my Okay. So you're growing up in Manchester, right
Speaker 1: in Manchester, yes, suburbs of Ventures Destruction, and I've been
Speaker 1: there a few times with some people. So in any event,
Speaker 1: your father does work for a living. My father was
Speaker 1: a trombone player who became an accountant and he was
Speaker 1: in the Royal Air Force. And part of my story
Speaker 1: is my father was in the Second World War and
Speaker 1: my mother was sent away to some village during the
Speaker 1: Second World War and they got married. I think my
Speaker 1: mother got married on her sixteenth birthday and my sister
Speaker 1: was born five months later, and then in the fifties,
Speaker 1: all those people who had been messed up with the war,
Speaker 1: I messed up, I can't think of it would but
Speaker 1: transported away from their lives. They both went back to university.
Speaker 1: My mother went to Cambridge and my father went to Edinburgh.
Speaker 1: And this was after they were married. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was after I know I was six or seven. Okay,
Speaker 1: those those places are physically apart. But you went to
Speaker 1: the university of that, remember, you earned it, didn't You
Speaker 1: couldn't buy your way into a university. They chose which
Speaker 1: one you were good enough? Okay, so, but but they
Speaker 1: were ultimately separated absolutely. Who was taking care of the
Speaker 1: kids grandmothers. We lived my sister and I lived with
Speaker 1: my grandmother and that was for how long three three
Speaker 1: or four years. My mother got out a year earlier.
Speaker 1: But so, but the marriage sustained even though they were
Speaker 1: the mary sustain Yeah, they were married until they died. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were married till death to his part. It's a
Speaker 1: family kind of tradition, I think maybe in my family.
Speaker 1: But but m because they were separated and they lived apart,
Speaker 1: that made me want to be sort of more settled somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, And I know this is like a psychiatry.
Speaker 1: Think here we got going up. But then I I
Speaker 1: needed to be settled, and um, I found a woman
Speaker 1: who liked that kind of thing, you know, from the
Speaker 1: kibbutz to beats to a country and country place in
Speaker 1: England to Santa Barbara. Means we've always been very connected, okay,
Speaker 1: and then you didn't have a child to like, after
Speaker 1: fifteen years you have been married, correct, maybe more than that.
Speaker 1: My daughter's thirty one, so maybe twenty nine years after
Speaker 1: we met. After we've got married. Now I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't do the maths. And so why did you
Speaker 1: wait so long? We didn't. We were very happy not
Speaker 1: to have children, and then I think my wife decided
Speaker 1: that it would be really now we were pretty well
Speaker 1: organized once once we moved. We lived in France for
Speaker 1: a bit and it was a bit dysfunctional, and then
Speaker 1: then we moved to America and we found Santa Barbara
Speaker 1: and we go, this is probably this is probably a
Speaker 1: good time for us. We could have children and it
Speaker 1: would we could make it work as an airport. I
Speaker 1: could go to work and we could do you know.
Speaker 1: And I was going through a lot of changes in
Speaker 1: myself so it was really good for me what you
Speaker 1: were going through. I became ambitious. I had not been
Speaker 1: ambitious for a long time. But you know what caused
Speaker 1: you to be ambitious. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed
Speaker 1: show business, you know, and hanging out with musicians. I
Speaker 1: spent too much time with actors and things like that.
Speaker 1: Who are okay? So after your hey day, were you
Speaker 1: left with anybody? Not really? But but I never did
Speaker 1: it for money, so it never really counted. You know.
Speaker 1: I had enough money to buy a house, you know,
Speaker 1: And think part of part of the thing that happened
Speaker 1: to me was my my parents were very successful in
Speaker 1: a business, and they didn't desert us, but they gave
Speaker 1: me a massive amount of freedom. And then they their
Speaker 1: business failed and I ended up taking care of them,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the money that I made I
Speaker 1: spent on them. I bought them a house, and I
Speaker 1: bought them a hotel, and I bought you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got a couple of alcoholic parents, it's probably not
Speaker 1: a good idea to buy them a pub. But I
Speaker 1: did that, and so so that I didn't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of money, although I had probably earned a
Speaker 1: lot of mon money. But the question did you become
Speaker 1: ambitious because your fine answers were low? No? No, I
Speaker 1: was ambitious because I I thought I went to France
Speaker 1: and I had kind of retired. I think I was
Speaker 1: maybe twenty five, and i'd kind of retired, and I
Speaker 1: was making enough money that I could. I didn't really
Speaker 1: need to make a lot of money to live a
Speaker 1: nice style. And a friend of mine he was he
Speaker 1: was making he was the director of the midnight special
Speaker 1: and he came to stay in our house in France.
Speaker 1: Stan Harris's name was and I had a hit records
Speaker 1: in France and in a big hit record, And he goes,
Speaker 1: what are you? What are you doing here? How well
Speaker 1: it is it? Look it's easy. I can make a
Speaker 1: record and I can put it out and I can
Speaker 1: make it. You know, it's a it's you've got to
Speaker 1: come back to America, come back to America. I said,
Speaker 1: I can't afford to come back to America, can't keep this.
Speaker 1: And he says, well, you can stay in my house.
Speaker 1: I have a house in Beverly Hills. You can live
Speaker 1: in my house until you So we couldn't resist the
Speaker 1: opportunity to come and stay in his house. In Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills and Hanger, and within three days of staying there,
Speaker 1: we found a little apartment on Oak Coast, you know,
Speaker 1: in Beverly Hills. We moved into a farm. We had
Speaker 1: no furniture. We went Robert Rentals or something and rented
Speaker 1: all this stuff and we we seally should come here
Speaker 1: six weeks at a time. I could only come six
Speaker 1: weeks at a time my visa, and and every time
Speaker 1: I got a job, I would have to get a
Speaker 1: visa again. So we're going backwards and forwards and packtorism forwards.
Speaker 1: And then one day we I started a band. I
Speaker 1: started a little band called the Tremble. As I got
Speaker 1: more and more, you know, I got i'd listened to
Speaker 1: the radio and saying, you know I could, I bet
Speaker 1: I could make a record. I could like it would
Speaker 1: be like Herman's Hermits Part two, you know where where
Speaker 1: if Herman's Hermits had stayed together, where what kind of
Speaker 1: music would we be doing now? And I became ambitious.
Speaker 1: And during that period of trying to put a band together,
Speaker 1: I got a job in Pirates of Penzance, just the
Speaker 1: touring company, and I think I was really good in it.
Speaker 1: And so then I did the tour and then I
Speaker 1: did a year on Broadway. Then they asked me to
Speaker 1: do the London West End one for a year, so
Speaker 1: I did that one. Then I went to New Zealand
Speaker 1: and I found out like four years of full on work.
Speaker 1: You know, I had insurance, I had Social Security payments,
Speaker 1: and I thought, this is like a real gig my foot,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's from from the big from Herman's
Speaker 1: hermits when I was the sort of money per person
Speaker 1: which was ridiculous, you know, the youngest person in the band,
Speaker 1: because we've got four pounds ten, we've got to pay
Speaker 1: the petrol and there's only enough for us to get
Speaker 1: chips without fish. You know. I was not the greatest
Speaker 1: manager of money to being somebody taking care of it.
Speaker 1: I said, this is great. It's having a gig and
Speaker 1: a regular gig. And I became more and more ambitious,
Speaker 1: and people started to say the reason I got back
Speaker 1: into being Herman again was there was a club in Kitchen,
Speaker 1: Ontario called Lulu's and they would call me and they say,
Speaker 1: we want you to come and play LULUs And I said,
Speaker 1: first of all, I don't know who you think I am,
Speaker 1: but I'm not playing in a club called Lulu's, it
Speaker 1: sounded like. And he goes, well, you'd be very surprised
Speaker 1: if you come up here. We'll pay you just to
Speaker 1: come up and have a look at it. And I go, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not interested. Just I can't see the words p
Speaker 1: noon and luluse in the same sentence. How about performing
Speaker 1: Arts center? You know that sort of nonsense. And eventually
Speaker 1: they said they call me and they said, look, we
Speaker 1: put a band together. They've learned all your songs. All
Speaker 1: you have to do is come up and show up
Speaker 1: sing your songs and we'll pay you X dollars. And
Speaker 1: I will, Oh, that's more money than I've made in
Speaker 1: the last forty years or a long time since I've
Speaker 1: made this kind of money. So I go up there
Speaker 1: and I do a rehearsal with the band, and they're
Speaker 1: really nice guys. They're called on the air, and this
Speaker 1: kind of all strange luck things happened to me. I'm
Speaker 1: in the guitar soul of I'm into something good. I speak,
Speaker 1: we begin I always opened, I'm into something good. It's
Speaker 1: just like a traditional thing with me. And in the
Speaker 1: guitar solo, I'm into something good. I get this thing
Speaker 1: like you are not Frederick, You're not even Peter Noon,
Speaker 1: You're this guy who sings I'm into something good. And
Speaker 1: it was such it was it overwhelmed me. It was
Speaker 1: like a I found out who I am in Lulu's
Speaker 1: and kitchen. Okay, two questions, what a what year was this?
Speaker 1: No idea? And second, what was Lulu's like it was?
Speaker 1: It was a five thousand standing room only X came
Speaker 1: on that had become a nightclub and it was massive.
Speaker 1: And of course I went back three weeks later and
Speaker 1: five weeks later inten it became a tradition. I was
Speaker 1: one of the guys who played it, you know. It
Speaker 1: was Del Shannon and and it was all the big
Speaker 1: oldies but goodies actually played up there. And I was
Speaker 1: home and I got this. I love this. I just
Speaker 1: loved and I really loved all my songs. I have
Speaker 1: a bit of a story and that I'm in my
Speaker 1: car in Santa Barbara at this time while I'm playing,
Speaker 1: while I'm practicing for Lulu's, and i have the window
Speaker 1: of my car open and I'm singing along to Herman's herm,
Speaker 1: It's Mrs Brown, You've got a lovely daughter. People are
Speaker 1: walking past, and I got, oh, my god, you're doing
Speaker 1: an impersonation of yourself and people can't see you and
Speaker 1: hear it, because you know, you didn't think of it.
Speaker 1: You know, you know your own song on the radio.
Speaker 1: So I don't know the year, but probably eighty four
Speaker 1: somewhere in there. Okay, let's go back to me and Chester.
Speaker 1: So what was the business your parents ultimately started. My
Speaker 1: mother was the CFO of a company called it's called
Speaker 1: Austin Walter's and it was they made neon signs and
Speaker 1: it was hugely successful. And my father had some history
Speaker 1: in Germany. He used to fly over there a lot
Speaker 1: at night, never spend the evening there, and so he
Speaker 1: could speak a bit of German. He'd been on a
Speaker 1: base there. And they decided to go in into another business,
Speaker 1: which was making sinks. They were in the neon business,
Speaker 1: fluorescent lighting business, and they decided that are going to
Speaker 1: use the same factory to make plastic sinks. And that failed,
Speaker 1: and that was a big, big failure and they lost.
Speaker 1: I remember they had a beautiful house in Manchester opposite
Speaker 1: a golf course and they couldn't pay the electricity bill.
Speaker 1: I mean, it went down big time. They financially. So
Speaker 1: now you're growing up and now, of course in England
Speaker 1: they call private schools public schools. What kind of school
Speaker 1: did you go to? I started off in a local
Speaker 1: primary school. Then I went to English Martyrs, which was
Speaker 1: a Catholic, full on Catholic school, because my grandparents thought
Speaker 1: that I'd do better if I went to a Catholic school.
Speaker 1: And from there there's there's a thing called the eleven
Speaker 1: plus and if you pass that, you get to choose
Speaker 1: which grammar school you go to. And I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Manchester Grammar School because that was
Speaker 1: a good school. But I failed the test to get there,
Speaker 1: I think the actual personality test I failed, not the
Speaker 1: written test, and I ended up at my father's old school,
Speaker 1: which is St Bede's College, which was a full on
Speaker 1: you know, priests teaching young boys how to become men.
Speaker 1: And I did pretty good. Then I was pretty I
Speaker 1: was one of the smartest kids there. Then I got
Speaker 1: into some fights and stuff like that, and my father
Speaker 1: sent me to Stratford Grammar School. And I arrived at
Speaker 1: Stratford Grammar School and all the work that I've been
Speaker 1: doing at the St Bede's hadn't been done yet. I
Speaker 1: was at least two years ahead of everybody in the class.
