Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is manager Bill Kurbish, Lick Bill, how
Speaker 1: are we doing? Okay, So, how did you get the
Speaker 1: How did I get the who? Or how did they
Speaker 1: get me? Well? I got the who because in the
Speaker 1: very early days one of my oldest pals from school
Speaker 1: two were very early days. Put a year on it. Well,
Speaker 1: when I was a boy, Okay, when in my early years,
Speaker 1: I went to school with two guys, Chris Stamp and
Speaker 1: Mike Sure. Oh, I didn't know you that far back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were scored together, and then we we left school.
Speaker 1: We became MUDs in our teenage years. Anyway, Mike Shure
Speaker 1: was constantly on at me about going with Oh he
Speaker 1: was originally a lightened director for a comedian called Normal Wisdom.
Speaker 1: And they then got together and they they were messing
Speaker 1: around trying to create an independent label. Okay, this was
Speaker 1: Christap and your other friends. Yeah, and along with then
Speaker 1: Stamp got together with Kit Lambert. So eventually Mike Share
Speaker 1: persuaded me. He said, listen, like music has been your life.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been powered since we're at school, Come
Speaker 1: in with us. So I went in with them. What
Speaker 1: year was that? That was seventy, so that is the
Speaker 1: year of the Timmy tour. In Who Live It leads
Speaker 1: exactly around that period. And unfortunately it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: I realized that both Chris and Kit we're suffering the
Speaker 1: vagaries of excess drugs, different stuff, different ship. So um
Speaker 1: I had a quick learning curve in that sense, and
Speaker 1: I had to try and keep the ship afloat. And
Speaker 1: we had over the that couple of years prior to
Speaker 1: them really getting themselves in trouble, we acquired a lot
Speaker 1: of really good artists. You know. We had Jimmy Hendrix,
Speaker 1: he was brought to us by Chess Chandler from the Animals.
Speaker 1: We had Mirk bol and t Rex and thunder Clapped Nerman,
Speaker 1: and we were one of three small independent labels. Really
Speaker 1: we had Trek Records. The only others were Chrysalist and
Speaker 1: Charisma at that time, so it was quite innovative. And
Speaker 1: we were dealing with Polydor PolyGram Polydor Records, which was
Speaker 1: mainly a German company and as far as I and
Speaker 1: R went, they didn't have much. So we did a
Speaker 1: tape lease still with them, which enabled us to give
Speaker 1: our artists, quite a very good royalty. But then we split.
Speaker 1: We had a profit split with the distributor, so we
Speaker 1: were often running. However, um Kit and Chris died really
Speaker 1: suffering from their excesses. And I was a little bit
Speaker 1: naive in away because I thought that they were really
Speaker 1: just like banging away out cocaine and bows, but they
Speaker 1: were doing smack. And there's only it's a one way road.
Speaker 1: There's only one it takes. It takes the fire away
Speaker 1: from you, you know so. And also my great pal
Speaker 1: Mike Sure, he suffered a car crash. He was taking
Speaker 1: some lights and stuff up to the cavern in Liverpool,
Speaker 1: which is famous of course the Beatles, and he was
Speaker 1: in the van and he hit a patch of fog
Speaker 1: on the motorway. He hit some fog and they found
Speaker 1: him the other side of the motorway and as a
Speaker 1: consequence of the car crash he became quadriplegic. However, he
Speaker 1: had a great music, suns, great mind, and he continued
Speaker 1: to work with me for several years after that, quite
Speaker 1: an number of years, but it was left to me
Speaker 1: in a sense to steer the ship. And at that
Speaker 1: time as well, we were heavily heavily involved in the
Speaker 1: making of the movie Tommy. So I would get phone
Speaker 1: calls from Stick would Bill, can you come in and
Speaker 1: see me? They're driving me fucking mad. Why what's wrong? Well?
Speaker 1: Kit wants his money and gold bullying, and Chris I
Speaker 1: can never find. So I helped him stitch together the
Speaker 1: the Tommy movie. I didn't really understand much about movies
Speaker 1: in those days, so I used to go off and
Speaker 1: pick the brains of friends of mine, you know, like
Speaker 1: David Putnam, Sandy Leeberson who made quite a few movies,
Speaker 1: you know, a long distance runner, all those, and I
Speaker 1: used to pick their brains. Go back, change it a
Speaker 1: bit with Stiggy, go away, come back, change it. Eventually
Speaker 1: we got a great deal on what we wanted and
Speaker 1: we made what's a classic movie of course. Um then
Speaker 1: Chris Kit unfortunately Lee suffered probably fell down the stairs
Speaker 1: and suffered a brain hemorrhage. And Chris went off to
Speaker 1: New York and after quite a number of years, cleaned
Speaker 1: up his act a bit and went into counseling of
Speaker 1: all things. So from that moment on, I was often
Speaker 1: running on my own. Um I got a call, I
Speaker 1: took a little small office up above Pink Floyd's office.
Speaker 1: Steve O'Rourke, who managed them, was an old mate, old
Speaker 1: mate of mine, and I took a small office up
Speaker 1: above and almost I didn't have much, you know, and
Speaker 1: I had I kept getting some calls from Pete Rudge,
Speaker 1: who at that time was with the Rolling Stones, and
Speaker 1: he said to me, Bill, will you do? Will you
Speaker 1: put together this tour of Europe for the Stones? You know,
Speaker 1: you know all the promoters, you'll get us the best deals.
Speaker 1: I said, Peter, I can't, I'm too busy, nothing. And
Speaker 1: he kept coming and in the end I got the
Speaker 1: deal I wanted and did the did the put together
Speaker 1: the tour for them, went out on tour with them
Speaker 1: and Pete, who's always been a friend p Rudge and
Speaker 1: did the Stones tour and then it all happened. Who
Speaker 1: came to me and they said, you know we're we're
Speaker 1: into litigation with Track Records. Would you manage us? I said, well,
Speaker 1: the only way we can do it if you're in litigation,
Speaker 1: you know, which I'm sad to here, but um, if
Speaker 1: you are in litigation, the only way to do it
Speaker 1: is to get some cash flow, and that means going
Speaker 1: out on the road and working and getting some cash
Speaker 1: flow because it's all going to be locked up. And
Speaker 1: I should back track slightly, because the reason why I
Speaker 1: left Trade Records and them was that after we did
Speaker 1: the premiere of the Tommy movie in New York, we
Speaker 1: did it in a subway in New York. I was
Speaker 1: promised a percentage of that film, of the management percentage
Speaker 1: of which I was going to split with my pal,
Speaker 1: the boy who was paralyzed, and it was never thought.
Speaker 1: Come in. You could never get the pair of them
Speaker 1: to sign anything laments then, I mean, they were at
Speaker 1: war with each other. You would never find them in
Speaker 1: the right state of mind to sign anything. And so
Speaker 1: as a result of that, I'm gone. You know, you're
Speaker 1: not only didn't pay me, but I was going to
Speaker 1: split it with Mike Chris. He was worth us all
Speaker 1: away through score his our pal. So you're not only
Speaker 1: sucked me, you're sucked him. And I left and he
Speaker 1: never thought I was going to leave, but I did.
Speaker 1: And that's that was the story. Okay, So who was
Speaker 1: running the management company in the label after you left?
Speaker 1: If these two guys were such druggius they weren't able
Speaker 1: to run it. I mean Mike, sure, try it in
Speaker 1: his own way. He tried the boy but it was
Speaker 1: awfully difficult for him, and so it just collapsed really
Speaker 1: And that's when they came to me the WHO and
Speaker 1: I was in as I said, I was in that
Speaker 1: little office. I was doing the stones to her and
Speaker 1: they came to me and said, you know, would you
Speaker 1: manage just And prior to that, because it was in
Speaker 1: such a disarray, Daughtry had a solo album which I
Speaker 1: went to Lambent Sam. I said, look, he's he's made
Speaker 1: this solo album and all the songs were written by
Speaker 1: a new young singer. Say, got a great story here,
Speaker 1: so m I said. They said, oh, we don't want
Speaker 1: don't know, We're not going to release. I said, listen,
Speaker 1: if you release it and it's successful, it will help
Speaker 1: tremendously because it will help Roger's self esteem in this
Speaker 1: whole situation because Pete was the main man, the writer,
Speaker 1: the guitarist, he was the main man. And it was
Speaker 1: an attempt to get some sort of democracy going, you know,
Speaker 1: and and for for Roger to feel he's for it.
Speaker 1: And they said, well, if you want to do it,
Speaker 1: you can, so I said, okay, I will so I
Speaker 1: came over to Los Angeles. In those days, m c
Speaker 1: A was run by Artie mogul So this seventy three. Okay,
Speaker 1: Artie mogul Forest in the music business. He's now this
Speaker 1: He's known as a legendary crook, a big gambler, show
Speaker 1: keep going. So I came over and the people that
Speaker 1: were running m c that m c A at that
Speaker 1: time were Mike Maitland, Lu Cook, very very honest man,
Speaker 1: and Artie mogul So. I had three I had three albums.
Speaker 1: I had the Roger Adultery solo album, the Leo Sayer album.
Speaker 1: Adam Faith had asked me to bring and an album
Speaker 1: by a band, a Dutch band called Golden ear Ring.
Speaker 1: Of course, so I played them the three albums. So
Speaker 1: they said, yeah, we love for the Daultry album and
Speaker 1: we really liked this new kid. He eventually went to warners,
Speaker 1: but we really love this new kid. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about the Dutch band. I said, listen, they're fantastic. Come
Speaker 1: when are you going to be in London? So they said,
Speaker 1: oh so so time. I said, listen, they're playing the
Speaker 1: Lyceum in the strand come see them because they're a
Speaker 1: great life and they're all good looking guys. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell them they were opening for somebody else. I think
Speaker 1: it was mounting all one of those means. So comes
Speaker 1: the night of the show at the Lyceum and they're
Speaker 1: just ready to go on stage, and then it's clear
Speaker 1: the theater. It's an ira I R a bomb scare.
Speaker 1: There's a bomb in the building. Everyone out. So everyone's
Speaker 1: out and they're all in the strand and we're waiting
Speaker 1: industry and for like maybe an hour or so to
Speaker 1: get clearance. Eventually we get clearance, We go back in,
Speaker 1: earing go on stage. They played their set. There's no
Speaker 1: one there from m c A. So I own the
Speaker 1: next morning. I said, where the funk were you? They said,
Speaker 1: where were we? We We couldn't get anywhere near that
Speaker 1: theater for the crowds. We want that band. They thought
Speaker 1: the crowds were all there for them. We want that band.
Speaker 1: And so they took the album, which was an album
Speaker 1: called Moonten had a huge hit on it called Radar Love,
Speaker 1: and then it's a driving song and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: You know that. That's so. And Roger had a successful
Speaker 1: album with his solo album Mud Not to the Distress
Speaker 1: of Kit and Chris. But to the bewilderment I think,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget Lambert. I saw Lambert in New
Speaker 1: York and he was wasn't compassment as and he said
Speaker 1: to me, when we're going to release the Golden Earring album?
Speaker 1: And I said, it's number five in the charts? What's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? So it was a bit of a shambles, bob,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I went forward. Then who came
Speaker 1: to me for management? Okay, just to go you quit
Speaker 1: since they said they weren't going to put out the
Speaker 1: adultry album? Were you putting it out by yourself or
Speaker 1: as part of their bellage, part of their management? Then
Speaker 1: the Tommy movie came along after that, and that's when
Speaker 1: I quit. So all those albums came out before the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And coming back from New York after the premier of
Speaker 1: the Tommy Movie was when I quit. On the plane? Okay,
Speaker 1: So what was your first album with the who Oh ship?
Speaker 1: Now you're asking me who by numbers? Was still the
Speaker 1: old guys? Yeah? No, no, no, no, it was us. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's nine four, So that was it. Am Whistle did
Speaker 1: the sleeve to it. Who by Numbers? They could have
Speaker 1: been the first one, but I was with it at
Speaker 1: the time in the studio. Through those years, I worked
Speaker 1: with him on Quadraphenia in the studios, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: and much much later UM. I produced the movie Quadraphonia
Speaker 1: that I constantly going on record, I'm just not stroking you.
Speaker 1: That's the best rock movie ever. When people talk about it,
Speaker 1: that's it because it's not only Quadrophenia. It works as
Speaker 1: a movie. I can literally tell you where I saw
Speaker 1: it so longer, a theater in Westwood and phenomenal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that do you want to jump to that now
Speaker 1: because we can come back to Yeah, we'll go back
Speaker 1: to it, but let's go so so yeah. So they start,
Speaker 1: they needed to tour to get cash flow, and then eventually,
Speaker 1: Um the litigation was resolved, and as I said, Kit
Speaker 1: had a bad he felt understairs. It was sad because
Speaker 1: he came to see me like two days before that.
