Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob west Said's podcasts. My
Speaker 1: guest into two legendary one of the time, the one
Speaker 1: and only and Anderson of Jeff Wild Tom Ian so
Speaker 1: glad to have you on the podcast Big Fear. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just a pleasure to be here. And thank goodness,
Speaker 1: there is only one of me, the one and only.
Speaker 1: Imagine imagine that there were two of me. I mean,
Speaker 1: people will be recoiling in horror at that screeching flute
Speaker 1: permeating every fabric of their being. It would be even
Speaker 1: worse than it already is. I frankly, have always discovered
Speaker 1: that the audiences are seduced during a live performance into
Speaker 1: thinking I quite like the flute, But in reality it's
Speaker 1: a horrible, horrible noise, and it's okay for a few minutes,
Speaker 1: but for two hours, goodness me, I'm surprised they actually
Speaker 1: remain in the in the venue. I have my cats
Speaker 1: like the flute. My dogs run a mile, my wife
Speaker 1: runs a mile, and and and she's an elderly lady.
Speaker 1: But you know James Galway, he says that he has
Speaker 1: played with you. He's a big flutist. Well you know,
Speaker 1: he's um he's a big flattist, but he's a he's
Speaker 1: a damned liar. We've we never played together. We were
Speaker 1: supposed to play together in a concert somewhere in the USA,
Speaker 1: and he was he was performing at the same place
Speaker 1: the night after we were on and so we met
Speaker 1: up and I sent him some music. We're gonna was
Speaker 1: gonna come up on stage and we're going to play together.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'd like to think I like to
Speaker 1: think he would have done it if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: the fact that he was a bit exhausted and jet
Speaker 1: lagged and and probably a bit overwhelmed with the idea
Speaker 1: of being on a stage with noisy people, and it
Speaker 1: was out of his comfort zone. So I think, frankly
Speaker 1: he chickened out. But we we've always talked about doing
Speaker 1: something together, and on the one and only occasion when
Speaker 1: we could have done um, he he checking out. He
Speaker 1: just didn't show up for sound checks. So it was
Speaker 1: a bit embarrassing. But anyway, I mean, I'm in touch
Speaker 1: with James from time to time, elderly gentleman and in
Speaker 1: the twilight years, just just a little bit ahead of me,
Speaker 1: but not too much. But one of his proteges. Andrea Grimanelli,
Speaker 1: who James was was a tutor to m he he
Speaker 1: and I have played together many times, and in fact
Speaker 1: we played played together in the Vatican Christmas concert just
Speaker 1: before Christmas, played with with Andrea Grimanelli. And he's a
Speaker 1: brilliant soloist, classical flute player and very nice and gentlemanly
Speaker 1: guy who who's a huge as a huge relationship, great
Speaker 1: fan of James Goldway, and we we we often chat
Speaker 1: about it and our mutual experience. But that's classical music.
Speaker 1: That's not what I do. I am just the I
Speaker 1: am just the class cloud who sits at the back
Speaker 1: and makes rude noises. Well, without being too self deprecating,
Speaker 1: how do you read your flute playing? Well, the thing
Speaker 1: is that you know, I began as a guitar player,
Speaker 1: not as a flute player. So I was as a teenager,
Speaker 1: you know, struggling to try and learn to play a
Speaker 1: few notes of essentially what we're blues improvisation. And then
Speaker 1: when I was some nineteen maybe eighteen or nineteen, I
Speaker 1: heard Eric Clapton. It just joined John Male's Blues Breakers,
Speaker 1: and that famous album cover where it Clapton is reading
Speaker 1: a children's comic called The Beano. And when I heard
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton, I thought, oh, this is um. This is
Speaker 1: an object lesson in in um finding something else to
Speaker 1: play as a musical instrument. So I said about finding
Speaker 1: an alternative, and I traded in my trustee Fender strat
Speaker 1: for a you know, it was probably worth today. I
Speaker 1: mean the sixties strap that belonged to Lemmy, Lemmy of Motorhead.
Speaker 1: It was the previous owner when he was a rhythm
Speaker 1: guitarist and Reverend Black and the Rocking Vicars rock band.