Speaker 1: So I spent all my time dreaming about music, mostly music.
Speaker 1: Didn't have any dreams about being an actor or anything
Speaker 1: except music. I I wanted to meet Del Shannon, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to you know, I never had any idea
Speaker 1: of becoming a singer or I just how do I
Speaker 1: meet these people that's so interesting? And I'm one night
Speaker 1: I go to I'm very interested in music, and my
Speaker 1: mom my mother gets me a job as a disc jockey,
Speaker 1: and a disc jockey with a turntable. Let's say, all
Speaker 1: they've got at the club that I work at is
Speaker 1: a turntable, and you have to bring the records and
Speaker 1: you become the disc jockey based on the kind of
Speaker 1: music you play. So I'm playing only American music, and
Speaker 1: I'm but there's a lot of space between the songs
Speaker 1: and everything. But they're pay them in money, and I'm going,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm playing Dion and I'm playing all American
Speaker 1: records and somebody holing the crickets and one one that
Speaker 1: was always requested was at the hop by Daniel and
Speaker 1: the Juniors. And I'm a disc jockey, and I have
Speaker 1: lots and lots have a massive music collection because my
Speaker 1: parents are rich and and I'm able to buy lots
Speaker 1: of records, and I have nine jobs as well as
Speaker 1: my parents be enriched enriched. I sell programs at Old Trafford,
Speaker 1: which is Manchester United football grams. I sell the newspapers afterwards,
Speaker 1: and and I one night i'm walking, I go to
Speaker 1: a club too, because I had a lot of girls
Speaker 1: go to this club. Some girls that I know say
Speaker 1: they go to this club and I go there and
Speaker 1: this man walks up to me and he goes, you're
Speaker 1: Peter done. Yeah, And he said, look, our singer Malcolm
Speaker 1: Lightfoot hasn't shown up tonight and we need a singer.
Speaker 1: You probably know someone about the songs that we do.
Speaker 1: So I said, well what do you do? And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: we do the heartbeat by Body Holy them and then
Speaker 1: a lot of body Holly material because they called the
Speaker 1: heartbeats so they're they're like a body Holly. And then
Speaker 1: and they say we do this and they said they say,
Speaker 1: I know that I'll never dance again. Bobby Ryddell, I
Speaker 1: know that one. I know that one that said so
Speaker 1: I know all the songs and I get up on
Speaker 1: stage and what were you known as a singer? Okay,
Speaker 1: not not at all. I'm just known as a person
Speaker 1: who knows a lot about music from girls, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: he knows everything about music. That's what That's what that
Speaker 1: was the word that was about. And and I did.
Speaker 1: I knew a lot more than anybody else about music.
Speaker 1: And they say after that, I do a really good job.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm actually pretty good at that. I
Speaker 1: don't do any movements or anything like that. Malcolm Lightfoot
Speaker 1: maybe did some twisting or side and none of that.
Speaker 1: And this at the end of the show, they said,
Speaker 1: you know you would you like to join the band?
Speaker 1: And I go, yeah, okay, well what does that mean?
Speaker 1: And said, well, we've got a gig next week at
Speaker 1: the Ermston Football Club and we're getting paid four pounds
Speaker 1: and we split it five ways. And I go, well,
Speaker 1: that's great. That's just about what I'm making selling programs
Speaker 1: on the same night, so I can have two or
Speaker 1: three gigs that that. It's all about money at that point,
Speaker 1: and of course I get in the band and immediately
Speaker 1: my instinct is to take it over. Let's start for
Speaker 1: one second, you said earlier that your mother or father,
Speaker 1: your father was a trombone player, and he wanted you
Speaker 1: to have a music education, so you did study music
Speaker 1: when you were a kid. Yeah. I went to Manchester
Speaker 1: School of Music and most of it was just theory,
Speaker 1: you know, and I just waffled through it. That was
Speaker 1: what would happen? Would I be? I'd be in a
Speaker 1: in a in a in a classroom with people doing
Speaker 1: respigee and Old Delmo, Dolcedor and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That was kind of singing lessons. And I could see
Speaker 1: in the other room there were some other boys who
Speaker 1: had a guitar and then and I went into there
Speaker 1: one day and I said, White, what is what is it?
Speaker 1: Which class is this? He said, well, we've we've we've
Speaker 1: got a skiffle group. I go, oh what and they say, look,
Speaker 1: it's dead easy. I remember the guy saying, look, it's
Speaker 1: dead easy. If you could play a crank and you can,
Speaker 1: then you can play d and you could play every
Speaker 1: song that you know. It's like, wow, how great is that?
Speaker 1: That's more the music that I'd like to be in,
Speaker 1: the simple beautiful, you know. And they were doing Chuck
Speaker 1: Berry kind of songs. They were doing nice, simple, beautiful songs,
Speaker 1: and I go, that's it. So I became more and
Speaker 1: more fantasy of being I became fond of that kind
Speaker 1: of music as opposed to the music that my father
Speaker 1: wanted me to do, which would be theory and classical.
Speaker 1: And you know, he wanted me to play. He was
Speaker 1: a trombone player who wanted me to play the French
Speaker 1: horn or the corin play. That was his idea, and
Speaker 1: he never I never hate. Okay, let me ask you this, Okay,
Speaker 1: if your parents were well to do, why were you
Speaker 1: so entrepreneurial, I think you had to be. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people in my period there were entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: called hustling in America. You know, I like the word
Speaker 1: entrepreneur better, but I think my my father would have said,
Speaker 1: you just a hustler. You know, I would find, you know,
Speaker 1: the the job selling programs that old Trafford was. We
Speaker 1: would go and we'd sell programs before the game and
Speaker 1: at the end of the game when people came out,
Speaker 1: there was a newspaper which had the halftime results, and
Speaker 1: we would we had a van. We bought a van
Speaker 1: so that we could do this. And we were only fifteen.
Speaker 1: We couldn't drive it, so we needed to employ people
Speaker 1: to get us around so we could. So it was
Speaker 1: just everybody was in on it. All my friends at
Speaker 1: school were doing things. And when once I was in
Speaker 1: a band, everybody in that first band, the Heartbeats, had
Speaker 1: daytime jobs. It was I was the only one who
Speaker 1: was at school and there's no income from school, and
Speaker 1: everybody had to be you know, one was a bricklayer
Speaker 1: and one was I went on jobs with Alan Wrigley,
Speaker 1: the guy who got me in the band. He was
Speaker 1: We were window cleaners. All you needed to be a
Speaker 1: window cleaner was a ladder in a bucket and a
Speaker 1: chamois and that was it. We were making money and
Speaker 1: my parents would have paid me not to do the job.
Speaker 1: But it's just they were gone all the time. They
Speaker 1: were busy. And then how does it end with you
Speaker 1: in school? M h. I stopped going when I was fifted.
Speaker 1: As soon as I got into the music business, which
Speaker 1: I call the music business. My full time job became
Speaker 1: Pete Novak and the Heartbeats. Nothing else in the world
Speaker 1: meant anything to me. Nothing else that was that we're
Speaker 1: going to get on the radio. And we drove around
Speaker 1: in a van and we did hundreds. I mean I've
Speaker 1: sometimes look at the dates that we used to go
Speaker 1: and people kept records of it. We worked four nights
Speaker 1: a week. Every week. We do the lunchtime at the
Speaker 1: cavern and we do the evening in Blackburn. And we
Speaker 1: were really hustling for work. We would work anywhere that
Speaker 1: there would have us. And it turned it every day.
Speaker 1: It got better being in the music. Okay, it was
Speaker 1: their cartress decision to leave school or just stopped going.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was very busy at making making
Speaker 1: this band happen, and school I tried to leave school naturally.
Speaker 1: I went to the headmaster and I said, I've got
Speaker 1: a job. I remember, I've got a job at Carrington's,
Speaker 1: which was a as an article clerk. That was the
Speaker 1: job that I could get. I knew I could get
Speaker 1: the job, so I went and got the job. And
Speaker 1: I went to the school and said I've got a job.
Speaker 1: I want to leave school. And said, you can't leave school.
Speaker 1: The law says you can't leave school till you're sixteen.
Speaker 1: So I went, oh, and I just stopped going. I'd
Speaker 1: sometimes show up, but every day I'd go out with
Speaker 1: Alan Wrigley cleaning windows and selling newspapers. And Alan Chadwick
Speaker 1: had this job as a bricklayer, you know, carrying bricks around,
Speaker 1: and I just stopped going to school. You know, I
Speaker 1: knew everything that they were doing. Anyway, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: once there was there was a blackboard that turned around,
Speaker 1: and there was a there was a teacher call Goldwater,
Speaker 1: Mr Goldwater her and he was a really nice guy.
Speaker 1: And I feel bad when I tell the story, but
Speaker 1: I had written on the back of the the blackboard
Speaker 1: that he turned around, a U H two is a wanker.
Speaker 1: And we waited for the whole of the lesson. He
Speaker 1: kept kept rubbing it out because everybody knew that it
Speaker 1: was going to happen. And eventually, like in a movie,
Speaker 1: he turned it around and he turned around to the classroom.
Speaker 1: He said, noon, come and see me after the after
Speaker 1: the class, and everyone was like, he must recognize the
Speaker 1: handwriting or something, right, How did you know it was me?
Speaker 1: Why do you think it was me? I think so?
Speaker 1: Why do you think it was me? He said, You're
Speaker 1: the only one who has done chemistry. You didn't do
Speaker 1: it at this school. You know, they hadn't got up.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that nobody else in the class
Speaker 1: had done chemistry, so it was obvious. So I was
Speaker 1: a little bit smarter than everybody else. But I was
Speaker 1: also lazy, you know, because I would just make it work.
Speaker 1: I'd do my homework on the boss. So what did
Speaker 1: your parents say about this? They were really busy. My
Speaker 1: parents said it was it was kind of significant that
Speaker 1: many working class people on the up and up in
Speaker 1: England were really busy. But lots of my friends lived
Speaker 1: with their grandparents and ate with that. You know. I
Speaker 1: would go home from school and eat my grandmother's not
Speaker 1: and it was great living at my grandmother's because they
Speaker 1: were old and they were deaf. I mean they were
Speaker 1: probably in their fifties, but they were old and they
Speaker 1: were deaf, and they went to sleep at nine o'clock,
Speaker 1: so you could make as much noise as you want.
Speaker 1: You could have girls sleep downstairs and they would never know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just the perfect So your older
Speaker 1: sister and it was just the two of your Then
Speaker 1: what path did she follow? She got married when she
Speaker 1: was very young to a really nice guy and moved
Speaker 1: to Liverpool. They lived in Liverpool, and eventually my parents
Speaker 1: moved to the near them in Liverpool's part of my
Speaker 1: mystery thing is people in Liverpool think I'm from Liverpool
Speaker 1: because my parents lived there, but people in Manchester, no,
Speaker 1: I'm from Manchester, but say I'm from Liverpool. So it's
Speaker 1: just my accent is somewhere in between the two places.
Speaker 1: Maybe St Helen's okay, So you're out on the road.
Speaker 1: Is Pete Novak with with the band? At what point
Speaker 1: do the Beatles? Of course the Beatles were successful in
Speaker 1: UK law before they were successful in America. Well, well
Speaker 1: there were, they were underground successful for a long time.
Speaker 1: There were this band that I remember being with. My
Speaker 1: friends would say, you know, Shane Fenton and the Fentons,
Speaker 1: just like a happening band. But you know there's that
Speaker 1: Beatles thing going on. That's that's different. And what happened
Speaker 1: was that without me and Alan Wrigley, this bass player
Speaker 1: from the Heartbeats, we we here, we're rehearsing and we
Speaker 1: hear another band. You know, every kid in Reefed House
Speaker 1: had a guitar, you know that, every kid, And if
Speaker 1: they didn't have a guitar, they were playing music as
Speaker 1: loud as they possibly could on whatever piece of equipment
Speaker 1: they had. But we could hear this live guitar somewhere
Speaker 1: and it was August, and we actually walk across the field.
Speaker 1: It's called Abbotsford Park now, but it was then it
Speaker 1: was a field and we climb overheage and in another
Speaker 1: field and on stage the Beatles going one two one
Speaker 1: two tests, you know, so we stick around, we go
Speaker 1: that's the Beatles. Look, oh look, the drama's got a
Speaker 1: riser like he thinks he's someone really posh, you know.