Speaker 1: He wasn't in great shape, and he said, Bill, he said,
Speaker 1: you're doing a great job with them, he said, better
Speaker 1: than we did together. I said, well, thanks, Kit, you know,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't in great shape. So I gave him
Speaker 1: some money and he went away. And then two days
Speaker 1: later he had the accident. Okay, going back to the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: the word on the street is that the Who had
Speaker 1: a terrible deal, the managers were bad with money. What
Speaker 1: was the truth there? The truth was, if you're heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy into addiction, one of the overriding things that envelopes
Speaker 1: your life is fear, fear of not having enough money
Speaker 1: to feed that drug addiction. And that was one of
Speaker 1: the problems. I'm not saying that they stole money. They
Speaker 1: thought they borrowed it, but they didn't. In the end,
Speaker 1: if you're borrowing money without any real possibility of repaying it,
Speaker 1: that's not good. And so they were raid. In some
Speaker 1: of the other accounts we had as well, the Hendlix
Speaker 1: account some of the other artists, it was just grab
Speaker 1: it for what they needed. But with the Who, what
Speaker 1: what is true in fact is the Who will always
Speaker 1: offer promised fort of track records ten percent each as
Speaker 1: or Moon Daltry Towns in which they never got. They
Speaker 1: just didn't get it to this day, never got it
Speaker 1: to this day. And added to that, there was some
Speaker 1: double dipping going on because um, their commission rate was
Speaker 1: really high high was it other than the colonel I
Speaker 1: don't know. Anybody's gone beyond twenty but okay exactly, so
Speaker 1: it was um they had the publishing tied up, and
Speaker 1: then it was a later day the pete discovered that
Speaker 1: everything wasn't right within his publishing the income as well,
Speaker 1: and that was it. That was the straw. Okay, So
Speaker 1: how did the litigation resolve? It resolved in the sense
Speaker 1: that the company basically eventually went bankrupt. They had to
Speaker 1: repay the band all of the missing royalties, so they
Speaker 1: did on which they found very difficult because they don't
Speaker 1: have any money because they blown the money. Usually you
Speaker 1: can get a judgment, but you can't have any money.
Speaker 1: So what I was left to do was to renegotiate
Speaker 1: a lot of their record deals and instead of the
Speaker 1: amount that would usually go to track, you know of
Speaker 1: profits and the overage after the artist's royalty, I made
Speaker 1: sure it went to the WHO. So eventually, over a
Speaker 1: long term, they got back as much, if not all,
Speaker 1: of what they were rowed. But they weren't treated well
Speaker 1: and it was completely unnecessary. I mean, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the whole friend of mine from Scooter, completely unnecessary. But
Speaker 1: I knew, Bob, I knew that I was dealing with
Speaker 1: a different person, the one who was my pal. He
Speaker 1: was on heroin. He was a different person, you know.
Speaker 1: And he was a good man. He had a good heart. Um,
Speaker 1: but it all gets distorted, you know, it all gets changed,
Speaker 1: and it was sad to see. Okay, before the drugs,
Speaker 1: were they good managers? They were good. I don't think
Speaker 1: they did lack in certain areas. I mean when I
Speaker 1: came in and started doing the touring for the band,
Speaker 1: for example, the first thing I saw was that they
Speaker 1: were into taking a guarantee but not really really looking
Speaker 1: at the back end. So what I did with the
Speaker 1: band was I immediately changed that ship and I went
Speaker 1: into the promoters and I took suffer guarantee, but I
Speaker 1: wanted a nine deal. A lot of people give Peter
Speaker 1: Grant credit for that. I was doing it way before Grant. Okay,
Speaker 1: glad we're going on the record, because there were moth people.
Speaker 1: I even I thought it was Peter Grant. No it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was doing nineties ten deals before Grant, head Zepplin
Speaker 1: and so Um. I was earning them a lot more money,
Speaker 1: a lot more money, and the band especially well Pete
Speaker 1: says it in his book and Rogers always acknowledged that,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was a simple leap of faith
Speaker 1: on my part because I thought ship this band is
Speaker 1: a great, great band. They can go into overage, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to see them get the lion's share of
Speaker 1: that overage. And that's how I've proceeded with them, with
Speaker 1: them all my life, and everything is completely and absolutely transparent.
Speaker 1: And I don't have a contract. Okay, let's got the
Speaker 1: Egypt in America was Frank Barcelona, he was it was
Speaker 1: Frank in Premier and who was in Europe? We were
Speaker 1: great friends. We didn't have an agent in Europe. Initially
Speaker 1: they put it again through their agency New Action. I
Speaker 1: did it and in those days I used to do it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I used to go I used to book them out
Speaker 1: in Europe. I used to go out with him on tour.
Speaker 1: I was met tour manager, accountant, the whole, the whole bundle.
Speaker 1: So I used to settle after shows and do it all.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that now. This was the days when
Speaker 1: you get paid in cash, right, because a lot of
Speaker 1: it was because you didn't trust the promoter, didn't trust them.
Speaker 1: I would want the I'd want the advance against the
Speaker 1: guarantee into our account before we ever went and then
Speaker 1: the balance in cash. Okay, so tell us some stories
Speaker 1: about trying to collect the back end. I can honestly
Speaker 1: say I never ever had a problem collecting that back end. Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's one good thing. They at least had the money.
Speaker 1: But I have been in the offices of promoters. Weren't
Speaker 1: seen the two sets of books. They're said in the
Speaker 1: set they show to the acts. So how do you know?
Speaker 1: You know everybody stealing from everybody in this business, So
Speaker 1: how did you deal with that? Well, one of the
Speaker 1: things I've always said is I've always had a photober
Speaker 1: figures really, and so I was very quick to be
Speaker 1: able to do deals on foot on the bounce. But
Speaker 1: also I would on a lot of those shows, I
Speaker 1: would click people in and they have people on the
Speaker 1: doors clicking them in. And in some instances I found
Speaker 1: extra extra rose. In Germany, for example, I found extra rose.
Speaker 1: You know, there was p and then instead of like
Speaker 1: there was m N O P q Q. So you know,
Speaker 1: got once they knew that you were into it, they
Speaker 1: they stopped all that ship, you know. And ironically, when
Speaker 1: I was doing when I made that shift um and
Speaker 1: doing when ruddering me about doing the Stones to her,
Speaker 1: you know, of Europe. I think that also set a
Speaker 1: bit of a standard for me, because in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I did some great deals for them, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the Stones were in a similar situation in
Speaker 1: those days. It was early early days, that's as you know.
Speaker 1: And some of those contracts and some of the promoters
Speaker 1: were like give them the advance and ripped them. And
Speaker 1: you have to be very careful. You have to look
Speaker 1: at what the rule rent was on the hall, and
Speaker 1: I used to go through it forensically. I wanted to
Speaker 1: know how much a faultlift cast everything, because I was
Speaker 1: my my aim. It was really to get this band
Speaker 1: what I felt they deserved. And I guess if I'm
Speaker 1: proud of anything, it's Townsend said in his book, from
Speaker 1: the moment I took over, he was never in need
Speaker 1: of money. It's their money. Without them, I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be here, that's for sure. It's the artist
Speaker 1: comes first. I couldn't agree. What why is it called Trinifold?
Speaker 1: It was the company I just picked off the shelf,
Speaker 1: no other reason. I had a young accountant at that time.
Speaker 1: I said I need to start a management company. He said, well,
Speaker 1: he just took a company off the shelf four hundred
Speaker 1: pounds and it was Trinifold. He's got no meaning. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. So you're born where
Speaker 1: I was born in London, in the East end of London,
Speaker 1: in West Ham. Okay, So what was it like growing
Speaker 1: up there? Ah? It was great. I mean it was
Speaker 1: the East end of London. My father worked in the docks.
Speaker 1: What do you do there? Well, my father was during
Speaker 1: the Second World War. He was a chief injury near
Speaker 1: on a submarine base in Salon and they called them
Speaker 1: chief engineer artifica. Anyway, he came back after the Second
Speaker 1: World War went into the docks and he was a
Speaker 1: marine engineer in the docks. So it was ship repairs
Speaker 1: and that's where we lived, around the docks. And then
Speaker 1: your mother worked outside the home. She did um and
Speaker 1: she sent me to school when I was four instead
Speaker 1: of five so she could go to work. And she
Speaker 1: did what she worked in various She was assistant cook,
Speaker 1: she worked in a button factory. She did anything to
Speaker 1: keep us alive. And I was say embarrassed later in
Speaker 1: life because she altered my birth certificate to get me
Speaker 1: into school, and you can't change a two into a one,
Speaker 1: and it looked like there was a fucking hole in
Speaker 1: the paper. So I passed what they had then the
Speaker 1: day the scholarship in England called the eleven plant that
Speaker 1: then if you pass that allowed you to go onto
Speaker 1: a much more elite school, a grammar school or a
Speaker 1: technical school or whatever. So I passed that at ten
Speaker 1: instead of eleven. So when I had to go to
Speaker 1: register to the school, I had to take this birth
Speaker 1: certificate with me. A man, was I embarrassed? I mean,
Speaker 1: you could see through it. I went down, I was
Speaker 1: dreading it and they didn't even look at the So
Speaker 1: so I went through school, all the way through school,
Speaker 1: a year younger then I really should have been. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: how many kids in the family? Six? And where are
Speaker 1: you in the hierarchy? The oldest? You're the oldest. How
Speaker 1: much older are you than the youngest? Uh? The youngest Paul,
Speaker 1: here's eighteen years younger than me. Okay, what's your relationship
Speaker 1: with the other five? Fantastic a live No one of
Speaker 1: them is not the boy my brother who was the
Speaker 1: next one down to me, Alfie. He sadly died like
Speaker 1: ten years ago. Um, he was the next one down
Speaker 1: to me. He was great. He was a good heavyweight boxer.
Speaker 1: He was good. Then I had two sisters. One now
Speaker 1: lives in New Zealand, then my other sisters still lives
Speaker 1: in London. And then the two youngest brothers both were
Speaker 1: soccer players, I have to say soccer soccer players. They
Speaker 1: both played at west Ham, but one of them became
Speaker 1: much much more famous than the other one. And so
Speaker 1: the elder of those two Alan, he's sixteen years younger
Speaker 1: than me. He had his first proper game in the
Speaker 1: Premier League when he was sixteen and he played in
Speaker 1: the England World Cup when he was fourteen. He was
Speaker 1: a very great player and he's known very well in England.
Speaker 1: He had he had nineteen years as a player, played
Speaker 1: for west Ham. He played for West and Villa, Birmingham
Speaker 1: Great Teams and Brighton and then he ended up at
Speaker 1: a club Charlton, which was in the Second at the
Speaker 1: end of his playing career Second Division, and he became
Speaker 1: the coach there and took them up into the Premiership.
Speaker 1: And he had nineteen years as a manager and he's
Speaker 1: now a man of leisure. Now he's a pundit. But
Speaker 1: the other thing about it, when he became a star,
Speaker 1: salaries were much lower. Oh yeah, he he was top
Speaker 1: of the tree as a player, and I guess he
Speaker 1: was making then three hundred pounds five hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 1: By the time he became a manager, he was making
Speaker 1: two or three million a year. So he ended up
Speaker 1: being in the game long enough to his rewards. And
Speaker 1: his kids are growing up now and he was constantly
Speaker 1: being poached at one time to be the national manager
Speaker 1: you know, um, And he said, well at the moment now,
Speaker 1: the way it is, he said, there's four or five
Speaker 1: teams with money all the rest want you to work
Speaker 1: a miracle. He said, I've had like thirty eight years
Speaker 1: of it. I'm chilled. And he goes and does quite
Speaker 1: a bit of punditry from um. He goes to Qatar
Speaker 1: and does it for around. I mean, you might see
Speaker 1: him over so we were in America, we'd see it's
Speaker 1: a broadcaster a college. Yeah, he's a pandit and a
Speaker 1: broadcaster for the Premier League. And a lot of it
Speaker 1: comes over here because it goes everywhere but the UK.
Speaker 1: So I know lots of friends in America have seen
Speaker 1: him pontificating after certain soccer slash woodball is getting bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger. If Army Arsan was alive, it'd turn over
Speaker 1: in his grave. I went to the World Cup with
Speaker 1: Armored and Nessuy Hurtrican because Armored they were both manic. Well,
Speaker 1: they brought the broad Pellade in New York exactly for
Speaker 1: the Cosmos. And I went to the World Cup with
Speaker 1: the pair of them, and we went down to Barcelona
Speaker 1: for the semifinals and then into Madrid for the finals,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was always and then he started
Speaker 1: the Cosmos, and people thought, well, what's he doing. What
Speaker 1: they didn't realize was that with the complete ethnic mixture
Speaker 1: in America, you know, you had a sport there that
Speaker 1: was appealing to them, whether they be Latin, American, Greek, this,
Speaker 1: that Italian. But more to the point, it was a
Speaker 1: sport that you had to be normal, normal higher. You
Speaker 1: didn't have to be three hundred pounds, you didn't have
Speaker 1: to be seven ft tall like basketball. It was for
Speaker 1: normal size. So that's why it took off right me
Speaker 1: out on the street. So going back to your five siblings,
Speaker 1: did any of them ever work for you, well, my
Speaker 1: younger brother. They did actually, but I only sold that.