Speaker 1: How did you get the strap from Lemmy? Well, I
Speaker 1: he was broke, so he had to sell it and
Speaker 1: I took on the the debt, if you like. And
Speaker 1: so I I got this this instrument, played it for
Speaker 1: a year so and and then traded it in for
Speaker 1: a thirty dollar flute. It was a basic student model
Speaker 1: flute and seemed because that guitar today probably you know,
Speaker 1: being a real genuine vintage sixties strap to a Japanese
Speaker 1: collector would probably worth a thirty grand, forty grand maybe
Speaker 1: if you add in the fact that it used to
Speaker 1: belong to me, and before that it belonged to Lemmy.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't seem like a very good deal, you know,
Speaker 1: to part with that and then take on a thirty
Speaker 1: dollar flute by way of exchange. But I think it's
Speaker 1: probably one of the best business investments I could possibly
Speaker 1: have made as it turned down. But of all the instruments,
Speaker 1: the keyboards, the sacks, the drums, why the flute, Well,
Speaker 1: there was no sensible reason whatsoever. I went went to
Speaker 1: trade in my guitar and I looked around on the
Speaker 1: walls of the music store and the sun. It had
Speaker 1: been raining. It was a dreary day, I remember, in
Speaker 1: in a place called Litham in Lancashire in the north
Speaker 1: of England, and suddenly the sun came out and shone
Speaker 1: through the window of the music store and glistened on
Speaker 1: the on something that was hanging on the wall, which
Speaker 1: was a flute, and it just beckoned. It just said
Speaker 1: by me. And I had no idea how to play
Speaker 1: a flute. It just seemed like a nice, shiny, well engineered,
Speaker 1: rather attractive object. And I have a soft spot for
Speaker 1: things that are a good engineering in a well designed,
Speaker 1: well developed and I just thought this looked like it
Speaker 1: was a sort of musical Swiss watch. Really, so I said,
Speaker 1: I'll have that with no idea how to play it,
Speaker 1: and I worked walked out with the flute, which for
Speaker 1: the next few months I couldn't get a note out of.
Speaker 1: And somebody finally told me it's like blowing across the
Speaker 1: top of a Coca cola bottle, you know, you blow
Speaker 1: at the right angle, it makes a makes a musical note.
Speaker 1: And that finally dawned on me as I got the flute,
Speaker 1: I think in August of nine seven, and somewhere in
Speaker 1: mid December I actually managed to get a note out
Speaker 1: of this flute. It was a note of G, and
Speaker 1: then I found a note of E, and then A
Speaker 1: and B, and then I had the blue scale. So
Speaker 1: by the beginning of January, when Jethro actually became Jethrotel,
Speaker 1: I was able to play not only just to play
Speaker 1: a little bit of flute, but to play improvised blue
Speaker 1: solos because I just translated what I thought I knew
Speaker 1: from guitar playing into into the flute well, even though
Speaker 1: I didn't know the proper fingering, and I was just
Speaker 1: you know, making loud noises to try and equal the
Speaker 1: impact of the electric guitar in the band. But it worked.
Speaker 1: Out pretty well. I think I I think I probably
Speaker 1: buy February March, people were beginning to talk about Jeth
Speaker 1: Hotel not just as another blues band, but a blues
Speaker 1: band with a guy who played the flute standing on
Speaker 1: one leg, which seemed to catch on in a way
Speaker 1: with the media and as a as a kind of
Speaker 1: an image as a logo. From that day onwards. We
Speaker 1: were a little different to Savoy Brown and Chicken Shack
Speaker 1: and Fleetwood mac And and the other blues bands of
Speaker 1: that era that also played at the famous Marquee Club
Speaker 1: in London. Okay, all over the web it says that
Speaker 1: your daughter picked up the flute and then you ultimately
Speaker 1: learned you were using the long wrong fingering and how
Speaker 1: to re learn it. Is that apocryphal or is that
Speaker 1: a real story. That's a real story. She she asked
Speaker 1: me when she was at school. I guess she was
Speaker 1: about eight years old or something, and said, oh, we
Speaker 1: we we've got to learn to play a musical instrument,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of is just something that you've got