Speaker 1: We you know, our bands do put in the and
Speaker 1: and the opening act is Brian Poole and the Tremelows,
Speaker 1: who were sensational. They're absolutely sensational. You did. Nobody can
Speaker 1: follow them. The Beatles come on and Alan Wrigley after
Speaker 1: during the first songs as to me, we're fucked. That's it.
Speaker 1: That was the end of it. That's it. He realized
Speaker 1: that he was net Any aspiration he ever had to
Speaker 1: be in the music business was just you know, he'd
Speaker 1: seen what the future was right there and it wasn't
Speaker 1: a little van driving around playing shadows and Buddy Holly songs.
Speaker 1: I was inspired. It was totally inspiration to be. I
Speaker 1: said that I don't want to challenge them I think
Speaker 1: I could have a version. You know, they're going to
Speaker 1: want to peep. Know, nobody's going to want to be
Speaker 1: like the Beatles, but we could be like something completely
Speaker 1: different than them, you know, as you know, every band
Speaker 1: had to be different in those days just to get
Speaker 1: a job. If you just showed up and did Beatles
Speaker 1: the same songs as the Beatles, they'd say, well, we'll
Speaker 1: have the Beatles instead of you. So we we grew
Speaker 1: from there. We we we started to do less of
Speaker 1: the It made us. It inspired us to get other
Speaker 1: songs from outside, so we do my Boy Lollipop, Mrs Brown,
Speaker 1: You've got a lovely daughter. We started to add different
Speaker 1: kind of material to the show so that people would
Speaker 1: think it was more more entertaining because one one thing
Speaker 1: that I remember vividly about the Beatles on stage at
Speaker 1: that show is August the six nine was they loved
Speaker 1: each other. You could see they just loved being in
Speaker 1: this thing, and they kept looking at each other and smiling,
Speaker 1: and they were inside jokes and it was so inspirational
Speaker 1: to me. Sat can you imagine these guys have got
Speaker 1: everything going from this before they were really writers. I
Speaker 1: think they weren't really songwriters. They were just this group
Speaker 1: of guys who really loved each other's energy and played
Speaker 1: off each other, and I got and that's probably what
Speaker 1: my dad had had in his Big Bend, you know
Speaker 1: that there was this sort of union and camaraderie amongst
Speaker 1: all the players, so that that was inspirational to me.
Speaker 1: And and luckily a couple of the people who ended
Speaker 1: up in Herman's Hermit much later had also seen that
Speaker 1: show and almost been inspired to like work a little
Speaker 1: bit harder on being not better but different. You know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're the business guy in the band and you're
Speaker 1: doing all these shows four nights a week. What's the
Speaker 1: next step? What it really was miraculous. We do we
Speaker 1: do all of my stories. I'm the luckiest guy in
Speaker 1: the world, you know when when people ask you and
Speaker 1: I'm the luckiest guy in the world. We play this
Speaker 1: gig like I think it was a bombs on Ferry
Speaker 1: Cross the Mersey. They would take the ship out whatever
Speaker 1: was the ferry at nighttime. They would take it three
Speaker 1: miles out to see where. Wait, so you're saying the
Speaker 1: song Ferry Across the Mersey is about an actual ferry,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing No, he's saying to the ferry,
Speaker 1: ferry across the Mersey, not very across the Mersey, ferry
Speaker 1: across the Mersey to the land. But I always but
Speaker 1: I thought it was hypothetical. I remember when with you,
Speaker 1: but there was some specific parties that he was singing about. No,
Speaker 1: he was singing, ferry across the Mersey to the place
Speaker 1: that I love. Because he's from Birkenhead, Oh, which is
Speaker 1: in Cheshire. It's not even in Livapool. Ferry cross the
Speaker 1: Mersey to the plant. So anyway, that's so, there is
Speaker 1: a ferry and you can rent it. I think you
Speaker 1: still probably can. But they've had a tunnel for fifty years.
Speaker 1: You don't need a ferry anymore. So so so we're
Speaker 1: on this ferry and my friends, people who I don't
Speaker 1: even know. My manager, Harvey Lisberg, is at dinner with
Speaker 1: his parents and this woman who's and he says, he's
Speaker 1: asked the question, Harvey Lisberg, He's asked the question, what
Speaker 1: do you want to do when you get your degree?
Speaker 1: Business degree? He said, you know, I think I'd like
Speaker 1: to be like Brian Epstein. I'd like to find a
Speaker 1: group and manage them and travel all around the world
Speaker 1: and make hundreds of millions of pounds. And she said
Speaker 1: and he and she says, you know, I saw this
Speaker 1: kid on the ferry the other night at you know,
Speaker 1: alf Albert Goldberg's bar Mitzvah, and the kid is really good.
Speaker 1: You should check him out. So we were I think
Speaker 1: we were called Herman and the Hermits. By now Herman
Speaker 1: and the Hermits, he's called herman Um. So he finds
Speaker 1: out that we're playing this nightclub and really, you know
Speaker 1: under people down the bottom of the it was called
Speaker 1: the Seller, the Cave, the Seller in Bolton. And he
Speaker 1: comes and sees us there and he says, I'd like
Speaker 1: to be a manager. So I said, well, let's have
Speaker 1: a meeting. Come back to my mom's house. My my
Speaker 1: mom lived in this fabulous house. And this manager, Harvey Ellisburg,
Speaker 1: who is going to be our managers it comes to
Speaker 1: the house and he goes, oh, that's a lovely piano,
Speaker 1: and I go, you want ago you know when my
Speaker 1: my mother had this unbelievable expensive grand piano and uh,
Speaker 1: he sits down and he plays what did I say
Speaker 1: by Jerry Lewis? I said, we don't want you to
Speaker 1: be on match. We want you to be in the band,
Speaker 1: and he goes, no, no, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: in the band. You know, I'm too ugly something like that.
Speaker 1: So but I'd like to manage it. Some of my
Speaker 1: parents meet him and they go, yeah, okay, you can
Speaker 1: manage it, but well, you know, so he immediately becomes
Speaker 1: our manager. Then I'm not the manager anymore, which is
Speaker 1: really refreshing because he has much more connecting, much more
Speaker 1: connected than I am. And he suddenly we're getting we
Speaker 1: have a hundred dates on the book, and now we're
Speaker 1: looking to replace people in the bend with better people
Speaker 1: because now we can offer them more money. Everybody was
Speaker 1: in it for money. I asked Keith Hopwood, how Keith
Speaker 1: hop would who was the guitar player? Who who created that?
Speaker 1: Mrs Browne got a lovely looked daughter sound. I say,
Speaker 1: would you be in the band and he goes well.
Speaker 1: I said why did why did you join the band
Speaker 1: and when did you join them? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: I joined the band when I saw how many dates
Speaker 1: had booked, And so we we we instantly start to
Speaker 1: get very much more busier in Herman and the hermitson
Speaker 1: and we start to play the Cavern regularly. You know,
Speaker 1: we become regulars at the Junior Cavern in the evening.
Speaker 1: We moved into the upper upper echelons, which is like
Speaker 1: nighttime at the Cavern, which was a big, big, big deal.
Speaker 1: So we're moving along and I think ultimately we were
Speaker 1: the only band left in Manchester who isn't signed to
Speaker 1: a label. I think it's really as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Who came from me and Chester in that era, The Hollies,
Speaker 1: Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the mind Benders,
Speaker 1: the Dakotas, Billy Ja c you know, everybody, everybody else
Speaker 1: from Manchester who was in our league, the twenty pounds
Speaker 1: and up league has gone. So we're the top of
Speaker 1: the leftovers. And we have this idea. We've seen Mickey
Speaker 1: Most this is again the luckiest guy in the world.
Speaker 1: We go to see the Everly Brothers and the bill
Speaker 1: was the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones and
Speaker 1: Mickey Most and and Susan Morem or some some unknown
Speaker 1: girl singer who had and it's my party version. And
Speaker 1: during the show, h Nicky Most comes out on stage
Speaker 1: and he kneels. He's like a fifties guy because the
Speaker 1: Everly Brothers are fifty and it's all teddy boys in
Speaker 1: the audience, and he wins the teddy Boys because he's
Speaker 1: got a guitar with no strings. It's got a guitar
Speaker 1: with no strings. But we you can't tell from the audience.
Speaker 1: But even though he's got no strings on the guitar,
Speaker 1: he has the balls to kneel down during the guitar solo,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean when we're completely and of course
Speaker 1: all the teddy boys love him. And the Stones come
Speaker 1: out and they are dying the death of all deaths.
Speaker 1: You go, oh my god, they're like mods, they're not
Speaker 1: at all, and they do come on by the chuck
Speaker 1: Berry come on and the audience t'lly go, oh well,
Speaker 1: they're all right, and they're forgiven. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the show, at the end of the show of
Speaker 1: the Stones and the Everly Brothers and Bold Didly come
Speaker 1: out and they get on a bus. But Mickey most
Speaker 1: comes out and he opens the hood of his car,
Speaker 1: puts his guitar in it, opens the door for his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: puts her in the car, waves us as if he's
Speaker 1: the star of the show, and gets in there. It's
Speaker 1: a Porsche that's why I put the guitar on the front.
Speaker 1: We've never seen anybody with no engine in the car before.
Speaker 1: We've never seen a Porsche before. God, that is the
Speaker 1: coolest guy who is here is some South African guy.
Speaker 1: And but his name comes up in ideas for producers
Speaker 1: because he's got this record out called I'm Crying by
Speaker 1: the Animals like I don't don't knock, And it's like
Speaker 1: this great singer that we know him from the animals.
Speaker 1: We know what they can do, but we didn't know
Speaker 1: anybody who could record him. So now we go, how
Speaker 1: do you get to Mickey Most We've got my sister
Speaker 1: call Insane Herman and the Hermits, you know, and hanging up,
Speaker 1: and Harvellist book says, I'll send him a plane ticket
Speaker 1: to Manchester, which in those days is like unheard of,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it's two hundred miles, took seven
Speaker 1: hours to drive it. We'll send him a plane ticket,
Speaker 1: and we booked him a night in the Midland Hotel,
Speaker 1: which is the Posh Hotel right by the station, and
Speaker 1: and we'll drive. We'll get a driver, we'll get a
Speaker 1: nice car roven up. We'll borrow your dad's Rover ninety
Speaker 1: and we'll pick him up at the hotel and we'll
Speaker 1: take him to see you at the club in Bolton
Speaker 1: down the stairs. And what we'll do is we get
Speaker 1: all the girls to scream. We'll play the audience to
Speaker 1: a plan. So when when you do a song, of
Speaker 1: course that happened. All of that happened. But the girls
Speaker 1: all screamed in the wrong place, you know. They never
Speaker 1: scream where you think they they're just going so but
Speaker 1: he liked the band, No, he didn't like the band.
Speaker 1: He liked Peter Noon. Let's talk in the third person,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to get rid of the band and
Speaker 1: make records without the band. And now we're a band.
Speaker 1: This is a band. These are my friends. We we've
Speaker 1: built this monster together, you know. And he goes, okay, well,
Speaker 1: come to the studio and let's let's try and do something.
Speaker 1: So we've got a couple of songs. Awful. Now I
Speaker 1: listen to them. I'm embarrassed that that we had no
Speaker 1: we had no idea what we were doing. And we
Speaker 1: make a session and at the end of the session
Speaker 1: he says, look, the only way I can work with
Speaker 1: you guys, is if you get rid of him. And
Speaker 1: him and we play and we said we can't get
Speaker 1: rid of him. He says, okay, so he will not
Speaker 1: be the lead guitar player. He will become the rhythm
Speaker 1: guitar player, and that drama you get get a drummer
Speaker 1: who can play in time. So it's like it's the
Speaker 1: most horrible moment for me because we're now we're going
Speaker 1: to have to get rid of these boys that have
Speaker 1: been my mates, my bandmates, you know, the union of
Speaker 1: a band, and we're all loving each other, but the
Speaker 1: music thing is that happening. So luckily Harvey Lisberg once
Speaker 1: again and we get lucky. There's another band in Manchester
Speaker 1: that's on the up and up called the Whalers and
Speaker 1: Big Wally and the Whalers, and we want just the Whalers.