Speaker 1: I did a huge show in the football stadium in London,
Speaker 1: and I had my brother, the one who who's deceased
Speaker 1: healthy and the one Alan who was the soccer player.
Speaker 1: They were selling programs and merchandise for me. And then
Speaker 1: it was four or five weeks after that that he
Speaker 1: got his first game, my brother for West Ham Um
Speaker 1: and they played Newcastle and he scored the first goal
Speaker 1: sixteen years of age, and he made the winner. And
Speaker 1: that night they said on TV a star was born today.
Speaker 1: Of course you would never come to work for me
Speaker 1: again after course, after that. Okay, So you were a
Speaker 1: good student. Yeah, I was a good student. I was
Speaker 1: unruly and and disciplined, but I found a lot of
Speaker 1: it easy. Okay. So you went to school and you
Speaker 1: finished what we call high school here and then and
Speaker 1: he thought of getting any more education, or you said
Speaker 1: I'm done, I'm not going to school anymore. No, I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I'm done. I had to get get out
Speaker 1: and get a living. We were a very poor family.
Speaker 1: We lived in a very poor area and it was
Speaker 1: necessary to go to work, you know. So that's what
Speaker 1: I did. Your whole you're seventeen and you're going to work. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be seventeen, but I was really sixty,
Speaker 1: and so for me it was work. And then I
Speaker 1: went in of all things, I went into this boy
Speaker 1: Mike sure I'm telling you about who was paralyzed. We
Speaker 1: both decided we wanted to go in the merchant Navy.
Speaker 1: We wanted to see a bit of the world, and
Speaker 1: our plans were disrupted a little bit by the fact
Speaker 1: that we had to go on different boats. So the
Speaker 1: first time I ever came to America was as a
Speaker 1: emergency seamen. When was that, oh funk that I was?
Speaker 1: That was fifty nine, Okay, fifty nine, I was seventeen. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go. How long were you a merchant seamen? I
Speaker 1: did one long five and a half months trip, which
Speaker 1: took seven months because every time I got somewhere good,
Speaker 1: I jumped right and I was what you would call
Speaker 1: a distressed British seman. Okay, what did you actually do
Speaker 1: on the boat? A mixture of things. I was originally
Speaker 1: what you would call a comy waiter, but after that
Speaker 1: it wasn't much else. I mean, I was scrubbing stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: look picking up ship, you know it was it sounds
Speaker 1: like hard work. It was hard work. Okay. So the
Speaker 1: first time he came to New York, do you were
Speaker 1: just on the border. You got to experience New York. No,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying to you. I came New York.
Speaker 1: You have a few days off. I got to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles show days off. The big slap was from Los
Speaker 1: Angeles to Tokyo. That was heavy. I remember it was
Speaker 1: really heavy. Seas Um. I didn't come back to the
Speaker 1: ship in Tokyo. I hooked up with a girl there
Speaker 1: in Japan, and I was there for a week or two,
Speaker 1: picked up another boat, and that's when I was classed
Speaker 1: as a distressed British seman um. So I did that
Speaker 1: in a couple of places. So let's go back to
Speaker 1: the girl in Tokyo. This is a Japanese woman, of
Speaker 1: course it was. You could have bet it, you could
Speaker 1: have met it. No, she was Japanese, okay, and she
Speaker 1: didn't speak English. I don't think only a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I'm telling you, if you get a lot for
Speaker 1: an Elvis Presley album in those days, and okay, you
Speaker 1: you ever have any contact other than that week no, okay,
Speaker 1: So now you ultimately make it back to the UK,
Speaker 1: now you are seventeen, then what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: I did's various various work on building, science and ship
Speaker 1: you know. And yeah, so then and it wasn't that long.
Speaker 1: It was a number of years afterwards that I joined
Speaker 1: by Track Records. But I hustled around a bit, had
Speaker 1: various jobs. Well did you what were you thinking in
Speaker 1: your head? This is going to be my whole life
Speaker 1: for I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: big score. Uh not really because at that age, and
Speaker 1: this is how I think about my my kids today.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't really focus too much on the
Speaker 1: future and time. I never ever thought, I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: people of forty years of age were old of course,
Speaker 1: you know. So oh and I went to Jersey in
Speaker 1: the Channel Islands. I had a great time there. For
Speaker 1: a year. I was working with the divers and they
Speaker 1: were widening the dock there. So they used to dive
Speaker 1: with explosives because it was a very narrow inlet into
Speaker 1: the into the docks in St Helier. So I worked
Speaker 1: with them and they were like they used to clear it,
Speaker 1: you know, detonate it. Get rid of the rock and
Speaker 1: clear it. So I had a great year there with them.
Speaker 1: Came back because in those days a lot of young
Speaker 1: people used to go. That was the place to go,
Speaker 1: the Jersey in the Channel Liners. Lots of fun, lots
Speaker 1: of girls, lots of everything, you know. So I went
Speaker 1: back for that year, came back for like five or
Speaker 1: six months. Then I went back again for another six
Speaker 1: months and had some great times, you know. And I
Speaker 1: was a ski bum after carcind of thing. You're not
Speaker 1: making any money, but you do what you want doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Yes, So it traveled around a lot
Speaker 1: and it was great, okay, and then you come back
Speaker 1: and you start working with your buddy. Where is there
Speaker 1: something else you want me to tell you? Yeah, when
Speaker 1: I was twenty one, I was arrested for a crime, okay,
Speaker 1: and it was a crime that I didn't commit. As
Speaker 1: I sit here now and everybody knows, it's a bit
Speaker 1: of a legend in the East End that I was
Speaker 1: charged with an armed robbery along with four the guys
Speaker 1: and I wasn't involved in it. Um so anyway they
Speaker 1: put me onto it. And this can only happen in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. It wouldn't happen today. So they put
Speaker 1: me on an identity parade. What do you mean is
Speaker 1: that's a line up and if somebody chooses it. So
Speaker 1: I'm in a lineup and I'm picked out by a policeman.
Speaker 1: And this policeman said he was riding along on his
Speaker 1: bicycle and he saw these guys Robin an armored vain
Speaker 1: and the guy that he saw running away was five
Speaker 1: ft eight with frizzy, bushy hair. The judge is a
Speaker 1: wonderful man. I hope he's still fucking dying from cancer.
Speaker 1: He said, Well, members of the jury, you might think
Speaker 1: that curbishly. If he was running and stooped over, he
Speaker 1: would look five for eight and with the wind rushing
Speaker 1: in through his hair, it would look frizzy. That's ridiculous. Indeed,
Speaker 1: So there was that, And there was one other woman
Speaker 1: who said she saw somebody jumped from this land rather
Speaker 1: and she said, when she saw me in the lineup,
Speaker 1: she said maybe, But on eight previous identity parades she
Speaker 1: picked out somebody definitely, and they were all innocent people.
Speaker 1: And that's the evidence. That is the total evidence, right,
Speaker 1: So other than the fact that two of the other
Speaker 1: guys who were charged with the robbery. They were friends
Speaker 1: of mine and known to be friends of mine, and
Speaker 1: they did commit their they were part of him. Some
Speaker 1: sentenced to fifteen years. You're a sentence. Well, let's go
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. You don't have any money. What
Speaker 1: do you do for a lawyer? You get what's called
Speaker 1: legal aids. Okay, you get public defender here, but use
Speaker 1: your public defender. Here's a million cases. And you don't
Speaker 1: get such a good defense. You don't get such a
Speaker 1: good defense. But the QC I had was really quite good. Okay,
Speaker 1: just one more time. So they arrested you. Why because
Speaker 1: they had already arrested four other guys, and two of
Speaker 1: them were friends of mine, and I was a known
Speaker 1: associate with them, so they thought, why not him. I
Speaker 1: have to ask before this, this particular arm robbery, were
Speaker 1: you involved in any illicit activities with those other two? No? No,
Speaker 1: but I was a known friend, and that I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to say the way you said non friend, Medis
Speaker 1: had a sinister elevance, know, and we went we went
Speaker 1: to drinking clubs and things like that, you know. So
Speaker 1: so anyway, I was a known associate. Right, So now
Speaker 1: you're in court you say you have a good public defender,
Speaker 1: and you got fifteen years. So then what happened? I
Speaker 1: went to prison and uh so, I mean, you couldn't
Speaker 1: write all of this, It's just I went to prison.
Speaker 1: So the first prison, I went to. Second prison, I
Speaker 1: went to Hope I'm by the way. The other guys
Speaker 1: who were convicted all made statements saying that I was innocent,
Speaker 1: because they did before we do senses. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: they said you were innocent. Yeah, they said I was innocent,
Speaker 1: but nobody took much regard of that. So we had
Speaker 1: an appeal and obviously died. So did they also get
Speaker 1: fifteen years or all of them? So I then went
Speaker 1: to um one prison. Then I went to a notorious
Speaker 1: prison called Dartmoor, which is in the moors and way
Speaker 1: way in the wilderness in England. Whoever designed it must
Speaker 1: have been a total mesochist, or say this rather anyway,
Speaker 1: um I eventually I tried to escape from there. And
Speaker 1: then now from watching the movies, they say, if you escape,
Speaker 1: you know you don't get out early. That's right, So
Speaker 1: what was going through your head? I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get out, you know, I mean, I knew I was innocent.
Speaker 1: I just wanted out and I thought, rightly or wrongly,
Speaker 1: I thought, if I get out, I can try and
Speaker 1: do something about this, prove it, or go missing. I
Speaker 1: just to me at twenty one years of age, you know. So, Um,
Speaker 1: I tried to escape with another guy and as a
Speaker 1: result of that, they sent me to a very very
Speaker 1: high security prison. Just so I know, did you actually
Speaker 1: get outside the prison wall? No? No, we had keys.
Speaker 1: A guy made keys for us, and um, somebody must
Speaker 1: have said something because the next thing I knew was
Speaker 1: the doors smashed open. I'm taken out at five am
Speaker 1: in the morning, and I'm taken from the West Country
Speaker 1: all the way up north past Newcastle to a place
Speaker 1: called Durham. And in Durham they had a special special wing,
Speaker 1: high high security. And when I tell you, I went
Speaker 1: in there and there were twenty other prisoners and I
Speaker 1: was the shortest sentence of fifteen years, and five of
Speaker 1: them were great train robbers. Really, yeah, okay, did you
Speaker 1: have was it like isolation or you so you so
Speaker 1: you could talk to our these people? Yeah? We we
Speaker 1: became great friends. We mixed together and we became great friends.
Speaker 1: And I then a couple of years later, and you're
Speaker 1: talking about my We were talking about my sister who
Speaker 1: lives in New Zealand. She came to visit me because
Speaker 1: she was leaving to go to New Zealand, and as
Speaker 1: she was leaving, a little incident occurred. And the upshot
Speaker 1: of that was the next day I attacked a prison
Speaker 1: order as a result of what he said on my
Speaker 1: visit and the insults and my sister. So I attacked
Speaker 1: the prison mortar order and it was it was a
Speaker 1: nice attack, really because it wasn't that physical. I just
Speaker 1: put a whole pot of piss all over his head,
Speaker 1: so I got them moved. But the key to the
Speaker 1: story is that during all this time I had a solicitor,
Speaker 1: a young man who was absolutely convinced by innocence, and
Speaker 1: he was fighting to try and get me released, and
Speaker 1: he came along to see me. As a result of
Speaker 1: this thing in Durham with the prison guard, they moved
Speaker 1: me to Lincoln in the Midlands, and he came to
Speaker 1: see me and he was continuously trying to get something
Speaker 1: done about my case. And then one day the governor
Speaker 1: came into my cell. I was in isolation and he
Speaker 1: came in is the government and the runs of prison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the governor, yeah, the chief warden. And he said, look,
Speaker 1: he said, I've just been to London. His name was
Speaker 1: Fred Owens. He said, I've just been to London. He said,
Speaker 1: I met a couple of friends of yours. I said really,
Speaker 1: he said yeah, he said, and they told me all
Speaker 1: about what had happened to you. So I said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do about it? He said, well,
Speaker 1: I can't do anything really, he said, but if you
Speaker 1: stay out of trouble for three months, I'll get your
Speaker 1: moved to London so you can deal with your case
Speaker 1: and your solicitors much more easily being in London. So
Speaker 1: I said okay. So I stayed out of trouble, and
Speaker 1: true to his word, he got me moved down to London,
Speaker 1: and then I had access to my lawyer and other
Speaker 1: people helping me on a much more daily basis. And
Speaker 1: my lawyer was at that time solicitor, was friends with
Speaker 1: a journalist and he was an independent journalist who wrote
Speaker 1: for the Times, and so he um did a story
Speaker 1: and it was front page on one of the Sunday papers.