Speaker 1: that I could borrow too to play. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got drum kids, I've got saxophones, I've
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of stuff, but you know, maybe
Speaker 1: the flute is the easiest one. And so I gave
Speaker 1: her a flute, one of my old stage flutes, and
Speaker 1: I made sure that it kind of played okay, and
Speaker 1: she took it to school, and she came back and
Speaker 1: had some little book, you know, how to Play the Flute,
Speaker 1: Chapter one, and it was it was a musical notation,
Speaker 1: which means nothing to me. But she was playing through
Speaker 1: a few notes and I ventured to say, look, actually,
Speaker 1: when you're playing this note and you do it like this,
Speaker 1: and she and she looked at where my fingers were
Speaker 1: on the instrument, said was that that's not what it
Speaker 1: says in the book, Daddy, That's not what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to put your little finger on the right hand. So
Speaker 1: I said, rubbish, But of course she was right. It
Speaker 1: was I'd been all that time. That's just somewhere around
Speaker 1: about nineteen eighty nine or something. I've been doing it
Speaker 1: wrongly for all that time. And it was a bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1: But I then actually went off to to Bombay Mumbai,
Speaker 1: although it was still Bombay at that time, and it
Speaker 1: was the day after the India bombings, and Mumbai and
Speaker 1: I arrived to do a preordained press conference before we
Speaker 1: knew about the terrorist attack. So I was about the
Speaker 1: only foreigner in town. Everybody had fled and so I
Speaker 1: had the entire press and media of of of Mumbai
Speaker 1: came to my press conference because they had nothing else
Speaker 1: to do. There's nobody else to talk to, and as
Speaker 1: a result, we we we chatted about various things, and
Speaker 1: when I was back in my hotel room, oddly there
Speaker 1: was a fax machine because my hotel was right next
Speaker 1: to the one that got blown up, and there's a
Speaker 1: fax machine in my room. And I thought, I'll I'll
Speaker 1: phone one of the music stores in London and see
Speaker 1: if they can fax over to me a flute fingering
Speaker 1: chart to show me all the fingering positions for the
Speaker 1: different notes, which they did, and I looked with horror
Speaker 1: at the end. Resultant thought, that is going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, very very difficult for me to relearn at
Speaker 1: this point in my life, in almost twenty years after
Speaker 1: I first played the flute, and to begin with, I
Speaker 1: was so daunted by it. I thought, oh no, I'll
Speaker 1: just stick with what I've got, But it kept luring
Speaker 1: me back in with the idea that I should try
Speaker 1: and do it properly. And so it took me about
Speaker 1: six months really to incorporate the correct fingering into my
Speaker 1: performances on stage, because of course I got set in
Speaker 1: my ways and took a while to make the adjustment.
Speaker 1: But it was worthwhile because they then gave me the
Speaker 1: the scope to play at a more controllable different volume
Speaker 1: levels and and and somewhat more in tune than I
Speaker 1: had been, so it worked out pretty well. And then
Speaker 1: I moved from playing closed whole flutes where all the
Speaker 1: keys are covered, which is kind of easy for beginners,
Speaker 1: playing open, open whole flutes, which allow you to kind
Speaker 1: of slur notes and bend notes a little bit like
Speaker 1: playing a blues guitar. And I made all that transition
Speaker 1: really in nine nine, I guess, and and I never
Speaker 1: looked back except to wonder why on earth I hadn't
Speaker 1: learned to play it properly in the first place. Okay,
Speaker 1: you mentioned you gave your daughter a road flute from
Speaker 1: the stage. What would be the difference between a road
Speaker 1: flute and a flute you keep at home and using
Speaker 1: the studio monetary value? Basically, because you know, when you're
Speaker 1: traveling around the world, and you're apart from the fact
Speaker 1: that you're your flutes are going to be subject to
Speaker 1: a certain amount of wear and tear, it's also that
Speaker 1: you know you have to leave them in hotel rooms,
Speaker 1: and or if you decide you don't want to leave
Speaker 1: in a hotel room, you've got to put it around