Speaker 1: We don't want Big Wally because he's too big. And
Speaker 1: we signed to the two guys from the from the
Speaker 1: Whalers joined Herman and Herman's Herman and the Hermits, and
Speaker 1: we change our name April the first, we change our
Speaker 1: name from Herman and the Hermits to Herman's Hermits and manager.
Speaker 1: We don't have my mom's phone number anymore. We've got
Speaker 1: you know, I used to say, you know, Herman's Herman
Speaker 1: and the Hermits bookings, Ermste because my mom had a phone.
Speaker 1: It was in the hall down the stairs, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's suddenly we became like this big time thing.
Speaker 1: And Mickey most sent within days of us putting together
Speaker 1: this new band, he sends us a demo, a Carol
Speaker 1: King demo of I'm into something good. And he said,
Speaker 1: come and come and record that and do that other
Speaker 1: song that you played, that other rubbish song. Learned that
Speaker 1: again with the new guys, and come in the studio
Speaker 1: and we'll make a record. And we listened to it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's we actually thought we were making
Speaker 1: a surf recording. We didn't even know a surf record well,
Speaker 1: but you know, we we thought that we needed the
Speaker 1: surf sound. And Mickey knew this piano player, a session
Speaker 1: piano player who was a Roger Webb his name was,
Speaker 1: and he had a band called Roger Webb Trio, which
Speaker 1: were pretty he was pretty famous. And he sat in
Speaker 1: that studio and we were kids, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I was fifty sixteen maybe, and all the Hermits was
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen in there. You know, we were really teenagers.
Speaker 1: A real boy band, and he sat with us and
Speaker 1: we rehearsed it with him like a hundred times, and
Speaker 1: we finally we we took a run at it, and
Speaker 1: the vocal that I did at the run became the
Speaker 1: lead vocal. That was the one that that we kept,
Speaker 1: you know, and then we just over everything was over.
Speaker 1: The mickey would mix down to one track and then
Speaker 1: put stuff. You know, we had two track machine and
Speaker 1: it makes it all down to all the drums and
Speaker 1: all the instruments on one track. Then we throw more
Speaker 1: stuff on it and the background vocals and then put
Speaker 1: some hand clapses all over the place. But it just
Speaker 1: captured who we were. You know. When I listened to
Speaker 1: the record, now I go, well, that is just that's
Speaker 1: exactly somebody made a recording with exactly what was going on. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's slow down for a couple of seconds. Lizberg, is
Speaker 1: your manager? Does he make you sign a contract? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We couldn't sign contract. We were all
Speaker 1: under age and you had to be twenty one. And
Speaker 1: what was his percentage? Ten percent? I think maybe because
Speaker 1: he had a partner. We didn't We didn't care about that.
Speaker 1: We just wanted to know what being important down the line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell the story of how it ultimately became Herman and
Speaker 1: the hermits Um. Well, we were playing. We used to
Speaker 1: rehearse in a pub in outskirts of Manchester, near Derek Lecambye,
Speaker 1: where he was a guitar player. There was a pub
Speaker 1: there and they let us rehearse there, and the publican
Speaker 1: let us use He had a microphone. And we're Americans,
Speaker 1: tell us what a public it is. The owner of
Speaker 1: the pub, the landlord of the pub is there and
Speaker 1: he lets us use his stage and his microphone. It
Speaker 1: has a microphone and a speaker, and so it was easy,
Speaker 1: and you could rehearse until five thirty. So none of
Speaker 1: us went to school anymore, and we'd go there and
Speaker 1: rehearse when the pub closed at three o'clock till five
Speaker 1: thirty when they opened again. None of us were eighteen,
Speaker 1: so we're there and we were doing Boddy Holly songs
Speaker 1: and I would wear when it's so ridiculous that I
Speaker 1: am the luckiest man in the world. So I put
Speaker 1: these horn room glasses on. I had horn room glasses
Speaker 1: already and I put them on, and we do a
Speaker 1: body Holly song so people would know anybody who knew
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly would go, oh yeah, we're a little things
Speaker 1: you see and do, And I could mimic him like
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing a brilliant job. But we
Speaker 1: nish that would be the day, And and the guy
Speaker 1: who owns the pub, the publican, comes and he says,
Speaker 1: who the bloody ell was that? And I look at him,
Speaker 1: You're stupid, can't it's Buddy Holly. You were Boddy Holly
Speaker 1: because you don't look anything like Buddy Holly. You look
Speaker 1: like Herman from the Bullwinkle Show. And everybody, like all
Speaker 1: the future the heartbeats all thought that was the funniest
Speaker 1: thing that ever heard because it was Sherman and Professor Peabody.
Speaker 1: But he thought he thought it was Herman and Professor Peabody.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of part of the joke that
Speaker 1: he was so stupid he didn't recognize the body Holly song.
Speaker 1: And he also got the name Sherman and Professor Peabody wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, you look like Herman from that Herman from
Speaker 1: the Ankle Show. And everybody laughs, similar to your laft there,
Speaker 1: And he says, what are you look laughing at? You
Speaker 1: can call yourself the Bloody Hermits. So that man, who
Speaker 1: we don't know who he isn't forgotten. It's I've been
Speaker 1: dead for fifty years. He named the band Herman and
Speaker 1: the Bloody Hermits, and we immediately we said, that's the
Speaker 1: that's a great name for this operation because it's completely
Speaker 1: different from anybody else. You know, it's all Beatles and
Speaker 1: searchers and movie titles, and you know, everybody's going a
Speaker 1: little bit more sophisticated than Herman and the Hermits, and
Speaker 1: that we The drummer was the drummer then was called
Speaker 1: Steve Titterington, and his We could rehearse his place as
Speaker 1: well after the public could go to his place because
Speaker 1: his sister was a cop a constable, and you could
Speaker 1: make as much noise as you wanted until any time
Speaker 1: you wanted. And it was important to the band to
Speaker 1: be able to rehearse a lot because we were useless.
Speaker 1: We needed to rehearse every song many many times. And
Speaker 1: we went home there and we told his mother that
Speaker 1: we've we've we've going to change the name to Herman
Speaker 1: and the Hermits. And she made suits for the Hermits
Speaker 1: out of sacks, potatoes, sacks, and I said, I'm I'm Herman,
Speaker 1: I'm going to wear this blue suit and okay, and
Speaker 1: they when we did we did a gig. There was
Speaker 1: a there was a guy called Jimmy Saville who was
Speaker 1: a manager of the Plaza in Manchester who liked Herman
Speaker 1: and the Hermits. He thought ultimately he was a big
Speaker 1: presenter and got in trouble after his death. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was probably a horrible man. But we we was the
Speaker 1: manager of probably many many people in the wrestling business
Speaker 1: in those days who became managers of ballrooms were probably
Speaker 1: not nice people. But we we didn't care whether we didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't have like a stress test to see if
Speaker 1: we could work with people. They had a job and
Speaker 1: we would take it, you know. It was that part
Speaker 1: of the career. And then he we did a lunchtime
Speaker 1: show and the Hermits, the new Hermits, showed up in
Speaker 1: these sack things with their little white English legs hanging
Speaker 1: out of the bottom. It's just a potato sack, fifty
Speaker 1: six pound bag of potato sack with the neck cut
Speaker 1: out and the hands, but the guitars and and the
Speaker 1: Steve tit Twington's ass was worn out from sitting on
Speaker 1: the drum school in the the things. So that lasted
Speaker 1: for one day, but we kept the name Herman and
Speaker 1: the Hermits, and we once we played that gig in
Speaker 1: the plaza, people liked the name, you know, the girls
Speaker 1: who came to see us. I remember, like at the cavern,
Speaker 1: we we'd always wherever we played, there would always be
Speaker 1: somebody that we knew sitting at the front and the
Speaker 1: cavern there was always a girl called Margaret and she
Speaker 1: was there right from every time Hermit's Hermits played at
Speaker 1: the cavern, Margaret would be right at the front. We
Speaker 1: never spoke to her, which she we didn't know how
Speaker 1: to deal with fans. She we didn't know about groupie's
Speaker 1: or we knew was our sisters. And in my case,
Speaker 1: my sister had like a plastic you know, Sister Agnes
Speaker 1: statue implanted in her forehead and went to Catholic schools
Speaker 1: and confession and you know, no sex before marriage. So
Speaker 1: that we thought all girls were like our sisters. We
Speaker 1: didn't know any ravers or group year or that we
Speaker 1: treated fans like they were are on par with our sister,
Speaker 1: you know, because we thought all girls would like to
Speaker 1: be protected and behave well with girls. And we grew
Speaker 1: this band into It was always Margaret and bit I did.
Speaker 1: We'd go back to the cabin and there'll be seven
Speaker 1: girls at the front, and then the ten never boys,
Speaker 1: never like Herman Hermits. Then at the beginning they didn't
Speaker 1: like us because we didn't play rock and roll. We
Speaker 1: played kind of pop. So that was a bit romantic,
Speaker 1: you know, the different talking about So we were romantic.
Speaker 1: Can't into something good? And when you have playback, do
Speaker 1: you say this is a hit or you say, well,
Speaker 1: this is a record we made? Well that one we did?
Speaker 1: We didn't, haven't we we It was just flying. We
Speaker 1: had no idea what we were doing. We just this
Speaker 1: is how you make a record. We had no idea,
Speaker 1: We had no knowledge of how he made a record.
Speaker 1: We would completely naive. And he didn't like the record.
Speaker 1: He took it home and he decided on the way
Speaker 1: home that he was not going to release it even
Speaker 1: and it was thinking of ways to tell us that.
Speaker 1: He was sorry, lads, it just didn't work. But he
Speaker 1: played it to Chris Most, his wife, Chris Most, and
Speaker 1: she said it's a number one, and he was, you're joking,
Speaker 1: I got a remix it. She just don't remix it,
Speaker 1: leave it exactly like it is. It's a number one.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, Mickey, it's a number one. It's like
Speaker 1: you know, when you play the House of the Rising Son,
Speaker 1: you said it's too long. I told you that was
Speaker 1: a number one. Just this is a number one. Put
Speaker 1: it out and against his you know, because Mickey liked
Speaker 1: Mickey loved to claim that he was the song picker
Speaker 1: of the century, and he probably was, but but he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't think I'm Into Something Good was a hit.
Speaker 1: And when it was a hit, um, he claimed it like,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew it was a hit, and my
Speaker 1: dad could have sung it and it would have been
Speaker 1: a hit. But I think it was. It was a
Speaker 1: really good recording of a really good song, and it
Speaker 1: capture and all that sort of energy of those sixteen
Speaker 1: year old boys. Okay, so how long after you cut
Speaker 1: it was it released? It came out August, the seven
Speaker 1: before we probably made it July, so two weeks after
Speaker 1: we made it, two weeks after was that the only
Speaker 1: song you recorded that? And the B side, the b
Speaker 1: side was what Your Hand in Mind, which was the
Speaker 1: song that we'd failed the audition with the first time. Now,
Speaker 1: worked it. The record comes out the UK instant here instant,
Speaker 1: I mean quite instant. Interestingly, we're we're playing in the
Speaker 1: club where the manager discovered us, discovered us in Bolton,
Speaker 1: and it's opposite a sewing machine factory, out of business
Speaker 1: machine factory, and we're changing in the kitchen and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Saville has a radio show It got five thirty that
Speaker 1: with this Jimmy saddle clown voice and this is Erman's
Speaker 1: Ermits and he plays I mean something. You know, it
Speaker 1: was the greatest. Still I can still be in that
Speaker 1: kitchen to hear myself on the radio, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm with Del Shannon. Now those people who were on
Speaker 1: the radio. I'm one of those people. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: just a kid in a band anymore that's got a
Speaker 1: bit of success. And we're up to thirty pounds at night.