Speaker 1: This man is innocent. So as a result of that,
Speaker 1: I got a re hearing in the in the Courts
Speaker 1: of Law with not with a jury, but with three judges,
Speaker 1: and they heard all the new evidence and everything, and
Speaker 1: they refused it. And I was going back to the
Speaker 1: prison and I never forget this. I was going back
Speaker 1: to the prison in a vein. It was just before
Speaker 1: Christmas and I'm on Tottenham Court Road and I saw
Speaker 1: a bus and it was advertising the movie The Graduate,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Jeremy or something, and he said,
Speaker 1: this is Jeremy and he's worried about his future. And
Speaker 1: it was great. Within Over the Christmas there was a
Speaker 1: postal strike, so nothing much was getting through. Straight after
Speaker 1: the Christmas, I was again, I've chosen at that time
Speaker 1: to be a lot on my own, because you go
Speaker 1: through cycles where you don't want to really mix too
Speaker 1: much with people. You want to chill a bit more
Speaker 1: on your own, you know. So I'm in the cell
Speaker 1: and the doors opened and the guard said you're wanted
Speaker 1: over at the parole at the parole office. I said,
Speaker 1: go fuck off. I thought it was friends of mine playing.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not due for parole for another light
Speaker 1: four or five years or even longer. He said, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you get changed out of your working year. You're
Speaker 1: wanted over, I said, I said, fuck off. So they
Speaker 1: then sent up the principal officer and I told him
Speaker 1: the same. So they dragged me over to the parole
Speaker 1: office in the dressed in overalls and everything, and took
Speaker 1: me in front of the parole board. So they said,
Speaker 1: we've considered your case and we've think you're suitable for parole.
Speaker 1: I said, well, how do you work that one out?
Speaker 1: I said, I've got another five or six years to
Speaker 1: do and I don't think I've been a model prisoner.
Speaker 1: How about telling me I'm eligible for parole because I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: So the head of the parole board said to me, listen,
Speaker 1: I want you to go outside for five minutes and
Speaker 1: consider what I'm saying to you. He said, whatever, if
Speaker 1: you're out there on a working out scheme, you will
Speaker 1: be able to do much more for yourself then you
Speaker 1: will in here. He said, go outside and think for
Speaker 1: a bit. So I came back in and he said well,
Speaker 1: I said, okay. He said, well, we're moving you to
Speaker 1: Penterville Prison, which was in North London. He said, and
Speaker 1: as of we'll move you there in two weeks time,
Speaker 1: and as of that time, you have to find a job,
Speaker 1: You go out to work, you come back every night
Speaker 1: to the prison, except that you have weekends at home.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a half way house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where it happened. So where did I go to
Speaker 1: get my interview? Mike? Sure track records? Okay, so what
Speaker 1: year do you get it? Go on parole? Okay? So
Speaker 1: you're in jail for how long? Six and a half years? Okay?
Speaker 1: You know this is a bad analogy, but they say
Speaker 1: in football, if you play one game, you're never the
Speaker 1: same same thing like being if you're homeless for two weeks,
Speaker 1: you're never the same. You're in jail for six and
Speaker 1: a half years. How did that change it as a person?
Speaker 1: I think it changed me tremendously. I've got to say
Speaker 1: that for many years after that, I was fueled by anger.
Speaker 1: We're out any doubts all. I was fueled by anger
Speaker 1: when I drink on it, and but then that dissipated
Speaker 1: after a while and when I was able to really
Speaker 1: really reflect on it all, I think in some strange ways,
Speaker 1: Although I wouldn't like to turn the clock back and
Speaker 1: do it all again, I think I gained some intangibles,
Speaker 1: intangible assets from that time, I mean, how to deal
Speaker 1: with people, how to deal with myself and to deal
Speaker 1: with people and to deal with their adverse situations. I
Speaker 1: think that if you speak to most people that know me,
Speaker 1: I'm a very calm person. I don't get dramatic. Nothing
Speaker 1: phases me. Really, to be honest and nobody. So I
Speaker 1: think I came out of it with a lot of assets.
Speaker 1: To you think you're only calm because you went to prison.
Speaker 1: I think I learned. Yeah, I think I learned how
Speaker 1: to how to meditate on staff, how to how to
Speaker 1: deal with it. Um ironically, I mean, as I said,
Speaker 1: you couldn't write this script because I made a movie
Speaker 1: not long after coming out about the prison I was in,
Speaker 1: starring Roger Daltrey, called mc vicar exactly, and that was
Speaker 1: the place I was in. So you know, who would
Speaker 1: have thought two years, three years later on making this movie.
Speaker 1: Of course, as they say, we're getting your story right here.
Speaker 1: But you know, in today's prison movies were the reason
Speaker 1: I mentioned it is because Roger mentions it in his books.
Speaker 1: So I saw the movie when it came out. I
Speaker 1: sided westbod Connecticut. He mentions the whole thing about me
Speaker 1: being in prison and so on in the book. So
Speaker 1: and I'm it's nothing that I'm ashamed of, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Innocent? Yeah, in fact exactly, And so
Speaker 1: as they all knew, and those periods, I've got people
Speaker 1: who have been pushing me and pushing me for a
Speaker 1: few years to either bank a movie or do do
Speaker 1: a TV series around it. Um. I was quite reluctant
Speaker 1: to do any of that when my children were younger.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to embarrass them. And you know, our
Speaker 1: cruel some children can be to others when they were
Speaker 1: in store. But now that they're adults, they're pressing me
Speaker 1: to do it. So I'm looking at seriously doing it,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, But I have to ask, what was
Speaker 1: it like being in prison every day the same as
Speaker 1: every other day. Well, they talk about men reaping and gangs,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't any of that in those days. You
Speaker 1: there was men being raped in those days, but it
Speaker 1: was very tough. You didn't have the ship you got today,
Speaker 1: you didn't have telephones. You've got one visit a month,
Speaker 1: that's what you got. Um, And it wasn't so so orientated.
Speaker 1: But also I was quite fortunate because I knew whatever
Speaker 1: prison I went into, I knew a few people, now
Speaker 1: you know, And as I said, I became very friendly
Speaker 1: and Durham with five of the train robbers who remained friends. Um.
Speaker 1: So I never had a problem in prison, m h.
Speaker 1: And it's a bit different in when you're in what's
Speaker 1: called a high category, top security long term prison. It's
Speaker 1: a bit different. Okay, So why are you in prison?
Speaker 1: Before you get out? You knew? Could you envision getting
Speaker 1: out of prison at one time? And what you're gonna do?
Speaker 1: When we were in Durham, the then Home Secretary was
Speaker 1: the main called Roy Jenkins, and he he put us
Speaker 1: under armed guard with machine guns and sam bags because
Speaker 1: he said that he had heard from a good authority
Speaker 1: that the train robbers were going to blow the wall
Speaker 1: down to escape. And I used to walk around that
Speaker 1: little yard convincing myself I would have as much good
Speaker 1: luck as I as I've had bad luck. And indeed
Speaker 1: God has been good. I've had more good luck than
Speaker 1: bad luck, and I'm very very grateful. What was your
Speaker 1: romeetic situation before, during and after prison? Before I went
Speaker 1: into prison, I was with a girl, and when I
Speaker 1: went into the prison, I said, you better forget about me.
Speaker 1: I'm dead. And I didn't see her or anybody other
Speaker 1: than my immediate family for all those years. And when
Speaker 1: I was telling you about getting the retrial that was
Speaker 1: on a front page news, I went downstairs to the
Speaker 1: censor and I said, I don't want any letters coming
Speaker 1: through here from crazy people, right because now it's in
Speaker 1: the nose. I don't want that ship. I only want
Speaker 1: letters from all the correspondents have been corresponding with me
Speaker 1: for the last six years. And a postcard came through
Speaker 1: from this girl and she had been married during that
Speaker 1: period and divorced, and she had two children. So I
Speaker 1: had her down to visit me, and then within a
Speaker 1: couple of months I was out and we eventually married.
Speaker 1: I adopted to two children, one of them lives here,
Speaker 1: and we married and then we had She worked with
Speaker 1: me all those years with the WHO, and we eventually
Speaker 1: divorced after twenty five years, and then sadly she died
Speaker 1: last year. Okay, two years ago. Why did you get divorced?
Speaker 1: We just grew apart, we really did, you know? We
Speaker 1: grew apart as people. Um, But it was good before that.
Speaker 1: It was great before that. Yeah. It was good before that,
Speaker 1: and we were soul mates and we were, but she
Speaker 1: changed and I changed. Okay, so now you're working at
Speaker 1: track Records. One of the things I did do just
Speaker 1: I'm thirty one year sober, unclean, and that's when I
Speaker 1: stopped drinking whatever. And then it changed everything I think.
Speaker 1: And then in we divorced, you know, okay, I have
Speaker 1: to ask it. Did she still drink? Yeah, but she
Speaker 1: wasn't a big drinker. Okay, So when were you always
Speaker 1: a big drinker? Oh? Yeah? And anything other than alcohol,
Speaker 1: not really. I dabbled with I dabbled with marijuana. Um,
Speaker 1: I had a little experiment with cocaine, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: my drug. My my drug was alcohol. Okay, So how
Speaker 1: did you go? Moivate you to get clean? I stopped,
Speaker 1: But what motivated you? I had a young guy who
Speaker 1: was an accountant who started with me when I first started,
Speaker 1: and he was coming home from a party in the
Speaker 1: early hours of the morning and he killed an old
Speaker 1: lady on the crossing. And I was such a pig
Speaker 1: in those days. Nobody could tell me not to drive
Speaker 1: when I was drunk. And I stopped short and I thought,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do. If it's someone's son,
Speaker 1: someone's daughter, you know, you don't listen to people. And
Speaker 1: I thought about it long and hard, and I stopped,
Speaker 1: and I started getting fit and training, and I got
Speaker 1: through the first Christmas because I didn't say this is forever.
Speaker 1: But I stopped, and I got through the first Christmas,
Speaker 1: and then before I knew it, I was into a
Speaker 1: second Christmas. I had a similar situation. My life was
Speaker 1: too crazy. I was arrusted for drunk driving and then
Speaker 1: you get summary probation, which means within the two years,
Speaker 1: if you get stopped at all with any alcohol, you
Speaker 1: lose your license. This is l a. You have to
Speaker 1: have a driver's license. And you know, the name of
Speaker 1: the game is delay. So in the window for when
Speaker 1: I was first arrested the night John Lennon uh was killed,
Speaker 1: till going to jail, going to court, like eight months later,
Speaker 1: I was stopped again on the freeway and I said,
Speaker 1: so then once it was summary, I didn't get They
Speaker 1: let me go, but I was stopped again. I said,
Speaker 1: this couldn't happen. I said, you know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: drive within eight hours, have a good drink. And then
Speaker 1: I was I mean, I've told this story before I
Speaker 1: one on one. I probably go on it fur the lake.
Speaker 1: But I started to see this woman in there's the
Speaker 1: beginning of sushi, so you would go, this is West Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and okay, if I drank saki, I had to stay
Speaker 1: at her house, which was a good thing until one
Speaker 1: night she bit me. And there's a long story after that.
Speaker 1: But uh then she said she would never do it again.
Speaker 1: She did again. I said, my life is just too complicated.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop drinking, you know, I gotta be able
Speaker 1: to drive whatever. And I was not tending to quit forever,
Speaker 1: just like you. And then all of a sudden, because
Speaker 1: you know, the first couple of months is hard. It's
Speaker 1: not the miss alcohol. So what you missed the lifestyle.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a lifestyle. What's relevant, it's where did
Speaker 1: she bite you? She didn't buy me where that's where
Speaker 1: we go, and she bought me bit me on the Netflix.