Speaker 1: your neck and go up into the depths of some
Speaker 1: darkened Eastern European town, taking your life and your flute
Speaker 1: in your hands, in order to try and find a
Speaker 1: good takeaway curry or you know, or an empty restaurant
Speaker 1: to eat in and and and get mugged along the way.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a little nerve racking. So I've never
Speaker 1: traveled with flutes of any huge value. I always tend
Speaker 1: to I mean, they're kind of intermediate flutes, but frankly
Speaker 1: not worth mugging me for. If you're gonna mug me,
Speaker 1: take my watch, leave the flute. That's my advice. Now,
Speaker 1: with most musical equipment and sports equipment, people who at
Speaker 1: the elite level, there's a difference, like a pair of
Speaker 1: skis or a guitar. This is my favorite. Do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite flute where they all pretty much sound
Speaker 1: the same? Well, going back to James Galway, it's an
Speaker 1: interesting you know, he did a survey. I mean he
Speaker 1: had lots and lots of flutes. I mean I know
Speaker 1: because I've seen them. You've showed me the the cover
Speaker 1: that contains all of his flutes, and I mean there
Speaker 1: must have been twenty different flutes in there. And he
Speaker 1: he did a sort of test to try and play
Speaker 1: them all one after the other, playing exactly the same
Speaker 1: piece of quite complex classical music. And I think he
Speaker 1: amply demonstrated that there was so little difference in the
Speaker 1: tonal quality of all of these flutes, you know, arranging
Speaker 1: from basically an advanced student model flute to you know,
Speaker 1: eighteen carrot gold flute that was probably costing, and there
Speaker 1: was a little difference in it. And I actually replicated
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing just a few weeks ago, when
Speaker 1: I knowing that I was starting work on a new
Speaker 1: album with a lot of flute involved in it, that
Speaker 1: I did the same thing. I played a few flutes
Speaker 1: one after the other on the same audio file and
Speaker 1: listen to them back, and you know, you could detect
Speaker 1: a tiny little difference, but it was much less than
Speaker 1: it appeared to me when I play the flute, you
Speaker 1: know you because you reson It resonates in your skull
Speaker 1: as well as the sound of the instrument from the
Speaker 1: ambushure whole and the sound that comes out of the
Speaker 1: open tone hurls of the flute. It sounds more different
Speaker 1: to you, but to a high quality microphone sitting you know,
Speaker 1: thirty centimeters roughly one ft for you guys away from
Speaker 1: your your flute. It's all my undetectable the difference. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I was recording something for somebody else. It
Speaker 1: was doing performing a guest thing for some other artists,
Speaker 1: and I used I used two different flutes to to
Speaker 1: to play so that the flute part that was my
Speaker 1: contribution to his record. And when it came to it,
Speaker 1: I realized there was absolutely no difference detectable between when
Speaker 1: I've been playing one flute as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: thirty seconds later I switched to using the other flute.
Speaker 1: Do you really couldn't tell? So I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any great difference when it comes to what you take
Speaker 1: on the road to play and what you might play
Speaker 1: because you just like the feel of it or that
Speaker 1: very subtle nuance that makes one flute different to another.
Speaker 1: And I think the same thing obtains really for guitars,
Speaker 1: which is why I've been utterly amazed and and perhaps
Speaker 1: a little irreverent in my response to people like my
Speaker 1: pile Joe Bonna Messa, who I remember going backstage and
Speaker 1: seeing it about twenty guitars backstage to play a concert
Speaker 1: at Hammersmith Odeon in London, and I said, what the
Speaker 1: hell are all these guitarist for Joe? I mean, what's
Speaker 1: it about. I mean, you just need one, you know,
Speaker 1: you sound great? Well, why do you need all these guitars? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I might decided to play a different
Speaker 1: one that night, or in the song I want to
Speaker 1: play that one, or whatever. And and I found it.