Speaker 1: This is like I'm with those the Beatles and the
Speaker 1: delve Shafts always Del Shannon. Why but you know, I'm
Speaker 1: within this new league. And we didn't even know that
Speaker 1: it was going to be a hit, you know, just
Speaker 1: the fact that we didn't know that you couldn't you
Speaker 1: couldn't have a hit if it never got played on
Speaker 1: the radio that we knew being on the radio was
Speaker 1: a hit. Okay, at what point did you realize and
Speaker 1: how long did it take for it really to be
Speaker 1: a hit? It jumped out of the box. By the
Speaker 1: next Thursday, we were on Top of the Pops and
Speaker 1: we went to Top of which was in Manchester. You know,
Speaker 1: if you got in the charts. I think he came
Speaker 1: in at number thirty or something the first week. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it started selling instantly because it got played
Speaker 1: a very quickly. And I remember the songs that it
Speaker 1: was the Kinks You Really Got Me and that one
Speaker 1: a rag Doll and pretty Woman. There was some pretty
Speaker 1: Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison. We're all in this heavy
Speaker 1: rotation and we were now in the same league as
Speaker 1: like the Four Season and Royal Orbison. Okay, the it
Speaker 1: was always in Manchester at the beginning. Really yeah, So
Speaker 1: we go on, we go on Top of the Pups
Speaker 1: and and it was like Roy Orbison and the Beatles
Speaker 1: and the Four Seasons and Supremes. And when when you
Speaker 1: go on Top of the Pups, you go on the
Speaker 1: first time and if the record goes up the next week,
Speaker 1: you go back again. So for the next five or
Speaker 1: six weeks every Thursday, we're at Dickinson Road in Manchester
Speaker 1: doing Top of the Pups with our heroes and not
Speaker 1: knowing how to deal with our heroes. Like this Royal orbicer.
Speaker 1: That's Royal orbicon. We even look this George Kennedy, the
Speaker 1: guy who played are you know, We're like in heaven.
Speaker 1: This is the greatest thing that could ever happen to
Speaker 1: a fan of music. We're now in the room with
Speaker 1: the big guys, and did you think, okay, this is
Speaker 1: the beginning and we're gonna sail through or this is
Speaker 1: one and done. My I think we thought that we
Speaker 1: just let raise the level of interest. It's interesting that
Speaker 1: we were pretty well matt balanced. We thought we've just
Speaker 1: raised our level of interest. Now we'll be able to
Speaker 1: get three hundred pounds a night. So now that are
Speaker 1: to something good? As it hit? How much roadwork are
Speaker 1: you doing? We did? It's interesting. I saw an article.
Speaker 1: Um uh, every night we've worked every night. Our managers
Speaker 1: and agents sent us to work. There's a there's an
Speaker 1: interview with Elvis Presley. I didn't. I interviewed Elvis Presley
Speaker 1: and I met him in Hawaii, and the newspaper in Hawaii, said,
Speaker 1: which I recently found because of the Internet, says, Peter
Speaker 1: Noon meets his all time idol Elvis Presley, who is
Speaker 1: on a film shoot Hawaiian Love Hawaiian Style in the
Speaker 1: and Peter is one of Herman's Hermits and they're on
Speaker 1: a three hundred and sixty day world tour. You know,
Speaker 1: we were on a three hundred sixty but in we
Speaker 1: did three hundred and sixty concerts and made records. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when you did a show, how long was the
Speaker 1: show different? We'd like to do longer, but you only
Speaker 1: a lot of shows. You only got twenty minutes. Like
Speaker 1: we did a tour in England with with Dusty Springfield
Speaker 1: instantly like we had a number one record. We're on
Speaker 1: tour with Dusty Springfield and I think we did we
Speaker 1: closed the first half or something and did four songs. Okay,
Speaker 1: how long after half do something good? Are you back
Speaker 1: in the studio? Probably before Christmas? You know, we need,
Speaker 1: we need another thing go So we go in and
Speaker 1: we've got another Carol Kink song that Mickey also doesn't like,
Speaker 1: but we think he's always wrong, and it's called show
Speaker 1: Me Girl, and it turned it isn't a number one record,
Speaker 1: and we go on that. We go on top of
Speaker 1: the Pops for the first time as he gets in
Speaker 1: the charts, and the guy who's announcing us say, do
Speaker 1: you think Herman's Hermits are a one hit wonder? And
Speaker 1: of course, me being having all the Irish energy, I
Speaker 1: wanted to kill him. I still have a resentment I
Speaker 1: wanted to go and I've got I'm going to prove
Speaker 1: him wrong. So we go back to the studio and
Speaker 1: Mickey goes, let's do let's do silhouettes. It's a shore
Speaker 1: fire here. And next time you go on top of
Speaker 1: the Pops, you play the piano. Don't be like Herman
Speaker 1: standing in front of Bend. You'd be like one of
Speaker 1: the band and it will be everyone will be impressed,
Speaker 1: like Alan Price, right, it's good. You know all these
Speaker 1: but you know it looks cool. You'll be cool. It's
Speaker 1: a cool song. I'm gonna go, well, we we do it,
Speaker 1: you know we don't do don't do it? And he no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's get it. Let's get fi Flick Thick got any
Speaker 1: ideas going to do silhouss and Flick is a studio guitarist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Vick Flick is a famous guitar. He played the James
Speaker 1: Bond theme and he played that boy Da Da Da
Speaker 1: in Hard Days Night, so he's famous. Two people in
Speaker 1: the music business in England. So it's Flick Flick and
Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, how about this and he goes and
Speaker 1: we're like, we're obvious a number. It's a bloody number one.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need any fairy dust, you know, let's go.
Speaker 1: And so we put that one out next and it is.
Speaker 1: It's like a top two win England and hit in America.
Speaker 1: And we've also done I Can't You Hear My Heartbeat thing,
Speaker 1: which is also sitting around and we've somehow in early nine,
Speaker 1: on one of those days off, we've been in the
Speaker 1: studio and made our first album the record company. But
Speaker 1: how long did it take to make the album? Three hours?
Speaker 1: Everybody had three hours in the three hours to make
Speaker 1: the whole album. Yeah, but remember I had I'm Into
Speaker 1: something good already made and so two of the twelve
Speaker 1: tracks were done. So the other ten tracks are all
Speaker 1: whatever we had in our show that hadn't been recorded. Remember,
Speaker 1: you had to go and look for songs. That's why
Speaker 1: it's all good fun because we had to do songs
Speaker 1: that people other people didn't do. You know, you couldn't
Speaker 1: do Rollover Beethoven or any Chuck Berry song because they
Speaker 1: somebody had already done them as well as they could
Speaker 1: possibly be done. So we would we did. We cut
Speaker 1: I'll Never Dance Again, which was from early Pete Novak,
Speaker 1: and the Heart because we cut Heartbeat, which was early
Speaker 1: Pete Novak, songs that we knew that we loved. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't record anything that we didn't love. So strange in
Speaker 1: the studio, how much did the b N play? Where
Speaker 1: did studio musicians play? At the beginning, the band played
Speaker 1: on everything, but bit by bit as we got busier
Speaker 1: and busier, it was really a time to learn to
Speaker 1: learn a new Mickey find as on and say learn this,
Speaker 1: and they was nobody would be as quick as like
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page would be there. You have any idea why
Speaker 1: the albums came out in MGM in America. I think
Speaker 1: what happened was we we had to deal with the
Speaker 1: m I for the World and E M I didn't
Speaker 1: pick up the option, and neither did and they didn't
Speaker 1: for the Day Club five. Strangely enough, we were also
Speaker 1: in the m I band who were dropped. So we
Speaker 1: took advantage of that and we made a separate deal.
Speaker 1: I think I think MGM signed the Animals first, and
Speaker 1: then we were part of that deal. And I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure about that because it's it doesn't really interest
Speaker 1: me to know how it happened. I only want my
Speaker 1: point of view, you know, because everybody starts talking about
Speaker 1: the money and stuff like that. I don't care about that, Okay. Now.
Speaker 1: On the first album was also Mrs Brown, You've Got
Speaker 1: a Lovely Daughter? Yeah, how did that come together? Well? Well,
Speaker 1: that was one of the songs that we used to
Speaker 1: do at the Cavin to be different from nobody will
Speaker 1: do My Boy Lollipop, So we'll do my Boy Lollipop,
Speaker 1: nobody will do Mrs Brown. I used to dress up
Speaker 1: in my school uniform with the short trousers and walk
Speaker 1: out and do Mrs Brown you gotta leave a daughter,
Speaker 1: as if I was that person in the song, which
Speaker 1: I still do, by the way, but not the short trousers.
Speaker 1: But it made sense to us too, and of course
Speaker 1: we recorded it because I think when when Mickey heard it,
Speaker 1: it's okay, okay, when it wasn't his idea when it
Speaker 1: when it later when it became his great idea. But
Speaker 1: at the time he said, we put it on side two,
Speaker 1: track three. No one will ever get that far. I
Speaker 1: mean he actually said, those are the exact words. One.
Speaker 1: I've listened all the way through anyway, and it was
Speaker 1: hidden there, and of course it became a smash. Well.
Speaker 1: I just remember being in America. I bought the album
Speaker 1: with a red cover and it said featuring arm into
Speaker 1: something Good. And then Mrs Brown became a hit. They
Speaker 1: put all sticker all the ones that featuring Mrs Brown,
Speaker 1: which in America was even bigger hit into something So okay,
Speaker 1: the train leaves the station of the Hermit's Hermit saw
Speaker 1: the singles, Which ones are your favorites? I love, I Love,
Speaker 1: I'm into something good, I like silhouettes, and I like
Speaker 1: there's a kind of hush all over the world. It
Speaker 1: just seems to buy by the time, by the time
Speaker 1: we did, there's a kind of hush and all over
Speaker 1: the world, which is there's the end of the run
Speaker 1: of Hermit's Hermits. None of the Hermits are playing instruments
Speaker 1: on those records. It's now John Paul Jones is playing
Speaker 1: bass and is conducting the orchestra, and it's all the
Speaker 1: greatest musicians in England who show up and play as
Speaker 1: well as they can, as well as John Paul Jones
Speaker 1: can make them. But Mickey mose is still the producer
Speaker 1: and always Yeah, he made every Hermit term. It's okay.
Speaker 1: So in this time you have this runoff hits. How
Speaker 1: many You're on the road all the time? All the time,
Speaker 1: we were NonStop. We even did a pantomime in the December,
Speaker 1: you know, because you could do a Christmas show in
Speaker 1: England and the Hermits played sailors and I was a
Speaker 1: Laddin or Dick Whittington or something some crazy play Christmas pantomime.
Speaker 1: I mean we even found time to do stuff like
Speaker 1: that for no money. Let's you go back. Isn't it
Speaker 1: true that when you were younger before the Herman's Hermit Sarah,
Speaker 1: you should we did some television, Yeah, all of which
Speaker 1: was you know, just when I was at the School
Speaker 1: of Music, a television independent television station opened around the
Speaker 1: corner from the School of Music in the downtown Manchester.
Speaker 1: It's called Grenada Television and they were creating new It
Speaker 1: was the other channel. There was a BBC and there
Speaker 1: was this new channel, Independent television, and they were One
Speaker 1: day some guy comes over to the to the School
Speaker 1: of Music and he said, we're looking for a kid
Speaker 1: who can play the piano in the background in a
Speaker 1: Christmas Christmas E think, so I can play the Holly
Speaker 1: and the Ivy, you know, the Holley and d I
Speaker 1: v I could play. I play there better than anybody.
Speaker 1: And so I got the job as kid playing a thing.
Speaker 1: And because I got that job, then I was the
Speaker 1: kid to go to we know a kid who was
Speaker 1: at the School of music who can't do this? And
Speaker 1: eventually I found myself on Coronation Street, which is the
Speaker 1: number one biggest, biggest TV show in England and still
Speaker 1: running even though I'm not in it. It's still running.
Speaker 1: Were you in it? Very little? But I got paid
Speaker 1: good money and I used all that money to finance
Speaker 1: the band. You know, but you had no dream of
Speaker 1: being an actor. Now I wasn't very good at it,
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth. I never fancied myself as
Speaker 1: an actor. I think it takes a lot more memory
Speaker 1: skills and I have it spent me all. I'd spend
Speaker 1: all day learning my one line. Okay, so you're on
Speaker 1: the road with the band. Yeah, you knew each other
Speaker 1: in uh from me and Chester. Did everybody still get
Speaker 1: along if you're working that much? We didn't know anybody.
Speaker 1: We didn't know each other, but the guys in the
Speaker 1: band didn't know each other before we were But you
Speaker 1: know that's right history when you're okay, but you knew
Speaker 1: each other before you were biggest I met, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have that relationship now you're big, you're on the road.