Speaker 1: So you understand where I'm coming from that because you know,
Speaker 1: lots of other people whose names remained nameless now you
Speaker 1: know they're famous answers or whatever, all stopped around that
Speaker 1: same time or just after me, you know, and we
Speaker 1: frequently see each other and they're clean and dry, and
Speaker 1: why they're still alive. They really are well. I mean,
Speaker 1: as they say, one thing, I know, you know because
Speaker 1: l A you can. This is another thing. I ran
Speaker 1: into somebody who wanted to be reasonable with and I
Speaker 1: had had a couple of drinks and he didn't he
Speaker 1: could tell. They said, whenever I'm in a situation, I
Speaker 1: want to have all my marbles with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really have the urge anymore. And sometimes when
Speaker 1: you're a restaurant it's midnight and they've had a couple
Speaker 1: of bottles that everybody's having a good time. But I
Speaker 1: also remember what was wigging up was exactly and I
Speaker 1: never I never do because honestly, our older wife, for
Speaker 1: my wife and friends, it never occurs to me. It's
Speaker 1: a different life. And my two kids. I've got a
Speaker 1: daughter of twenty three with this current marriage, and a
Speaker 1: boy of twenty one. And they've never seen me drunk,
Speaker 1: which is great, right, right right. They've seen me grumpy,
Speaker 1: they've seen whatever they've seen me in mood swings, but
Speaker 1: never seen me like that, which is very very important
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not do what I say is
Speaker 1: do what I do you know. Well, that's what the
Speaker 1: other thing you mentioned about driving drunk. I went to
Speaker 1: college in Mark. This is on the dark era. That's
Speaker 1: not ad whatever. That's what we used to do. You
Speaker 1: get drunk and we're gonna go out driving. I remember
Speaker 1: I lived in Utah sche Bump for a couple years.
Speaker 1: I remember, and that's a pretty you know, dangerous road
Speaker 1: driving back down to the canyon don the canyon. I
Speaker 1: remember one morning I woke up and I had to
Speaker 1: go out and look at my car and said, you know,
Speaker 1: is my car really here? And intact I literally went
Speaker 1: around the whole Guy said, I just can't believe I
Speaker 1: lived in Spain. And the honestly, the road around the
Speaker 1: mountain to where I lived was one car wide. He's
Speaker 1: shaking his hits on the time hour survived. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's another side to it all as well. I mean, um,
Speaker 1: I know that some of the artists I was with
Speaker 1: some but maybe two, I don't know, one of them
Speaker 1: sort of resented it or couldn't understand it, or you know,
Speaker 1: whether there's an element of I would like to be
Speaker 1: like that in it, or little element you know, having
Speaker 1: work with I don't know whether it's worse with English people.
Speaker 1: But up until first of all, this was before mothers
Speaker 1: against drum driving, but up until sometime in the nineties
Speaker 1: when it became kind of cool not to drink. Oh
Speaker 1: you actually get shipped. You got to a bar, hey
Speaker 1: have one, and they exactly, well it's all like bring
Speaker 1: them into the into the group, exactly, it makes them
Speaker 1: feel better. But coming back to the the reasons as well,
Speaker 1: is that this young solicitor I was telling you about
Speaker 1: who fought for me and for me, I saw him
Speaker 1: when I was released, and I didn't see him for
Speaker 1: a while after that, and then lo and behold, it
Speaker 1: moved to San Francisco and I saw him in San
Speaker 1: Francisco in seventy three. He had two little baby girls, twins,
Speaker 1: and he came with me to the count Palace, which
Speaker 1: was the infamous night when the fake drummer Keith Moon
Speaker 1: falls off the drum right right. And so I never
Speaker 1: saw him after that for all those years, and then
Speaker 1: I saw him two years ago. He's now a rebi
Speaker 1: in Israel. That's a crazy story. That is crazy, really crazy, okay,
Speaker 1: But he was not the person who killed somebody. That
Speaker 1: was somebody else in your office. Oh yeah, that was
Speaker 1: an account. Okay, I just want to make sure I
Speaker 1: got the story this. This is a solicitor who understand
Speaker 1: who who defended me? Right? I understand through. Okay, So
Speaker 1: a different question. Um, you said it earlier that you
Speaker 1: were always a big music fan. Yeah, so what did
Speaker 1: that look like? Did your parents play music in the house?
Speaker 1: How did you be going? Oh? Yeah, my mom was
Speaker 1: a singer. She used to sing in pups. My dad
Speaker 1: used to drink and she used to sing, and she
Speaker 1: was a good singer, and and her her sister, my aunt.
Speaker 1: So it was music. Music. And then as a young man, Um,
Speaker 1: we were mods. So we would go out what quadraphenia
Speaker 1: is all about. Really, we would go out on a
Speaker 1: Friday night and we'd come back Monday morning and go
Speaker 1: to work. I mean, we were industrious, the MUDs. We
Speaker 1: weren't living off Social Security. And I would go out,
Speaker 1: go to wherever we were going, where the MUDs went,
Speaker 1: and then a lot with a couple of pals, we'd
Speaker 1: go down to what was then a notorious black area,
Speaker 1: Cable Street in Stepane, and they had all these small
Speaker 1: sabines and clubs, and that's I don't know what shebine
Speaker 1: is a word for a club, and it was all
Speaker 1: blue beat reggae, and that was it for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And it was all about Prince baster King pleasure all
Speaker 1: those songs that were coming in and a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff was brought in by American g ias after
Speaker 1: the Second World War, you know, and and then brought
Speaker 1: crossed through from from the Caribbean, from Jamaica. So music
Speaker 1: was very much in my blood. And then I gravitated
Speaker 1: a bit from that to jazz, became a real real
Speaker 1: aviad jazz fan, you know, all the way through. And
Speaker 1: so it was in my blood, okay, And I never realized.
Speaker 1: Um so when you're saying about what did I gain
Speaker 1: from that? I found something that hopefully I'm reasonably good at.
Speaker 1: And I'm forever grateful for that because I found something
Speaker 1: in my life that I think I'm pretty good at.
Speaker 1: And the people I work for and I stressed for
Speaker 1: and with I feel the same. So it worked out
Speaker 1: certainly from our viewpoint. Um, you know, we only heard
Speaker 1: about it, we ultimly the movie Quadraphenia and Elite seven,
Speaker 1: but we read about the Margin rockers what was really
Speaker 1: going on there? Well, I'm doing it. I'm working on
Speaker 1: a TV series at the moment, just going to explore
Speaker 1: the whole cultural change. Is going to be three series,
Speaker 1: the whole cultural change after the Second World War in England,
Speaker 1: and it's quite phenomenal because what happened was I went
Speaker 1: to meet some people at a C a m C.
Speaker 1: And they said, how would you sum this up? You
Speaker 1: mean like AMC movie theater. Okay, So they said, well,
Speaker 1: how would you sum this up, this thing you're talking about?
Speaker 1: I said, Well, when I was a boy, my parents,
Speaker 1: if anyone came through the door wearing a suit, it
Speaker 1: was yes, sir, yes sir, I said, and everybody followed
Speaker 1: their father into whatever profession he was in. I said,
Speaker 1: But without generation Second World War, there was a reaction
Speaker 1: to it and instead of yes sir, we said, funk
Speaker 1: you and we wanted something more and that's what happened.
Speaker 1: So with the evolution. I remember when I was fifth
Speaker 1: in NFT eight, when I was sixteen, when we were
Speaker 1: not we were murdered. It was all about the clothes,
Speaker 1: you know, being like a peacock wearing those clothes. We
Speaker 1: worked as hard as we could to make the money
Speaker 1: to buy the clothes. But the changes were. It was
Speaker 1: a revolution, the changes in advertising, fashion, design, music. You
Speaker 1: know what happened. You've got the invasion of English and
Speaker 1: that's incredible that you've got an invasion of English music
Speaker 1: right as a result of the Second World War, not
Speaker 1: French or German or Dutch. I mentioned one Dutch being.
Speaker 1: But it was all English right coming to America, and
Speaker 1: everybody's saying in American right right, that was wed You
Speaker 1: noticed that exactly, we didn't see yeah, we didn't sing
Speaker 1: in English, right right. And so all of that was happening,
Speaker 1: and from there came people like Riddy Scott, Alan Parker,
Speaker 1: David Partner, movie greet movie directors, movie executive from from
Speaker 1: advertising through there. So the TV series that I'm doing
Speaker 1: embraces more than just Quadrophenia, because Couadrophenia was three days
Speaker 1: in the life of a Mud. What we're doing is
Speaker 1: it's starts in with the wind wind rush generation coming
Speaker 1: in from the Caribbean and from Jamaica into England immigrants,
Speaker 1: and it takes us through the sixties and through the seventhies.
Speaker 1: So we go through that all those cultural changes, all
Speaker 1: that color, because after the Second World War everything was gray.
Speaker 1: So all that Color, Carnaby, street pop, arts, advertising, fashion.
Speaker 1: Then we've got Margaret Thatcher, Industrial Strikes, Punk which came
Speaker 1: and went through to the end of it, and it
Speaker 1: takes us up to the end of the seventies maybe
Speaker 1: early eighties. Okay, did you have a scooter? No? Do
Speaker 1: you know what we had? We had a funeral hearse.
Speaker 1: We had a funeral hearse. We used to go down
Speaker 1: to Brighton where the riots were in a funeral hearse,
Speaker 1: eight or ten of us and um, oh yeah. And
Speaker 1: when we first did the movie Quadrophenia, the first scenes
Speaker 1: we had to shoot with the riot scenes because it
Speaker 1: was very late in the year and we had to
Speaker 1: simulate summer and it was like the end of September
Speaker 1: and it was freezing down now. And I went to
Speaker 1: my youngest brother's school with two buses to big coaches
Speaker 1: and got all the kids out of there for extras
Speaker 1: for the riot scenes. Know, so we never know. We
Speaker 1: didn't have scooters. We had Okay, the others? Was the
Speaker 1: mart tell me about the Rockers? Were the Rockers again
Speaker 1: in the first series. In the movie of Quadraphine, You've
Speaker 1: got the fantastic scene when Jimmy's in the bath and
Speaker 1: he's singing, and someone's singing in the other bath and
Speaker 1: it's Kevin, his pal. And when they come out, Ray Winston,
Speaker 1: when they come out, he looks at him and he goes,
Speaker 1: what the funk you're wearing? Because he's a rock He's
Speaker 1: a rocker. So yeah, the rockers they were in weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: their their music appealed to me as well, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can remember the first time I saw
Speaker 1: a rock around the clock, the Bill Haley movie, you know,
Speaker 1: And um, all of the rock music appealed to me
Speaker 1: to a great extent, but the dress didn't so much.
Speaker 1: The leather gear and the big bikes and to what
Speaker 1: degree with their battles between the bids and the rockers
Speaker 1: a lot. And I was involved in a lot of that,
Speaker 1: going down to Brighton and Margate and getting involved in
Speaker 1: in the fights down there. It was it was all
Speaker 1: the time, It was there all the time. Um. And
Speaker 1: it's I guess everything we can ever talk about is
Speaker 1: in Shakespeare anyway, So it's all Romeo and Juliet in
Speaker 1: the end West Side stories, Romeo and Juliet. The modern
Speaker 1: rockers are to a great degree, you know, so um,
Speaker 1: but you get those tribes. It's all tribal. We have
Speaker 1: tribal in America right now. It is, of course, And
Speaker 1: on that subject talking about tribal you know, and and
Speaker 1: and some of the things that happened. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was quite extraordinary for me because I was born in
Speaker 1: this working class area and I'm telling you they were
Speaker 1: pretty rigid in lots of ways, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of discrimination. But having said that, one of my
Speaker 1: best friends was a black boy who lived next door
Speaker 1: to me. But more than that, there was this prejudice everywhere.
Speaker 1: But for me growing up, my role models, my icons
Speaker 1: were all the black blues musicians and black athletes, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Louis Sugar, Ray Robinson, Mohammed Ali, Cassis Clay, Mohammed Ali.
Speaker 1: So I guess I was strange in a way because
Speaker 1: I was devoid of that prejudice, but it was around
Speaker 1: me all the time. And so when you talk about tribes,
Speaker 1: you know, I fully I was bewildered a bit by
Speaker 1: America and the prejudice and the fact that someone like
Speaker 1: Cassius Clay could come back from the Olympics and not
Speaker 1: going into a restaurant of his choice, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: But thankfully the world has changed. It was changed to
Speaker 1: a certain degree. But what do you think of brexit?
Speaker 1: Oh for funk saying, how long have you got? Okay,
Speaker 1: I haven't got an hour for brexit, but I got
Speaker 1: a few minutes from Brexit. Okay. Brexit I think is
Speaker 1: essential for one real reason. It started off as a
Speaker 1: trade in family, just purely for commerce the EU, and
Speaker 1: it started off as a trade in family, and it's
Speaker 1: been distorted and distorted over the years to the point
Speaker 1: where the other twenty seven countries involved have lost their
Speaker 1: ability to pass their own laws to even increase interests
Speaker 1: in the banks. They're governed by Brussels. And I think
Speaker 1: it's to me it's doomed. It will not survive in
Speaker 1: the Union in my opinion the EU. Is it more
Speaker 1: about the currency or more about the laws. Well, firstly,
Speaker 1: we as England have your own currency. We would ever
Speaker 1: have survived the two thousand and eight economic disaster without
Speaker 1: having our own currency because we were able to fluctuate
Speaker 1: the interest rates and go with with you know, currency
Speaker 1: eas in which they in Brussels refused the other countries
Speaker 1: to the way. And what they've got now is they've
Speaker 1: got these dependent countries Portugal, Italy, Spain, you know, Greece, Greece,
Speaker 1: and what they did to Greece I think is abominable.