Speaker 1: It was quite amusing, you know. But I had to
Speaker 1: take the mickey out of him because he was like
Speaker 1: many guitarists. You know, it's a mark of how how
Speaker 1: great your statue is in the firmament of guitar players,
Speaker 1: as to how many guitars you take on tour, and
Speaker 1: how many guitar roads you have to employ to change
Speaker 1: the strings and tune them up for you, which is
Speaker 1: the antithesis of life in Jeth Hotel guitar players take
Speaker 1: one guitar and they change their own strings, and they
Speaker 1: tune them up by themselves, and nobody is allowed to
Speaker 1: touch them because your precious instrument. The last thing you
Speaker 1: want to do is give it to some roadie to
Speaker 1: handle and smear his bodily juices over the strings when
Speaker 1: he's probably not watched his hands when he's been to
Speaker 1: the toilet. So nobody touches my flute, nobody touches my guitar,
Speaker 1: And the rest of the guys in the band are
Speaker 1: exactly the same, you know, we we are. Our instruments
Speaker 1: are the tools of our trade. I say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you were a cop and you had
Speaker 1: a you know, nine millimeter glocks glock strapped to your
Speaker 1: your your your your your, your waist, and you know,
Speaker 1: would you allow somebody else to clean it, to load it,
Speaker 1: to check it and make sure it was ready to
Speaker 1: roll when it's a matter of life and death potentially
Speaker 1: that that thing is going to work for you if
Speaker 1: you should need it. And I think it's the same
Speaker 1: thing with musical instruments. You you should take on the
Speaker 1: responsibility of looking after them yourself, because it is life
Speaker 1: and death out there. If you pick it up and
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's out a tune, or it string breaks
Speaker 1: or something. It's um, you are going to die a
Speaker 1: horrible death on stage in front of thousands of people
Speaker 1: and looked like a complete turkey. Okay, So how does
Speaker 1: Ian Ianerson know Joe Bonamassa. I mean, I know Joe
Speaker 1: and he's very open, friendly guy. But you have a
Speaker 1: reputation as being somewhat outside. But in reality, do you
Speaker 1: know and connect with a lot of musicians or was
Speaker 1: there a unique story with Bonna Massa? What's your relationship
Speaker 1: with other musicians? Well, I I do connect in the
Speaker 1: sense of there are a number of people that I've
Speaker 1: met and I've known some of whom I played with,
Speaker 1: but it's probably less than twenty in fifty something years.
Speaker 1: I know Joe because our agent um said as a
Speaker 1: suggestion for an opening act, and I was just young
Speaker 1: kid who's um a bit of a whiz kid making
Speaker 1: a name for himself, and you know, could he come
Speaker 1: and do some shows with Jethro Hotel and an added apprehensively, uh,
Speaker 1: and he actually plays one of your songs during his set.
Speaker 1: He's a bit of a Jet Hotel fan. So I said, yeah, well, okay,
Speaker 1: and I think I must have checked out some something
Speaker 1: on long before YouTube, but it probably found something to
Speaker 1: listen to. And he seemed he reminded me a little
Speaker 1: bit of Rory Gallagher in the early days, because he
Speaker 1: was that kind of a shouty singer rather than a
Speaker 1: melodic singer, full of energy, full of youthful vigor. Great
Speaker 1: description of Rory Gallagher, Yeah and well, and and of
Speaker 1: the young Joe Bonamassa. But you know, he did some
Speaker 1: shows with us, and he was such a nice, gentlemanly, quiet,
Speaker 1: really easy going guy. And you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: guys in this band they were they were okay, and
Speaker 1: so it was an easy and easy, you know, a
Speaker 1: good mix in terms of somebody to work with for
Speaker 1: a few days on tour, and over the years, I
Speaker 1: suppose we just kept in touch. But the mature um
Speaker 1: Joe Bonna Massa is someone who I think has evolved
Speaker 1: beyond the shouty blues. Now he's a much better singer
Speaker 1: and a much better guitar player. He has the melodic
Speaker 1: and the restraint that perhaps you would associate it with
Speaker 1: with the Eric Clapton um. To begin with, he sounded
Speaker 1: you know, it was just a little bit too How
Speaker 1: many notes can you cram into a bar and sounds?
Speaker 1: You know? Um, But if you're an opening out, you've
Speaker 1: got to do that. You've got, you know, thirty five
Speaker 1: minutes to struct your stuff and make a name for yourself.
Speaker 1: You you've really got to turn on the turn on
Speaker 1: the taps. But you know, once you've become a headline act,
Speaker 1: you can afford to demonstrate a little taste and restraint
Speaker 1: and try and try and make every note count, and
Speaker 1: make the gap between the notes count, because that's the
Speaker 1: thing that Eric Clapton always had, you know, he knew
Speaker 1: the value of the space between the notes. It's like
Speaker 1: dramatic clouds in the sky, but you see between the
Speaker 1: clouds a little touch of infinite blue, and it's the
Speaker 1: space between the clouds, just as the space between the
Speaker 1: notes and the guitar. So that give it its shape,
Speaker 1: its form. It's drama, it's dynamic range. And I think
Speaker 1: that's something Joe's and and and once he grew up
Speaker 1: a little bit, that's what he learned to do. Me,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I'm still stuck in the old days.