Speaker 1: Is everybody still getting them all? Well? I think I
Speaker 1: think probably my biggest failing was not realizing that I
Speaker 1: could very easily be hurting somebody's feelings without having the
Speaker 1: knowledge that was even doing it. Like, for example, would
Speaker 1: do the Royal Command performance and the Queen would only
Speaker 1: meet one person, but she met all the Beatles. So
Speaker 1: if you were Carl Green's mom watching the Royal Command
Speaker 1: performance and you've seen the Beatles all ship, Hello, Ringo
Speaker 1: a lot, Paul, Hello Georgia, you you say to your son,
Speaker 1: how come you didn't meet the queen? How come he
Speaker 1: gets to meet all the queens? And how come he
Speaker 1: gets to be in the dressing room with Andy Williams?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? And I didn't know
Speaker 1: any of that was going on. I thought we were
Speaker 1: all mates and that it was the natural thing, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I'm the youngest member, and I'm now the
Speaker 1: spokesman because you know what the lead singer. What I
Speaker 1: didn't know to tell them was, you know, the lead
Speaker 1: singer is usually the person that the cameras on all
Speaker 1: the time because he's singing, and during the guitar solo,
Speaker 1: they'll show the guitar, not the player. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know to tell them that. I thought that they would
Speaker 1: just magically understand everything that goes on in the world
Speaker 1: like I didn't, and it was very naive of me,
Speaker 1: and I really regret it, and I'm still friends with
Speaker 1: a couple of them, but I can understand why they
Speaker 1: probably very quickly grew to hate me. Hey it's a
Speaker 1: bad word, you know, not be very fond of my activities.
Speaker 1: And what happened was we were all from Manchester. I
Speaker 1: was living with my grandmother, and we became famous and
Speaker 1: I immediately moved to London. I got a little muse flat,
Speaker 1: you know, for fifteen pounds a week, which was easy.
Speaker 1: I could afford that. I didn't need anybody to sign
Speaker 1: the credit agreement or anything. And I bought a posh
Speaker 1: car and I got a driver and I was off
Speaker 1: and they were in. They were still living with their
Speaker 1: moms and dads. Who does he think he is? And
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of that was going on. I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I just was so full of myself that
Speaker 1: I didn't ever think of other people's feelings. So i've
Speaker 1: that's probably a lot of the tension in the band
Speaker 1: was because I didn't know that there was any tension.
Speaker 1: But you moved to London. They theoretically could have moved
Speaker 1: to London themselves. They had the same amount of money
Speaker 1: that you were making, right, Yeah, we were all we
Speaker 1: sharing everything equally. Yeah, everything, every cent was shared equally,
Speaker 1: and that theoretically, you know, if you want of the boys,
Speaker 1: you can't step out. It's like when Paul McCartney starts
Speaker 1: dating the doctor's daughter, the posh doctor's daughter, he's kind
Speaker 1: of out of the thing. You know, it's not in
Speaker 1: the van anymore with the lads. They're all getting in
Speaker 1: the van going back to to Manchester to their moms
Speaker 1: and dads or whatever was going on. I don't really know.
Speaker 1: And I'm catching the lift off the Stones Where are
Speaker 1: you guys going tonight? Are we're going back to London?
Speaker 1: Can I come with you? Because I'm so naive that
Speaker 1: I don't know that that isn't appropriate. Constantly I do
Speaker 1: it and I'm looking back and I go, how embarrassed.
Speaker 1: And So the Beatles are doing a TV show in Manchester.
Speaker 1: I'm not on the TV show, but I'm there because
Speaker 1: it's in the studio where the people at the gate
Speaker 1: know me from being in Coronation Street. So the Beatles
Speaker 1: are there. I drive in with my driver waved to
Speaker 1: the guy at the gate, Arry whatever his name is.
Speaker 1: He waves me in. The Beatles are in the in
Speaker 1: the dressing rooms. I sit in the cafeteria and they
Speaker 1: come and sit down at the table. I start talking
Speaker 1: to them as if I know them. Ah, because I'm
Speaker 1: sixteen and they think I'm some kid from Coronation Street.
Speaker 1: But they're the Beatles. And now I'm so stupid, stupidity really,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of comedy stupid that I see Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney sitting talking to George Martin in the dressing room
Speaker 1: with the door slightly open, and I walk in and
Speaker 1: join in the conversation. Hello, what's what's up, you know
Speaker 1: what you do, and and and Paul, who is the kindest,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm just this kid herman and I
Speaker 1: I say, I say, and he goes, well, are we're
Speaker 1: talking about compression? Do you know anything about compression? I
Speaker 1: know what what's compression? And Paul starts up, well, you know,
Speaker 1: and this is exactly how it went. You havent heard of,
Speaker 1: you know, Fats Domino. How when he sings the track go,
Speaker 1: it gets it loses some of that, and then we
Speaker 1: start singing again. You lose the track and then the
Speaker 1: track comes louder in between the first Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what he talks about. Well that's compression. And
Speaker 1: we're discussing how to defeat the compression. Ah yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to and they're they're doing people who have
Speaker 1: recorded the Beatles songs. And George Martin says, looks at
Speaker 1: me like like I'm a an adult and says, which
Speaker 1: Beatles song have you recorded? Which means get out and
Speaker 1: record any Beatles song I haven't. Just just you know, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you? Like but you didn't realize you were big?
Speaker 1: No I didn't. I didn't. He was so Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: was so kind and well mannered and included me in
Speaker 1: the conversation as it cares what I think about compression.
Speaker 1: But he's just a gentleman, you know. And so was George.
Speaker 1: You could have said please get out, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: He said, well, which which beatles songs have you recorded? Non? Okay?
Speaker 1: Leave kind of just okay. So and lots of that
Speaker 1: happened to me all my all my time in herme
Speaker 1: and Sermis, I would always get myself into situations that
Speaker 1: I didn't really realize made me look stupid until years
Speaker 1: later I look back and I go you asked the
Speaker 1: Stones what they're doing after the show and they to
Speaker 1: get rid of you. They said, oh, we're going back
Speaker 1: to London, and you said the words can I come
Speaker 1: with you? They said all right, And and they had
Speaker 1: this big American car and there was there wasn't a
Speaker 1: seat for me. And even though it's a big car,
Speaker 1: so they're the driver called REDGI King who had a hammer.
Speaker 1: There was a left hand drive and they sat me
Speaker 1: in the middle next to this crazy redg King in
Speaker 1: the middle with Brian who was also a little guy.
Speaker 1: He was a little guy like Brian Jodge was a
Speaker 1: little guy. Like me. So we could sit in the
Speaker 1: front seat of that big American car with the seat
Speaker 1: the middle thing up, and this Ridge king as we
Speaker 1: drove past cars on the free on the motorway, he
Speaker 1: would lean out of the window and bash their rear
Speaker 1: view mirror off right, And this is like this kid
Speaker 1: from Mentis to his life, been a Catholic school and
Speaker 1: everything I got. This is the greatest thing I've never been.
Speaker 1: This is incredible, this is these are the greatest people
Speaker 1: I've ever met in my life. This is this is.
Speaker 1: I wish Herman's Hermits were more like this, you know,
Speaker 1: not so nice and staying with their mom's. I wish
Speaker 1: they would get a hammer bash old people's rear view
Speaker 1: mirrors off as they drove past. And that was my
Speaker 1: new liago. I live in London. Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: live in London and be like them. So when did
Speaker 1: you find out that there was resembling from the guys
Speaker 1: in the band? You know in the seventies, you know,
Speaker 1: in the early set when we when we all decided
Speaker 1: to what happened was we did a Royal command performance
Speaker 1: and we decided that we were going to be a
Speaker 1: cabaret band. The American record thing. It was a disaster,
Speaker 1: you know, because we would run into a situation where
Speaker 1: are being teenagers, we didn't know how to deal with
Speaker 1: it because we've never had to deal with so somebody said,
Speaker 1: you didn't get the check, so we'd say, well, if
Speaker 1: they're not going to give us the money, we're not
Speaker 1: going to give them the record, which is what they want.
Speaker 1: But we didn't know that we wanted we we want.
Speaker 1: We didn't know that they didn't want our records enough
Speaker 1: to give us the money. Say so is the money
Speaker 1: thing came and and then what happened was that that
Speaker 1: I was kind of nonchalant about the financial part of it,
Speaker 1: but the grudge part I wasn't going to let let
Speaker 1: go of and we're not going to give them any
Speaker 1: more music until until we get all the money and
Speaker 1: we want it nothing. So meanwhile, what happened was we
Speaker 1: started to make really good records for the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, like we had My Sentimental Friend and Sunshine
Speaker 1: Girl and Something's Happening. They were all big, big records
Speaker 1: all around the world, not in America because they were
Speaker 1: not released, and we thought that that would tease them
Speaker 1: into putting it out. Look at that number one in Australia.
Speaker 1: They put it out in a minute. That's they'll give
Speaker 1: us the money just to get their hands on that.
Speaker 1: They didn't care. They just wore onto the next we
Speaker 1: you know, the monkeys had come along or something and
Speaker 1: we were just like over there and all these were
Speaker 1: good exact so, and I realized at the time that
Speaker 1: we that we'd stepped into this cabaret world, which was
Speaker 1: really good for me because I'm kind of a cabaret person,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? I can tap did
Speaker 1: did he? Did he? And I can you know, and
Speaker 1: I can play with the audience. And I talked them
Speaker 1: into we've got a choreographer, and we ended up doing
Speaker 1: a royal command performance for the Queen and doing song
Speaker 1: Broadway hits, you know, like name, you Don't Do, Don't
Speaker 1: Do Do Do do It do Name, and the hermits
Speaker 1: had to not have guitars and had to become male dancers.
Speaker 1: Think about it, Oh, I am thinking about but I
Speaker 1: saw it as I finally saw it about a year ago,
Speaker 1: so resentments. So at the end of that, we all
Speaker 1: decided that we've done the best that we could possibly
Speaker 1: do with that idea. Let's let's all, let's take some
Speaker 1: time away from each other and see what happens, see
Speaker 1: what happens with the label and everything, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone who was recently married and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: at the end of this run, they took the suits off.
Speaker 1: We always wore suits, and they ripped them up and
Speaker 1: tore them up and jumped through ound on the stage.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to wear a suit again, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And then that's when I realized, Oh,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't enjoy. It's not about how much
Speaker 1: money they make. It's about how much fun they're having
Speaker 1: playing as a band, you know, Like we used to
Speaker 1: have this fun and laugh at each other and and
Speaker 1: someone they made a mistake, we would all laugh at
Speaker 1: each other and yeah, and all that was gone and
Speaker 1: we were being we were like the Bachelor's or the Shadows.
Speaker 1: We were like those bands that we didn't want to be, like,
Speaker 1: going through the motions, you know, dance steps and everything.
Speaker 1: And that's when I realized. And that was also about
Speaker 1: the time that I didn't realize that me sharing the
Speaker 1: dresser room with Tom Jones and Andy Williams and then
Speaker 1: being on the third floor with the Czechoslovakian choir was
Speaker 1: not appropriate. It was bad management of their feelings by me.
Speaker 1: So whenever we decided to call break, did you think
Speaker 1: there was a future for you and show business? You know,
Speaker 1: I had a TV series, so part of the I
Speaker 1: had a British TV shot series that was running at
Speaker 1: the same time as we broke up. And I thought
Speaker 1: that as soon as I was finished with the TV series,
Speaker 1: because I'm thoughtless bastard, heartless bastard, that they would come
Speaker 1: back into the fold. You know, we can start up again.
Speaker 1: We'll go do an Australian tour and we'll do a
Speaker 1: little American oldies but goodies to own. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: we did. We came over and I think Naida had
Speaker 1: one of those things and he put together a British
Speaker 1: and I thought, I saw that in your blog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we thought that was it, and we thought, well,
Speaker 1: we can do this now and then. But they wanted
Speaker 1: to work. See the idea that they wanted to work
Speaker 1: and they would be prepared to pretend to be something
Speaker 1: other than who they were. And it never occurred to
Speaker 1: me that they wanted to work, that they enjoyed working
Speaker 1: and singing Herman's Hermits songs and that we're prepared to
Speaker 1: do it without me, and I thought that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to. I thought they won't be able to
Speaker 1: do it, you know, like Peter Gabriel thought that Gis
Speaker 1: would go on and everybody from everybody? What was the
Speaker 1: TV series you have? It was cool? It was it
Speaker 1: was Mike Yarwood. It was on every week. It was
Speaker 1: a weekly show, and I was doing comedy and singing
Speaker 1: a song every week. I was three people in the show,
Speaker 1: Mike Yarwood, Averan Post and me, and we did scenes
Speaker 1: together and it was kind of a fun show to do.