Speaker 1: If you read there's a finance minister who was the
Speaker 1: finance minister for Greece at the time, and they maligned
Speaker 1: him and said he was an idiot. In fact, he's
Speaker 1: a highly intelligent man, Yannis, and the way he describes
Speaker 1: what they did to them is like punitive and repugnant.
Speaker 1: So for me, Um, I would like to see us out.
Speaker 1: I would like to see us trade in with the
Speaker 1: rest of the world and free of those sheckles, because
Speaker 1: I consider of the EU is corrupt. It really is.
Speaker 1: It's a corrupt machine. There's been many books written. One
Speaker 1: body X finance minister who's a woman who is um
Speaker 1: half argentinean half American and she was a head of
Speaker 1: head of funds there and what she So we're better
Speaker 1: off out of it, Okay, So what about I mean,
Speaker 1: I know in our world, I had experience with Richard
Speaker 1: Griffith's manager, and I've been with his partner at a
Speaker 1: gig and we were getting together the next day and
Speaker 1: I emailed hearing I didn't hear back from him. I
Speaker 1: texted her email Richard, and he got back to immediately said,
Speaker 1: I know, I thought you were in I think he
Speaker 1: was an Amsterdam with one d okay whatever. They said, No,
Speaker 1: we took the private jet home. I'm home already, and
Speaker 1: it's like at twelve o'clock at night. Because of all
Speaker 1: the relaxation under the EU, they don't have all the
Speaker 1: customs and all that other stuff. Now in your world
Speaker 1: there's a direct you know, interference customs wise. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess so, but it will ease. I mean, my daughter
Speaker 1: said to me, dead dead when if we leave, will
Speaker 1: I be able to go clubbing in Germany? I said,
Speaker 1: you do you think Canadians and Americans don't go clubbing
Speaker 1: in Germany? Do you think they turn them away when
Speaker 1: they've got their money in their hand? Come on, So
Speaker 1: it's all about money, Bob. Everything that happens in this
Speaker 1: world is driven by money. The wars that we look
Speaker 1: at that so fucking awful. Money. Money. Money. Just to
Speaker 1: go one step further, there are a lot of European
Speaker 1: companies who have built factories and held up propped up
Speaker 1: a lot of low income communities in England, and those
Speaker 1: companies will go, won't there? Be fewer jobs. No, not really.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of it is scare mongering.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to find markets. I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it won't be tough in the beginning, but
Speaker 1: you see, you've got a lot of young people who
Speaker 1: don't remember it before that. I can remember what we
Speaker 1: were before we joined the EU. Digor never wanted us
Speaker 1: there anyway, he said, we're in island, We're not landlocked.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be in Europe. Don't start me, under Gaul.
Speaker 1: I remember, I mean without America, we wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: free nation. Of course, I'm telling you. And I remembered
Speaker 1: the Gal and I think it might have been Foster,
Speaker 1: that is, who was then the American ambassador, and the
Speaker 1: Gore said to him, I want every American military personnel
Speaker 1: out of France within six months. So he said, does
Speaker 1: that include the ones that are buried here? Okay, let's
Speaker 1: jump back, you nourball, you've got a track records. What's
Speaker 1: happening at track Records? When you get there? When I
Speaker 1: get there, they, as I said, I was quite naive.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize what they were into, et cetera. On
Speaker 1: how much the drugs were part of their life. But
Speaker 1: I started learning incredibly quickly, and it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: I was taking the band out on the road. And
Speaker 1: then I went to Lambert Stamp with the old contracts
Speaker 1: and I said, listen, these don't look great to me.
Speaker 1: I think I could do these better. Well, they couldn't
Speaker 1: be bothered, you know. They said, well, if you think so,
Speaker 1: I see what I can. So I took them out
Speaker 1: on one tour, and I think I made them in
Speaker 1: those days could have easily been five or six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand pounds more. So in essence, Lamber and Stamp made
Speaker 1: a lot more, and I got a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bonus, a little bit of a bonus, but I
Speaker 1: thought I've proved something here, and and I went forward
Speaker 1: on that basis, you know. And then what happened was
Speaker 1: the more and more I did with the band, the
Speaker 1: more and more I suppose we became family. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a bit slower with Pete than Roger. Roger
Speaker 1: was always my champion, always, especially once I did his
Speaker 1: solo album. But Pete is slow to take two people.
Speaker 1: But eventually he came round, and now we're really really bonded,
Speaker 1: you like let's talk about Pete and Roger. How do
Speaker 1: they get along? Well, someone asked me that the other day,
Speaker 1: and I said, they're a little bit like Richard Burton
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Taylor. I'm not telling you who's Elizabeth. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a love hate thing in a sense, I
Speaker 1: mean all it is. It's not love hate, that's wrong,
Speaker 1: it's love irritability. They were just like having a brother
Speaker 1: and since, yeah, they irritate each other. Okay, Now, whatever
Speaker 1: happened with Speedy Keeen Thunderclap Newman. I was a huge
Speaker 1: fan of that initial album, Hollywood Dream Speedy. I gave
Speaker 1: him the title ironically because I got it now because
Speaker 1: I just come home Previous Convictions that was his album,
Speaker 1: and boted I got it. And we were great friends
Speaker 1: and I spent time with them, and Speedy was a good,
Speaker 1: great friend. And Speedy was with a girl, Janet, who
Speaker 1: used to work with us in track records. She eventually
Speaker 1: married Asthlete Right Janet Astley Right, don't no. Lesley was
Speaker 1: one of the She was one of the family that
Speaker 1: Pete married into. Her name was Jen Jen. It'll come
Speaker 1: to me in a minute, but anyway, she ended up
Speaker 1: marrying Phil Daniels from the movie. Okay, now, um, how
Speaker 1: about Jimmy McCullough, who ultimately went to play with Wings.
Speaker 1: He went to Wings, Jimmy and his brother they were
Speaker 1: on track. I got on great with them. You know,
Speaker 1: he was phenomenal, little Jimmy. They were they were great guitarist.
Speaker 1: So we had so much great talent coming through our hands.
Speaker 1: You know, it was phenomenal. Really in those days it
Speaker 1: was so vibrant. Who owns all those masters? Now, because
Speaker 1: of the debts and the money that was missing, we
Speaker 1: sold all the masters to PolyGram in order to pay
Speaker 1: the artists there ortists. Okay, Now, also in seventy two,
Speaker 1: I think at the end of seventy two, and you know,
Speaker 1: Pete produced something in the course, I know that. And
Speaker 1: then but he put out a solo album who came first?
Speaker 1: Now that wasn't available on CD until right go sometimes
Speaker 1: like now that wasn't that on track records? Though? That
Speaker 1: was on track records absolutely, So how did that get
Speaker 1: excluded from the deal with Poley Graham? It was When
Speaker 1: you say excluded in what way? It was? Wounds it
Speaker 1: today they do, Oh yeah, just like when I took
Speaker 1: an album much much later that Pete did called Empty Glass,
Speaker 1: and I did a deal with Doug Morris Echo, much
Speaker 1: to the chagrin and Mo Austin and and Jerry Mars
Speaker 1: soon chasing me. Um. There's a little story involved there
Speaker 1: where I really felt that Doug Morris was so hungry
Speaker 1: for it. He just started at CO and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is a guy who's going to die for this album,
Speaker 1: which he did, and he's He often says the two
Speaker 1: albums that set him on his career were Pete towns
Speaker 1: As Empty Glass and Stevie Nick Solo. Listen I Empty Glass.
Speaker 1: I just put it the other day. You know, a
Speaker 1: little is enough in the title track, unbelievable, especially Empty
Speaker 1: Glass when I used to drink. He likes a mess.
Speaker 1: You know, I hold an empty glass. Okay, but let's
Speaker 1: go back. You're still with m C. A quadrophenia comes
Speaker 1: out with m C and m C A. This is
Speaker 1: a question you may may not be able to answer.
Speaker 1: Roger and Pete. What do they prefer a quadrophenia or Tommy.
Speaker 1: That's very difficult for me to answer for them. But
Speaker 1: because there obviously for Peter as a writer, they relate
Speaker 1: to two different periods of his thinking. And I often
Speaker 1: say that Tommy is the hippie opera and Quadrophenia is
Speaker 1: the industrial opera. UM. In their own ways, they've had
Speaker 1: several incarnations, you know. UM Tommy was was the stage
Speaker 1: production and the movie. Ironically, the movie came first UM
Speaker 1: and Quadrophenia. Incredibly, I still can't believe it, but we
Speaker 1: celebrated the fourties anniversary of the movie Quadrophenia earlier this year.
Speaker 1: All of the cast turned up Sting Ray Winston, all
Speaker 1: of them. We had a great night, raised money for charity,
Speaker 1: and it's still being shown on TV. HOWU. It's just insane. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a movie that you know, it's not deated whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Certainly it's a period movie to begin with. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but the only thing that stated, Bob are the uniforms,
Speaker 1: the dilemma, the problems, the whole core of the film
Speaker 1: are the same your kids, My kids. They get to
Speaker 1: their teenage years and they're faced with a minefield and
Speaker 1: they've got to walk across that minefield and it's full
Speaker 1: of ship. You know, it's full of all kinds of
Speaker 1: real big problems, whether it be what we deal with
Speaker 1: with teenagers with cancer, is they come through their teenage
Speaker 1: years and don't get anything like that. You praise God.
Speaker 1: There's other stuff out there on the streets, the drugs
Speaker 1: and everything. So the teenage years are a minefield, and
Speaker 1: every teenager thinks his problems are unique. He won't go
Speaker 1: to Dead Willie because dad says, I know all about that.
Speaker 1: I went through that you couldn't have done. They go
Speaker 1: to their peer group to look for answers, and the
Speaker 1: answers I'm afraid and not with the peer group. So
Speaker 1: so um yeah, I think that in Tommy is a
Speaker 1: metaphor deft, dumb and blind. It's a metaphor of uh,
Speaker 1: you're you know, being not having your senses. They're are reawakening, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Quadrophenia is totally different. Quadrophenias are coming in of Age
Speaker 1: movie A Journey, And so for me, if I had
Speaker 1: to have a choice, my choice it's quadrophenia. I can't
Speaker 1: say about Pete and Roger. I mean, you've got great
Speaker 1: songs in Birth. Well, the only thing is switching give
Speaker 1: us a little bit. When I was in college, we
Speaker 1: used to have a thing name a better album than
Speaker 1: Who's Next from beginning to end and all that stuff
Speaker 1: is held up. But how did you end up switching
Speaker 1: from mc A to Warner Brothers with who? Um? I
Speaker 1: think that was the advent of it, that we didn't
Speaker 1: switch really until I did the Townsend deal with Glass
Speaker 1: And on that subject you're talking about when you were
Speaker 1: at college. I made a movie two years ago called
Speaker 1: The Railway Man, and it's a true story about a
Speaker 1: guy who was a Japanese prisoner of war. And it's
Speaker 1: basically a movie about forgiveness. It's a true story and
Speaker 1: he's tortured terribly by the Japanese and he was on
Speaker 1: the Death Railroad railroad, you know, the Burma Railroad. So
Speaker 1: it starts Colin Firth and Nicole Kimmon. You should go see.
Speaker 1: It's a good movie. I'm very proud of it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: during location, Colin Firth said to me, listen. He said
Speaker 1: a lot of these musicians, he said, they collect things,
Speaker 1: don't They said, there's this guy who collects ferraris. I said, no,
Speaker 1: that's Nick Mason pink Floyd. So I said, um, I said,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them clicked things. I said,
Speaker 1: you collect anything, which I knew he did, he said,
Speaker 1: because my partner told me. He said, well, I suppose
Speaker 1: you could say. He said, I'd collect guitars. I said,
Speaker 1: can you play them? He said, well yeah. After a fashion,
Speaker 1: he said all right, he said cards on the table.
Speaker 1: He said, my favorite album of all time is Quadrophenia.
Speaker 1: I said, Colin, don't give me that ship. Tell me
Speaker 1: a song from it. He told me every song on Quadrophenia.
Speaker 1: So I said, well, where did you get into that?
Speaker 1: He said when I was at university. I said, okay.
Speaker 1: So I went home the next day, so I phone Pete.