Speaker 1: And you would rehearsal week and you shoot it like
Speaker 1: it would go out live on Thursdays with an orchestra
Speaker 1: and girls singers and all those things. And I choose
Speaker 1: the song that I would do every week, and it
Speaker 1: was very I mean, it went for three years. It
Speaker 1: was supposed to be thirteen weeks, but it went for
Speaker 1: three years because it was successful. Like everything that you
Speaker 1: think you can just have a little flip with, they
Speaker 1: turned into being big deals. And that turned into being
Speaker 1: a big deal. I'm sure you must have done certain
Speaker 1: things had failed. Lots of things fail. I like fails.
Speaker 1: I sometimes like failing in a during the song because
Speaker 1: then I can recover. You know, I enjoy failure because
Speaker 1: as you learned something. It's like I say, too, I
Speaker 1: went to see a band and they go, do why
Speaker 1: do you want to say that? I'd like to see
Speaker 1: what I shouldn't do. You know, some ballences you they
Speaker 1: do things. Once I saw this band and the the
Speaker 1: singer some girl offered him a bouquet of flowers and
Speaker 1: he threw it behind him over his head, and every
Speaker 1: money in the audience went, oh, so you know you
Speaker 1: learn I go. I go to see loads of bands.
Speaker 1: I'm still a fan of music, which is what bizarre.
Speaker 1: People think, Wow, what are you doing here? I'd like
Speaker 1: to see what is going on? Okay, So how do
Speaker 1: you decide to go on this oldies tour British Invasion tour?
Speaker 1: I think Richard Nader offered loads of money. He made
Speaker 1: one deal with the Hermits and he made one deal
Speaker 1: with me, and that was it. We we got together,
Speaker 1: we rehearsed. I remember we did simple Men. We did
Speaker 1: a Graham Nash song, which is so bizarre, and I
Speaker 1: got back on the piano like Alan Price I played
Speaker 1: that show, and remember I played the piano in that show. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I did, But so we were looking for that
Speaker 1: sort of mystery. Oh, they're much more that are musicians,
Speaker 1: you know, because we decided, like when we were after
Speaker 1: we've seen the Beatles, we said, we have to be
Speaker 1: careful that we never want to try to be those
Speaker 1: those kind of musicians who want to impress other musicians
Speaker 1: because they never make it. Okay, so when you go
Speaker 1: back out on the road, how many original Hermits go
Speaker 1: back out with you? Everybody went? I think on that
Speaker 1: one every everybody. I think there might have been a
Speaker 1: guy called I think Keith Hopwood didn't come back, so
Speaker 1: there was maybe one replacement. But Derek let can be
Speaker 1: the original guitarist, Barry when the drummer and Carl Green
Speaker 1: the base pay. We all went out, but they got
Speaker 1: paid less than apparently. Yeah, that was that was also
Speaker 1: cause of some concern. So how long did that did
Speaker 1: working with that band last? Just that one tour? We
Speaker 1: thought to do other stuff, but it just all fell
Speaker 1: apart during that tour, I think, you know, because we
Speaker 1: just we just didn't. We were never an arena act,
Speaker 1: you know. Herman Summons never could have played arenas, and
Speaker 1: that tour put us in bed. You know, we were
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden. We could never play that. I
Speaker 1: still couldn't play it. I don't think the music doesn't
Speaker 1: transcend the cabaret kind of atmosphere theater. I think so.
Speaker 1: So when you go that's that would be called a fail.
Speaker 1: I think that would tour that that come back to
Speaker 1: the British invasion much too soon. Okay, but how did
Speaker 1: you feel about being an oldies act? Nothing? I thought
Speaker 1: everybody that I admired was an oldies act. When you
Speaker 1: said oldies but goodies, I remembered the word goodie, right,
Speaker 1: you know Del Shannon. The first time I saw that,
Speaker 1: think about it. The Beatles opened for Chris Montez and
Speaker 1: Tommy Row. That was an oldiest talk. They were in
Speaker 1: the charts, but they were already it was an oldies show,
Speaker 1: and the Beatles were opening for Del Shannon and those
Speaker 1: those great artists and Royal Orbison they were they weren't newcomers.
Speaker 1: So after that, to or what do you do? I
Speaker 1: think that's probably when I did a load of solo
Speaker 1: stuff in England because I'd had that TV series. So
Speaker 1: now Peter Noon was more and more financially viable than
Speaker 1: herme and firm. It's anyway. I was now able to
Speaker 1: go and do cabaret, which was a big thing in
Speaker 1: England at the time. That was where all the money
Speaker 1: was to go into cabaret and people dinner theater, I
Speaker 1: think is what it's called. And there was lots of
Speaker 1: that and I ate that up. And then sometime I uh,
Speaker 1: I started to really not like being in England. It changed,
Speaker 1: the vibe in England have changed, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be there anymore. And we had a big, big
Speaker 1: my wife and I had a big country house with
Speaker 1: loads of people working for us, and I decided it
Speaker 1: was time to downsize. And some guy came over and
Speaker 1: saw the house and he said, how much you want
Speaker 1: for it? And I said, I want lots of money.
Speaker 1: He said, put a number, tell me a number. I
Speaker 1: thought of the biggest number I could think of. My
Speaker 1: wife still says it was only ten percent of what
Speaker 1: I should have asked for, you know, because wives always do.
Speaker 1: But and he gave me the money and he said,
Speaker 1: I want to move in on Thursday. So we rented
Speaker 1: of a truck and a truck and Evolvo and we
Speaker 1: drove to We rented a house in the south of
Speaker 1: France and moved to the south of France. Everything with
Speaker 1: the dogs. We had six dogs, and we had to
Speaker 1: remove a big truck, you know, like people do in America,
Speaker 1: and they move. And I stayed there and we stayed.
Speaker 1: I loved it in France. I love to get up
Speaker 1: in the morning and they go to a little cafe
Speaker 1: and people would drink white wine and breakfast and play
Speaker 1: the tears, you know, betting on horses. Nothing. I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about it, but I would play with them, you know,
Speaker 1: and I could speak French, so I was kind of
Speaker 1: I felt very comfortable in France when the Stones lived
Speaker 1: just down the street. So it's like I followed the
Speaker 1: Stones to their right. But you weren't on the heroin,
Speaker 1: so you're how did you feel from going from Top
Speaker 1: of the Pops to playing dinner theater. I just enjoyed
Speaker 1: the work. You know, they're all pretty challenging things to
Speaker 1: I'm always worried about how how the promoters doing. That's
Speaker 1: my only fear that you know, everyone's making money, That's
Speaker 1: just my nature. So everyone was being paid. I had
Speaker 1: a musical director and he was happy to have the work,
Speaker 1: and we'd use local bands and stuff like that was
Speaker 1: very very hard on my throat because you'd have to
Speaker 1: rehearsal a lot. And Okay, so you say you had
Speaker 1: some records in France, so you continued to work. You
Speaker 1: never really stopped working. No, I con'stant work. And then
Speaker 1: you put the Tremblers together. When is that probably about?
Speaker 1: And what was that experience? Like? It was a fantastic
Speaker 1: experience because you know what happened. I became friends, you know,
Speaker 1: in l A. There's so the heart Breakers were here
Speaker 1: and I became friends with stan Lynch. She was the
Speaker 1: drama and I said, I'm gonna have this. And I
Speaker 1: was also friends with D from d Murray from the
Speaker 1: Out and John Bann. There was this little click of
Speaker 1: people and I said, I think I'm good. I want
Speaker 1: to because I was jealous that they were in a
Speaker 1: band and they were in this joyous experience of a band.
Speaker 1: They were enjoying being in this band. You know, D
Speaker 1: was loving playing gigs with Elton and they were they
Speaker 1: were it was growing every day, and the Heartbreakers were
Speaker 1: you know, they were all still living in the valley.
Speaker 1: But you know, they were just ready to make it,
Speaker 1: you know, just ready to break it. And I have
Speaker 1: to sit there with Stan. I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to start a band and decent.
Speaker 1: He said, what would you call it? Herman? I said, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think I'd call it Watkins and the Dominators because
Speaker 1: it was an amplifier, a triangular amplifier in the sixties
Speaker 1: thing and called the Watkins Dominator. And he said, I
Speaker 1: don't call it that because the people last which once Watkins,
Speaker 1: which is memorable stuff with a nice guy d So
Speaker 1: we started about putting this band together. Hell and Stand
Speaker 1: new this drama, really great drama, a big guy. I
Speaker 1: wanted a big guy like Stan, you know, but it
Speaker 1: could get over the kit like ring. And we started
Speaker 1: putting this band together and Standard I wrote a couple
Speaker 1: of songs and we well it was all you know,
Speaker 1: like starting. It was like really fresh and starting. And
Speaker 1: and and Bruce Johnston from the Beach Boys, um, he
Speaker 1: had a label and I played him a couple of
Speaker 1: the things at me and Standard they said, beyond my label,
Speaker 1: it's an epic epic portrait associated and I'm associated. So
Speaker 1: I got, yeah, let's go. They'll give you money, they'll
Speaker 1: give us money to make the record. Yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: the money, will split the money. Then, so we just
Speaker 1: suddenly we're in Conway studios and we're making a record
Speaker 1: with one known you know. I got Phil Phil Solom
Speaker 1: who's in a band, and he's playing the guitar, and
Speaker 1: I got Stal on the drums, and he brings in
Speaker 1: some of the heartbreakers down there to play things, and
Speaker 1: we just we're having a blast. That's like Abbey Road again,
Speaker 1: you know. It's that where everybody's in a room having
Speaker 1: fun and everything's joyous and and it was just a
Speaker 1: great experience. And then we put the record out and
Speaker 1: then of course it all then you find out that
Speaker 1: the only people who really really love the music the
Speaker 1: people in the band. Okay, and at what point do
Speaker 1: you decide to go back on tour as Herman's Hermits.
Speaker 1: That phone call from from Lulu LULUs, they started me
Speaker 1: out as Peter Noon. I went Peter Noon formerly Home
Speaker 1: and of Herman's Hermits, and then go down. That's okay,
Speaker 1: it's very complicated. You've never been a player casino with
Speaker 1: all that. They're not just not too many words. So
Speaker 1: then I signed with Paradise in in O Hi and yeah,
Speaker 1: excuse yeah, Paradise Agency and they say, you know, we've
Speaker 1: got a problem because there's another band called Herman's Hermits
Speaker 1: going out and we're going to have trouble selling you
Speaker 1: us with this Herman Sermits, which is Barry whit when
Speaker 1: the druma with his new version of Herman Sermits and
Speaker 1: we've got to stop them. I don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: British Laurie is unusual. I don't think we can stuff.
Speaker 1: I tried to stop and doing it once before, I
Speaker 1: want in New York, but I failed in Britain. I
Speaker 1: mean I won the first case to stopping them using
Speaker 1: the name. And we decide to let him make him
Speaker 1: call his band Herman's Hermits starring Barry whitwam a new
Speaker 1: Herman's Hermits starring Peter Nooner let the audience choose which
Speaker 1: one they want to pay the money to see, and
Speaker 1: that was an agreement and I guess night sometime in
Speaker 1: the nineties maybe, Okay, So where's everybody in the original
Speaker 1: ban today? Keith Hotwood is in Manchester. He's doing really well.
Speaker 1: I just had lunch with him last week. He's a
Speaker 1: nice boy. And his son is a fan of Herman's Hermits.
Speaker 1: And so what does he do for a living. He's
Speaker 1: a He is a producer. He does a lot of
Speaker 1: television and movie commercial work, like sound tracks. Carl Green,
Speaker 1: what it left the bass player? He left Herman's Hermit
Speaker 1: starring Barry when about five years ago? And I think
Speaker 1: he he does equipment, rents equipment or runs a soundboard
Speaker 1: and Barry wait, we I'm still out with playing Herman's
Speaker 1: Hermit songs. And Derek let him be passed away? When
Speaker 1: did he pass in the night? A long time ago?
Speaker 1: He was a young man, He was very young man,
Speaker 1: but he had Hudgkin slim foma. Yeah, that's not good. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I saw you about a month ago and it
Speaker 1: was astounding. I mean, I've seen a lot of acts.