Speaker 1: I said, Pete, you don't have a guitar, do you
Speaker 1: that I could give Colin Firth. You know I'm making
Speaker 1: this movie with him. He said yeah, he said I do. Actually,
Speaker 1: he said, I've got the guitar that I wrote Quadrophenia on.
Speaker 1: I said what, he said, I've got the said you're
Speaker 1: not going to give that. You won't give that way?
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, yeah, I will for it for you
Speaker 1: for him, So he signs it. I'll go back on location.
Speaker 1: I said to him, Colin, we need to see you tonight.
Speaker 1: Andy and I over at the hotel. Got to have
Speaker 1: a talk with you. He said, it's not about this mustache.
Speaker 1: Is it you had a mustache in the movie. So
Speaker 1: I said no, but come over the hotel. So he
Speaker 1: came over the hotel. So I gave him the guitar.
Speaker 1: He said, what's that? I said, open it? He said
Speaker 1: ship He said for Gibson. I said, it's more than that.
Speaker 1: I said, it's it's the guitar. The townsend wrote Quadrophenia
Speaker 1: on he went. He said that means more to me
Speaker 1: than you, Oscar I got for the King's speech. You know,
Speaker 1: music sitting in the Sheridan Gibson okay, So how do
Speaker 1: you are? How does the band okay moon dies? Did
Speaker 1: you see that coming? Well, we always saw it coming,
Speaker 1: but even so when it happens, it's a shock. And
Speaker 1: the day that it happened is quite peculiar in a way,
Speaker 1: because I went to PolyGram and the guy who was
Speaker 1: the MP deer PolyGram at that time in England was
Speaker 1: a man called Fred high On. He was from Holland
Speaker 1: and he was the original manager of Golden ear Ring
Speaker 1: and let's how I got the Golden ear Ring thing.
Speaker 1: And he was always a raven her fan. And I
Speaker 1: went to PolyGram and they agreed to give me the
Speaker 1: money to produce the movie Quadrophenia. M mcvickor and I
Speaker 1: did them that year, back to back, and I came
Speaker 1: back to the office. I got there and my x
Speaker 1: or I said to me, sit down. She said Moon's dead.
Speaker 1: I said, what she said, Moon's dead? Fuck? You know.
Speaker 1: And it was so hard to assimilate and to take
Speaker 1: in because I was told by that doctor who gave
Speaker 1: him those pills him and never in pills. They were
Speaker 1: pills to combat shakes and detis and epilepsy if you're
Speaker 1: because he was trying to come off the brose. And
Speaker 1: I was told there were no side effects. But I
Speaker 1: suppose if you take twenty three of anything, that's going
Speaker 1: to be side effects. Um. So I've often said, you
Speaker 1: know that if if Moon Moon's death was inevitable, then
Speaker 1: John it was Yours was unnecessary. Okay, a little deeper,
Speaker 1: you know, it was unnecessary because with John we all
Speaker 1: knew he had a little bit of a hard thing,
Speaker 1: but it was always played down. He was very flippant
Speaker 1: about it. Nobody ever thought it was anything more than
Speaker 1: something you just took a pillful, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but but coming back to Moon, Um, even though you
Speaker 1: expect these things, and I don't know if Moon would
Speaker 1: have would have if he would ever have made old bones.
Speaker 1: He just wasn't that type of character to make old bones.
Speaker 1: You know, how can you envisage an old Keith Moon?
Speaker 1: I don't know. What I do know is if Moon
Speaker 1: has had any discipline whatsoever, he could have been one
Speaker 1: of our greatest character actors because he could sit with
Speaker 1: you well, but he could sit with you and within
Speaker 1: ten minutes he would have of all your idiosyncrasies, all
Speaker 1: your body language. He was a great mimic, fantastic, but
Speaker 1: no discipline. Well, one other thing, you know, remember I
Speaker 1: saw the band performed Tommy at Fillmore East. This is
Speaker 1: six and I've never seen a drummer like Moon. You know,
Speaker 1: he almost it would take two people to replicate him.
Speaker 1: It was just unbelievable the way his arms moved. Well,
Speaker 1: he's dynamic and he's so unorthodox, you know. And my
Speaker 1: tour manager, Rex King, he came to see us play
Speaker 1: at the Hammersmith Odeon with John Bonham and as they
Speaker 1: came out, Bonham said to him, We've just seen the
Speaker 1: best band on the planet, the best band on the planet,
Speaker 1: and I've had artists through my career. You know. I
Speaker 1: was twenty six years with Robert Plant and fourteen of
Speaker 1: those years Jimmy Page was with us and superlative musicians. Yes,
Speaker 1: but when the Who are on, the Who are on.
Speaker 1: I remember a headline we had we had from one
Speaker 1: concert and it said, yes, Zeppelin, Zeppelin and the rest
Speaker 1: of the good, but they can't kiss you good night
Speaker 1: like the Who. Well, I just remember when they had
Speaker 1: the Madison Square Garden concert after nine eleven and the
Speaker 1: Who just blew everybody else off the stage. Were that
Speaker 1: nine eleven? Things quite interesting because funnily enough they were
Speaker 1: Pete and Roger were in my office. So I got
Speaker 1: a phone call from Weinstein. So he said, what the
Speaker 1: Who did the nine eleven thing? I said, Harvey, we're
Speaker 1: not a cabaret action. I said, if we come and
Speaker 1: do that, I want forty five minutes. He said, at least,
Speaker 1: he said, you've got it. You got it, He said,
Speaker 1: no problem. He said, but if the Who come on,
Speaker 1: all the other artists will come on. So I said,
Speaker 1: he said, where do you want to play on the bill?
Speaker 1: I said anywhere. I just want that fifty minutes back anywhere.
Speaker 1: And that day was fucking magic and I'll never forget
Speaker 1: Elton John Old Power, but he came into that dressing
Speaker 1: room to the boys and he were I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like it. And for me, I've been with them
Speaker 1: forty nine years. The most moving experience I've had was
Speaker 1: that we did nine eleven. And we've had some amazing stuff,
Speaker 1: but we did nine eleven. And then some time after that,
Speaker 1: we went to Washington for the Kennedy Awards, and Dave
Speaker 1: Grohl spoke about how they were responsible for him being
Speaker 1: in the music business, and we had all the other
Speaker 1: artists up there would do songs, you know whatever, and
Speaker 1: then right at the last song, I could hear require
Speaker 1: on that last song, and the curtain opened and it
Speaker 1: was all the police and firemen from New York. Fuck
Speaker 1: the feeling. I can't describe to you what I felt like,
Speaker 1: because to return that and to say there, thank you
Speaker 1: was something else. You know. It was just such a
Speaker 1: moving experience. And I'm not given to goose bumps or stuff,
Speaker 1: but I'm telling you that was a moment. I you know,
Speaker 1: I can feel it over here and I can't add
Speaker 1: anything to that. So I'll go to a more minor point.
Speaker 1: Why did it end with you? And plant? I was
Speaker 1: with him twenty six years. We encouraged him to come
Speaker 1: down to London and to get out from the Midlands
Speaker 1: with all the old cronies. I think during that period
Speaker 1: he was with me, we made some great albums Palms,
Speaker 1: that album, Feed the Nations best solo album, incredible record,
Speaker 1: Fate of Nations twenty nine, Palms, the two other albums
Speaker 1: I gave him the title for Now and Zen and
Speaker 1: No One. Zen was huge, and then he did the
Speaker 1: album with Addison Krause, right, that was still when he
Speaker 1: was you were managing him, yeah, oh yeah. So then
Speaker 1: what happened. It came down in a way to a point,
Speaker 1: a principle on my part, and the only way I
Speaker 1: can really really explaining it to you is that we're
Speaker 1: deal in different currencies. And my currency is that I
Speaker 1: believe that the real wealth in life is what you've got,
Speaker 1: is what you've got after they take away the money,
Speaker 1: what you've got left, and that's family, friends and principles.
Speaker 1: And I've always lived that way. And he deals in
Speaker 1: a different currency. And if he's got any regrets now,
Speaker 1: then he has to be honest with himself. But for
Speaker 1: both those guys, I would like to think that I
Speaker 1: did a really good job. And Jimmy bumped into a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, an agent, a few months ago, and
Speaker 1: he said, has Bill so Rod said, oh, he's great,
Speaker 1: he said, send him my love. He said, tell him.
Speaker 1: I've only just started realizing how much he really did
Speaker 1: for us. But it's okay. But with Robert, I said
Speaker 1: to him, it's going to come a time. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to sound him modest here, but yet there's
Speaker 1: going to come a time when you're going to realize
Speaker 1: you've lost your best friend. I said, because I would
Speaker 1: have stood in front of a train for you, but
Speaker 1: not anymore. And it was about a point of principle.
Speaker 1: And I don't wish him any ill. I wish him
Speaker 1: every success. But there's a thing about artists, Bob, not
Speaker 1: all of them, but the majority percent of them. They
Speaker 1: don't have any friends from the past, very few of them.
Speaker 1: What happens is they choose a career that takes them
Speaker 1: away from their childhood and teenage friends, and so they
Speaker 1: go on a different journey. And while they're on that journey,
Speaker 1: they lose a sense of loyalty. And what takes over
Speaker 1: and becomes more important to them is where's my album
Speaker 1: in the chance this week, etcetera, etcetera, and they lose
Speaker 1: their real sense of friendship and loyalty. And I'm big
Speaker 1: on that. I'm sorry, I'm just really big on it.
Speaker 1: And so that's what you find with lots of artists,
Speaker 1: and we a lot most of us run away with
Speaker 1: the idea of thinking that arts because they're artists, they're
Speaker 1: nice and good people. They're not. They're not. Listen. I've
Speaker 1: met some of the greatest artists in the world. I
Speaker 1: want to mention them, and they're just unbelievably narcissistic means
Speaker 1: of them. And it's like, you know, they're exceptions who
Speaker 1: you know live up to them. But no, the other
Speaker 1: thing about an artist, they'll funk over anybody for themselves exactly.
Speaker 1: There are number one. So when you take out on board,
Speaker 1: and I'm a personal manager and I give a bit
Speaker 1: more than some other managers, they may get a contract
Speaker 1: and they put it in their desk and that's it.
Speaker 1: I don't live like that. I don't have a contract
Speaker 1: with the who I haven't had one for forty nine years.
Speaker 1: If they want to leave me tomorrow they're dissatisfied, they
Speaker 1: can go. I don't want to go through any litigation.
Speaker 1: I just want to be paid for what I've done.
Speaker 1: But it becomes a friendship. Judas Priest have been with
Speaker 1: me thirty seven years. Again, it's a friendship. You give,
Speaker 1: you become friends. You give the it and I give
Speaker 1: to them a promise. That's what I do. So and
Speaker 1: I've got friends right back to my school days. I
Speaker 1: still go see them in the East End. We're mates.
Speaker 1: Sadly every year ago there's one less. But you know,
Speaker 1: how about all these old people. I mean, obviously you're
Speaker 1: very successful financially. Do these people your family members ever
Speaker 1: come to you for money? Well? My other what my brothers,
Speaker 1: sisters and people we're brothers and sisters are friends both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how do you feel about that? I'm okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what money is. Tell me, money is a
Speaker 1: means to end. Money is a means for you to
Speaker 1: help the people you love enjoy their life. And if
Speaker 1: you can do that, that's all it is. It's a commodity.
Speaker 1: That's funny because Cliff Bernstein said something very similar to me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, be able to help people's lives, you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time, So okay, yea, So Pete says
Speaker 1: he can't play live anymore. Well, before that, who say
Speaker 1: we're retiring? I remember making it too, Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: making said of my Nakamiti tape deck, you know, and
Speaker 1: then they keep coming back. What's up with that? Well
Speaker 1: in two that's when he said, he said, I want
Speaker 1: to be with my kids. I don't want tour in him.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago we played Hyde Park and
Speaker 1: Tom mzer Ardino, he was the promoter of the Cotton Bowl.
Speaker 1: On that last tour, he said, I've got a T
Speaker 1: shirt for you. He gave me. It was the Who's Fair.
Speaker 1: But so Pete didn't want to do it. So from
Speaker 1: A two two I think it was a tight. We
Speaker 1: didn't do that interestingly enough. And that's when I picked up.
Speaker 1: Someone said to me, you're interested in Judas Priest. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're good, Lfe Ben. Where are they down in Texas?