Speaker 1: What the reason the way I described today is I
Speaker 1: didn't want to look at my phone. I was afraid
Speaker 1: I would miss something. And there were First of all,
Speaker 1: the songs are so great. You have not lost your
Speaker 1: voice like so many other people at this stage of
Speaker 1: the game. And you're so funny. Okay. If I went
Speaker 1: to see you the next night at the Canyan Club,
Speaker 1: would you have been doing the same jokes. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's all run it's it's all runs off
Speaker 1: the audience. The whole show has to run off the audience.
Speaker 1: That's what cabaret is. You know, you can't what I have.
Speaker 1: It is a show. You know, Oklahoma is a show.
Speaker 1: When you go and see Oklahoma, you know they're going
Speaker 1: to start there's are bright, golden you know that that's
Speaker 1: what it's going to be. I start with him into
Speaker 1: something good, and the rest of it is all sort
Speaker 1: of expected. It's expected that I would do a Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger dick. It was very funny thing. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that I expected, and it was certainly funny. But if
Speaker 1: you've seen the show, you go back and you expect
Speaker 1: all the bits to be there, but they'll all be different.
Speaker 1: We won't do the same Johnny Cash song every night.
Speaker 1: I have a three hundred songs to choose from. We
Speaker 1: always do the hits. We always start with him into
Speaker 1: something good, and we always end with there's a kind
Speaker 1: of hush. The rest is all to me. And those
Speaker 1: guys behind me that look that looks like a enthusiasm
Speaker 1: is actually consternation, Like what is he gonna do. Does
Speaker 1: he even know what he's going to do? And I
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wander around and I do
Speaker 1: a Richard Harris story. I sometimes tell a story that's
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with the show. And so do
Speaker 1: you enjoy it? Absolutely? I lived for him and I
Speaker 1: always did, you know, I've always liked that bit of
Speaker 1: that fear factor of jumping up there. Now you describe
Speaker 1: yourself as the luckiest man in the world. Any regrets.
Speaker 1: I regret that I wasn't kinder to the people on
Speaker 1: the way up, and I regret that I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: never realized how proud my parents were of me. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't think of that. You know, until you get
Speaker 1: your own children, you don't know how proud you are
Speaker 1: of the smallest things. I didn't realize that they would
Speaker 1: be proud. And the only compliment my father ever gave
Speaker 1: to me was he came to see me in Pirates
Speaker 1: of Penzance on the West End and at the end
Speaker 1: of the show he said, that was pretty good. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? It's this is kind of weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, British tend to be reserved, but my parents
Speaker 1: have not been supportive of any endeavors I have. Remember
Speaker 1: once I got an email from Quincy Jones and I
Speaker 1: know Quincy at this but first email, I get it
Speaker 1: and I forward it to my mother. This is like
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and I'll get a response and I'm
Speaker 1: on the phone and I go, hey, mom, uh and
Speaker 1: I sent you an email from Quincy Jones. She said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I read it. Your mom. You know it's Quincy Jones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got a question, oh, v Quincy Jones, how would
Speaker 1: you know him? And it's like, whoa that was looking
Speaker 1: for my don't look for it from my family? So
Speaker 1: what have you do? But no, But I'm not like that.
Speaker 1: I mean I wish that when when I've been on
Speaker 1: top of the pops and the record was number one,
Speaker 1: that I'd gone home and say, hey, you know, well
Speaker 1: they think your parents were proud. Whatever. I haven't had
Speaker 1: the success you've had, But my parents are not proud.
Speaker 1: I think I think you aldience understands, which acknowledged them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what have you learned in this career? You know,
Speaker 1: all the good guys to finish first. I've found that
Speaker 1: a lot of people that I respect and have had
Speaker 1: long careers, like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and people
Speaker 1: like that. They're very nice people there, you know, there's
Speaker 1: the night. I can't find a better word than nice.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're really cautious with their kindness, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind people. Do you believe they were kind
Speaker 1: on the way up? And one never knows how people
Speaker 1: were there were always kind to me and and you know,
Speaker 1: I would say that somebody like Mick Jagger has this
Speaker 1: fascinating arrogance, which is which I feed off, because he's
Speaker 1: a man who is one of the top five biggest
Speaker 1: star in stars in the world, but he's completely under
Speaker 1: the radar. You don't know where he is. Like me,
Speaker 1: he's never set foot on a red carpet because we
Speaker 1: don't want any of that. We don't want that. That's
Speaker 1: not what we're looking for. Red carpets and people flashing
Speaker 1: bulbs in you know, we've got a song because it
Speaker 1: now it's all about the songs, isn't it. And he's
Speaker 1: got that thing. And Paul mc cartney as well, he
Speaker 1: lives under he's under the radar. When he was married
Speaker 1: to Linda and making all those great records like ram,
Speaker 1: they lived in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: They lived a personal, fabulous little life in love. Now
Speaker 1: all the people, all those British invasion acts, do you
Speaker 1: personally know all those people? Probably? I think I know
Speaker 1: all the British and uh and you keep up with
Speaker 1: any of these people you see about other road, Yes, see,
Speaker 1: almost everybody. Like I mean, I was just on a
Speaker 1: tour in England with Brian Pool from Brian Pool on
Speaker 1: the Tramler's Probably he's at the end of his career,
Speaker 1: but I saw him the first time with the Beatles
Speaker 1: opening for the Beatles in Ermston and the middle of
Speaker 1: a field and I've I've known him for that long.
Speaker 1: So of six sixty three to now is this is
Speaker 1: a classic question. But you mentioned so many gigs. What's
Speaker 1: the best gig that you've ever been into that you
Speaker 1: you were not the performer? Oh, probably Gino Washington and
Speaker 1: the Ram Jam band that the you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: just one inspirational gig, where as a guy who's just
Speaker 1: sweating and and and also Roy Head. I saw Roy
Speaker 1: Head in Houston once. Did you even know Ray Head
Speaker 1: had this record? Like and he was like he did
Speaker 1: Jackie Wilson, I like Jackie Wilson as well, but he
Speaker 1: could do Jackie Wilson better than Jackie Wilson. And he
Speaker 1: sound great, had a phenomenal band, and I saw I
Speaker 1: saw the Supremes once and they were pretty good too.
Speaker 1: So there's there's about five or six really fascinating giggs.
Speaker 1: And every time I saw Roy Orbison he always killed me.
Speaker 1: And and of course every time every time I saw
Speaker 1: the Beatles and Jerry and the Pacemakers, they were brilliant.
Speaker 1: Jerry and the Pacemakers were on that tour with you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then it wasn't the original Jerry. I'm talking Jerry
Speaker 1: and the Pacemakers at the Cavern and at the Liverpool Locarno.
Speaker 1: And you know, Jerry was very kind to my first
Speaker 1: Pete Novak on the Harbis. He took us on a
Speaker 1: tour with him and he was the headliner and it
Speaker 1: was Billy Ja Kramer under the coatas with a second act,
Speaker 1: and we were the opening act. And Jerry very kindly
Speaker 1: showed us to our dressing who which had gentlemen written
Speaker 1: on it. It's a joke. Thanks for calling on at all.
Speaker 1: Let me show you to your addressing room. So when
Speaker 1: you're doing a gig. Now do you know whether it's
Speaker 1: a good gig or a bad gig. You never do
Speaker 1: a bad one because you're so experienced. But there are
Speaker 1: certain gigs that are better than other. Do you suddenly
Speaker 1: feel it when you're doing it? But I never quit
Speaker 1: on it, you know the guy the guys in my
Speaker 1: bend says, wow, we thought we'd lost one air. But
Speaker 1: you never quit, you know, because I've I know, I've
Speaker 1: always got Henry the eighth. You know, you back up, okay,
Speaker 1: so that Henry the eighth is your trick. That's how
Speaker 1: that you know you rely on that or you'll play
Speaker 1: that sooner to wake everybody up. Yeah, but there's a
Speaker 1: few that can do that. You know. It's sometimes it's
Speaker 1: listen people, you know, it can change my my, my my.
Speaker 1: I can read an audience pretty well because I've been
Speaker 1: doing it for a long time and I've never done
Speaker 1: anything else, you know, I've never had a success of
Speaker 1: anything else, ex from being on a stage and reading
Speaker 1: an audience. And now, with the time you have left,
Speaker 1: which you could be a day or thirty years, what
Speaker 1: would you like to do with accomplisher? You having accomplished
Speaker 1: yet I think I want to do this for I've
Speaker 1: got ten more years. I keep saying every every day,
Speaker 1: I say, ten more years of this would be great,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I'd probably I've got to keep
Speaker 1: my chops. You know. It's a lot of musicians like
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger and Paul mcco are actually athletes who can
Speaker 1: sing and dance and and create music. So you have
Speaker 1: to think that, you know, when you lose the ability
Speaker 1: to do it, you have to be able to stop.
Speaker 1: You know, if you can't hit home runs anymore, you've
Speaker 1: gotta quit. You don't want to go into the mind leagues.
Speaker 1: And while he is still hitting home runs, when you
Speaker 1: see Peter Noone's name in the paper, you go to
Speaker 1: his website. You should definitely go. If you know his records,
Speaker 1: you will have a fantastic time and you'll smile and
Speaker 1: glow for the next Peter so great to have you here,
Speaker 1: that you could go on for so much or so
Speaker 1: many other questions like I have, but I will do
Speaker 1: it again, and at all period of all those specific songs.
Speaker 1: I have memories. I remember, as I say, you know,
Speaker 1: being in a bus being tired from skiing, and listen
Speaker 1: people coming out of the radio and the bus and
Speaker 1: it being dark. You have all these memories of these songs,
Speaker 1: but as long as they're good memories, I I have
Speaker 1: make it. Most used to say, it's only about the songs. Remember,
Speaker 1: it's about the songs. And it always and my show
Speaker 1: still is only about the songs. It doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: they presented. You know, people can go out and sing
Speaker 1: those songs in a karaoke bar and people get the
Speaker 1: buzz because it's only about the songs. Okay um, I
Speaker 1: present them really well, I do say so. Yes, let's
Speaker 1: go back to what part of the renaissance was I'm
Speaker 1: into something good was in The Naked Gun in eight
Speaker 1: I think it was, But that wasn't the original version.
Speaker 1: That was a recut by you. Yeah. We had to
Speaker 1: recut it because they were and we re cut it
Speaker 1: so well that they said, we have to change the
Speaker 1: solo because Alan Klein that a code. People will think
Speaker 1: it's the original and they'll want the licensing feast. We
Speaker 1: just went and we've rechanged the guitar solom and put
Speaker 1: like some little little do. I think the theater that
Speaker 1: I saw that and that's one of the that's the
Speaker 1: best part of the movie. I thought it was the
Speaker 1: original track. We tried, We tried very hard to sing.
Speaker 1: You know I can still do that herm and guy
Speaker 1: really well. You know I take a lot of pay
Speaker 1: a lot of attention to to try to be that
Speaker 1: guy that sang those records. Do you mean with your
Speaker 1: voice or your appearance, every every part of it. It's
Speaker 1: standis Levski kets it's um. You know, if you if
Speaker 1: you can become the person and you can believe it,
Speaker 1: then all the music makes sense. If you can believe it,
Speaker 1: just for a few minutes that you're in the studio
Speaker 1: in in in London making the record with sixteen year
Speaker 1: old boys. If you can get into that suit, then
Speaker 1: it will work. Can you get into that suit every night,
Speaker 1: five nights a week. I can do it. I needed,
Speaker 1: I do need a day off now and then. But
Speaker 1: I truly you know, when I did Pirates of Penzance,
Speaker 1: I did a thousand consecutive shows, and that I was.
Speaker 1: I was in New Zealand and I think was the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister long He said to me, how do you
Speaker 1: do a thousand shows? Us? I'm still trying to get
Speaker 1: it right for Wow And when you live, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you, but you when you go through we
Speaker 1: airports or you're on the street, to people recognize you.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the people. Do you know certain people do.
Speaker 1: I wish it was the twenty three year old girls,
Speaker 1: but it's it's usually the sixty two year old men
Speaker 1: and their and their moms, you know what I mean. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay, but that's recognition. I love being under the radar.
Speaker 1: I like being able to walk around right star Box
Speaker 1: and that have this following that is a magical following.
Speaker 1: I have a massive, magical following who trust me to
Speaker 1: keep delivering Once again, I think we're finally done here.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Peter, Thanks Abo,