Speaker 1: They want to see you? So I went down there.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we had all those years where
Speaker 1: they didn't her, which as have said loss in a way,
Speaker 1: but um, and now it's turned full circle and Pezz
Speaker 1: the one who wants to tour. He's really enjoying it
Speaker 1: and he wants to tour. And I guess it's in
Speaker 1: all of our minds that, you know, if life's a
Speaker 1: three week holiday, we're on the third week and this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: But what about his hearing issue? About what? I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're saying that as a joke, but Pete
Speaker 1: farm famously said he had tonight is and he couldn't play, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And then he played acoustic guitar behind plastic you know,
Speaker 1: whatever he did, he had the tonitus and he was
Speaker 1: getting a lot of pain from it. But there are
Speaker 1: lots of meds now today that can lessen that, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's finding that. Okay, Pete. One of the problems
Speaker 1: we've got is Roger uses ear monitors and Pete uses
Speaker 1: stage monitors, you know. And I, I mean, I listened
Speaker 1: to this ship and I think, am I really live
Speaker 1: in here in the real world? Or is this the afterworld?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes they'll come off stage and Roger was saying,
Speaker 1: funking on the stage, I can't fucking hear anything, And
Speaker 1: I said, you told me that have the fucking silver
Speaker 1: dome in right right right, you know. So they're all
Speaker 1: getting different sales up there on stage. Um, And I
Speaker 1: can't do anything about that. I said to them, Look,
Speaker 1: I can do everything for you to help you with
Speaker 1: what happens off the stage. I cannot do anything about
Speaker 1: what's on that stage. I can't be where Pete is
Speaker 1: when you're playing a song or where you are get
Speaker 1: your ship together. You know you should be able to
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, So moon dies, they play with different drummers,
Speaker 1: then Entwhistle dies just before the tour, they continued to work.
Speaker 1: Is the motivation? What is the motivation for them? If
Speaker 1: it's in your blood, it's in your blood. I don't
Speaker 1: know that you're going to go and do anything else.
Speaker 1: Pete's got lots of sides to him. He's just finished
Speaker 1: the book Age of Anxiety. He's a constant worker. But
Speaker 1: what else are you going to do? You know, if
Speaker 1: you're given that gift, and it is a gift, what
Speaker 1: else are you going to do? So you do carry on.
Speaker 1: It's got to be the same with Jagger and Richards.
Speaker 1: They they don't need the money. But I've often believed
Speaker 1: that God works in mysterious ways, and in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways he's fair. So what he does is he
Speaker 1: takes someone like these artists and he gives them a
Speaker 1: special gift. He gives them a little bit extra more
Speaker 1: than you, all right, But at the other end he
Speaker 1: leaves something off unless where we fit in. Okay, how
Speaker 1: did the deal with c S I come together? Oh?
Speaker 1: That was I forget who who actually rang me in
Speaker 1: the first place? It was Jack what's his name, Jack Rossman?
Speaker 1: Jack slipped my mind at the moment, but it was.
Speaker 1: It was either Brookheim or somebody who was who was
Speaker 1: a raven Houfen and they were looking for somebody. But somebody,
Speaker 1: as is usual, somebody who's an underling who never ever
Speaker 1: probably got credit for it, said hey, listen to this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was the synthesizer songs. And it
Speaker 1: was amazing, wasn't it. Because so many people started coming
Speaker 1: to concerts and saying, oh, at least the people who
Speaker 1: do see it, you know. So that's how it came about. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you know, they get the guy's name now. But
Speaker 1: he was from CBS. Okay, But that was he. He
Speaker 1: was one of the first artists of his era, Jack Sussman.
Speaker 1: He was one of the first from his era to
Speaker 1: license these songs. So was he reluctant for a credibility
Speaker 1: did he say, hey, you know, if you're Peter three,
Speaker 1: I'll make the deal. No, he came round to it.
Speaker 1: I remember years ago. I went back and I said him, Pete.
Speaker 1: It was with the advent of mobile phones, you know.
Speaker 1: I said, Pete, I've got a fantastic deal for you
Speaker 1: with a T and T for going mobile, the song
Speaker 1: co Mobile. I said, I've got a great deal for you.
Speaker 1: He said, Now, I'm not selling songs to that. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing any of that. No, no, no. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of years later he did a complete turn
Speaker 1: around and they were picking up whose songs for all
Speaker 1: kinds of I did a deal as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: she worked these artists out. Bob. I did a deal
Speaker 1: with GM Motors for rock and roll, right for led
Speaker 1: Zepplin right. So, and it was a huge, huge amount
Speaker 1: of money, I'm telling you so. Um. First thing, first
Speaker 1: it was ken million, wasn't it more than that? Okay,
Speaker 1: more than that. So I'm on the road with Robert
Speaker 1: Plant and we're going to go to the jail. And
Speaker 1: by the way, as part of the deal, I said
Speaker 1: to them, can you give Robert Plant an escalade in
Speaker 1: every city? So he picks up an escalade. When he
Speaker 1: after he's done it, he drops it back at the airport.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to Detroit. So I said to him,
Speaker 1: when you get to Detroit, you've got to come to
Speaker 1: the factory and sign people's albums, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: the workers. He said, yeah, yeah, okay. So we go
Speaker 1: to the factory and he's great. He's signing all their albums.
Speaker 1: And then the CEO came down, who was a little
Speaker 1: bit to me. The typical American maverick flies his own plane,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, right, you know, So he says, Mr Plant,
Speaker 1: He said, how are you enjoying the escalade? So Plant,
Speaker 1: he looked at him and he went, I like the
Speaker 1: fall better. I went, what he said? He's so the
Speaker 1: guy looked at him. He couldn't believe it. So when
Speaker 1: we get outside, I said, are you for fucking real?
Speaker 1: I said, you've had all that money, You've got this.
Speaker 1: He said yeah, he said, but you know, he said,
Speaker 1: that commercial for the escalator it's on TV too much.
Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean it's on TV too much?
Speaker 1: That's what they paid for and that's why your kettital
Speaker 1: has gone through the roof. So we get home, he
Speaker 1: phoned me A few weeks afterwards, he said, Bill, he
Speaker 1: said that guy GM. I said, yeah. He said, do
Speaker 1: you think you can phone him up and see if
Speaker 1: you can get us to escaladors one for me and
Speaker 1: one for my son. I said, no, I fucking can't
Speaker 1: tell me to go to forward exactly exactly. Work it out, Okay,
Speaker 1: So that the actus ever get jealous of one another,
Speaker 1: they don't have your time? Yeah, how do you manage that?
Speaker 1: I think that it's difficult. I think that that was
Speaker 1: one of the problems with Robert plant Um. I think
Speaker 1: that he resented any time I spent with the who.
Speaker 1: I tried to juggle it as best as possible, but
Speaker 1: I think he resented that a bit. But I was
Speaker 1: forever jumping off one to the other. Um and I'll
Speaker 1: go there. Pete Townsend is the complete complete artist. He
Speaker 1: writes everything, he sings it, he gives you a demo.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal. The Scoop albums. Yeah, he's the real deal.
Speaker 1: A lot of the others need to partner with someone,
Speaker 1: and I'm not potting them down. They're great artists. But
Speaker 1: you know, for me, Elton John, I love him. We're friends.
Speaker 1: The songs he wrote with Bernie Special songs, Jagger Knees,
Speaker 1: Richards plant needed page. That's all I can say. So
Speaker 1: there is a little bit jellously because Townsend is the
Speaker 1: complete deal. He writes it all complete musician. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what is it you do as a manager that makes
Speaker 1: you so great? But it must be something because you're
Speaker 1: you're actually talking about There are some managers were traffic cups.
Speaker 1: They deal with the incoming. Then there's some managers were visionaries,
Speaker 1: and you've put out some visionary thing. So are you
Speaker 1: the type of guy who says, listen, I have a plan,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this or that, or you're fielding
Speaker 1: calls or what is it doing? I do a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff, but I often joke and say what
Speaker 1: I do really really well is I do the unnecessary
Speaker 1: for the ungrateful. But but yeah, I do I plan
Speaker 1: with them. Um. But if I had to say to someone, now,
Speaker 1: what are the essentials for management, I'd say, never be
Speaker 1: afraid to say no, never be afraid to make a mistake,
Speaker 1: Try as hard as you can to make more successful
Speaker 1: moves than unsuccessful. So at least it's like, well how
Speaker 1: many goals did they score? You know? So that your
Speaker 1: your average, because everybody makes mistakes, everybody, and so you
Speaker 1: have to sit between it. And if you've got four artists,
Speaker 1: it's much easier. Well maybe it's not asked John Reid
Speaker 1: and people like that who have had solo artists, but
Speaker 1: it's usually a lot easier with a solo artist because
Speaker 1: you're answering one person with one set of problems than
Speaker 1: it is with three or four. And if those three
Speaker 1: or four of really forceful characters like Daughtry Towns in
Speaker 1: the Moon were and then and Whistle was in his
Speaker 1: own right he could be quite forceful, then you're juggle in.
Speaker 1: It's difficult. So I don't know really how I've totally
Speaker 1: managed it. It's um okay, Well that's managing the people.
Speaker 1: How many of the ideas will you say, oh, let's
Speaker 1: play within an orchestra, or oh let's do an album,
Speaker 1: or this is the way the yard should be. A
Speaker 1: contribute quite a bit to that, but I mean it's
Speaker 1: to give Rogery's dew. It was his idea to come
Speaker 1: with the orchestra because it used the orchestra only solo
Speaker 1: stuff and it sounded so great. I mean he recorded
Speaker 1: this the concert from Bethel and it was great, and
Speaker 1: when he put it to Pete, Pete was quite skeptical.
Speaker 1: Now Pete sort of loves it. Not only is it
Speaker 1: great and sounds great, but it's easy for him. He's
Speaker 1: finding it easy up there, you know. So And and
Speaker 1: for me it was a good move on Roger's part
Speaker 1: because he he gave it another dimension, the who music.
Speaker 1: Um what I think that if I've got a forte,
Speaker 1: I think it's in projects, in coming up with projects,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, like with the Quadrophenia movie, going back
Speaker 1: all the way back again. There that guy Frank Roddon.
Speaker 1: He never made a movie. He had made a couple
Speaker 1: of TV movies and one of them was great. It
Speaker 1: was this true story about a deaf and dumb girl
Speaker 1: who was raped. She she kills the killer, and we
Speaker 1: gave him I was so impressed with him. We gave
Speaker 1: him the Quadrophenia film to do. I think he made
Speaker 1: a masterpiece. He came over here and he made a
Speaker 1: movie for Fox called The Lords of Discipline, great book.
Speaker 1: They ripped the fucking film to pieces. He came back
Speaker 1: so disillusion he said, I'm never making another film. And
Speaker 1: he did a TV series which was huge in England
Speaker 1: called r V the same pet didn't mean much in
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, and then he did Master Chef,
Speaker 1: So we don't need a benefit for Frank, right. So
Speaker 1: what are you most proud of in your career? I
Speaker 1: guess I can't really pick out a concert because there's
Speaker 1: been so many superb and superlative concerts. But if I
Speaker 1: had to pick out a concert, I'd have to fall
Speaker 1: on the side of that of nine eleven for the emotion,
Speaker 1: just a sheer emotion of it, although we've had such
Speaker 1: wonderful concerts. But proud, Yeah, the Kennedy Award. But I'm
Speaker 1: proud that I've got two people who trusted me with
Speaker 1: their lives, because that's how I look at it. When
Speaker 1: an artist comes to me, they're putting a life in
Speaker 1: my hands because there are artistic endeavors and their dreams
Speaker 1: are their life. And that's what I'm proud of that
Speaker 1: I've managed to manage. I hope I managed to do
Speaker 1: a good job for them. And you're gonna do it
Speaker 1: till you drop. Yeah, because I wouldn't say I want
Speaker 1: to do it at the same rate and pace. Because
Speaker 1: I enjoyed doing projects as opposed to the band thing now.
Speaker 1: Pete laughed the other day because I said to him, well,
Speaker 1: I don't fancy going down to the pig and whistle
Speaker 1: and listen to another young band's problems. I want to
Speaker 1: do projects. I want to do films. I want to
Speaker 1: do this. I want to do it. But it will
Speaker 1: always be music. Um so yeah, I mean. And it's
Speaker 1: about realizing dreams, isn't it. My two My two kids.
Speaker 1: My daughter she's just come out from university. She got
Speaker 1: a great degree in English lit and creative writing. She
Speaker 1: wants to go into publishing novels. My boys termed professional
Speaker 1: as a golfer. Um, it's allowing being able to help
Speaker 1: people hopefully realize their dreams. And if the who had
Speaker 1: dreams when I first met them, and I know they did,
Speaker 1: then I think I've helped them get there and realize
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Well, Bill, this has been fantastic.
Speaker 1: We could go out for like five hours. We've really
Speaker 1: got the essence of who you are. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for doing this, and well, it's been a pleasure to
Speaker 1: be here. And what we've managed to do this afternoon
Speaker 1: is to turn crumpy old Bob into nice Bob. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I our side away personality til next time. If Bob
Speaker 1: Wes