Speaker 1: I just crammed as many notes as I can in Okay.
Speaker 1: You happen to drop curries in there earlier of all
Speaker 1: the big Jethro Tolfi and I was catching up on
Speaker 1: you make sure I didn't forget anything, and it said
Speaker 1: you're a big Indian food expert. Now in America, I
Speaker 1: remember the Ramones talking about vindaloo. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what it was. There are a lot of Indian restaurants
Speaker 1: in America today, but nothing like the curry shops in
Speaker 1: the UK. So give us a primer on Indian food.
Speaker 1: People who are un knowledgeable, what should they know about
Speaker 1: Indian food? Well, what they shouldn't know about it is
Speaker 1: that I mean apart from the connection obviously the primary
Speaker 1: connection between Britain as a as a as a nation
Speaker 1: who strutted its stuff across the globe and swept people
Speaker 1: into its um, it's orbit and made such a huge difference,
Speaker 1: some of it bad, some of it good. We inherited
Speaker 1: Indian food going back into the eight hundreds when the
Speaker 1: very first Indian restaurant opened up in London and it
Speaker 1: really made its mark. After partition in India seven the
Speaker 1: year of my birth, when the Hindus and Muslims were
Speaker 1: split up when Pakistan was split up into Pakistan as
Speaker 1: we know it today and Bangladesh which was which was
Speaker 1: was East Pakistan back then, and so many Indians and
Speaker 1: bangladesh he's and Pakistani's fled the country during the very
Speaker 1: unpleasant times after the partition and they came, many of
Speaker 1: them to the UK and set up Pakistani restaurants, Bangladeshi
Speaker 1: restaurants and Indian restaurants. And this was really throughout the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. So when I grew up at the
Speaker 1: age when I was beginning to play music and travel
Speaker 1: outside my hometown, then Indian food became. It became what
Speaker 1: you you you you aspired to as a good night
Speaker 1: out if you were whether it was on your way
Speaker 1: back from some some gigs somewhere in the north of
Speaker 1: England and there was some late night Indian restaurant open.
Speaker 1: I mean that that you made a bee line for it,
Speaker 1: because we all had a taste for spicy food Chinese.
Speaker 1: I suppose it was the first thing that we knew
Speaker 1: about in terms of more exotic cuisine, but Indian that
Speaker 1: nailed it for most of us. So I guess it
Speaker 1: would be very hard to find many British music then
Speaker 1: and now who A didn't like Indian food and b
Speaker 1: hadn't been to art school, So that those two things
Speaker 1: somehow seemed to define what is about British musicians that
Speaker 1: maybe marks us out from the rest of Europe and
Speaker 1: most of the USA. You know, we're all nuts about
Speaker 1: a good king prawne Vinderloo and we all we all
Speaker 1: went to art college to study the creative side of
Speaker 1: of life that then translated into music. So if someone
Speaker 1: is going to an Indian restaurant, tell them hot at order,
Speaker 1: Well that that happens to me from time to time
Speaker 1: that somebody says, well I'm not sure what I should
Speaker 1: what I should eat, So it's just you just asked
Speaker 1: them a few simple questions. Well do you like do
Speaker 1: you like food that has a wet source or do
Speaker 1: you like something that is dry and not not not
Speaker 1: not wet. Do you like something that is kind of
Speaker 1: spicy like that a lot of spicy flavor is not
Speaker 1: necessarily hot, but just the spices. Or do you like
Speaker 1: something that is relatively bland? And do you like something
Speaker 1: that is spicy as in hot or do you want
Speaker 1: something that's really mild? And and you eat meat, do
Speaker 1: you eat chicken, Do you eat fish, do you eat shellfish,
Speaker 1: do you eat beef? To eat lamb? Or do you
Speaker 1: are you vegetarian? And with a benefit of that, you
Speaker 1: can perhaps direct somebody to something that hopefully is going
Speaker 1: to be along the lines that that that might satisfy them.
Speaker 1: And for people who are perhaps not really sure that
Speaker 1: I would recommend something, I mean, assuming you eat chicken,
Speaker 1: I would say, go for a chicken corner. It's a mild, creamy,
Speaker 1: yogurt based sauce with the chicken boned pieces of chickens.
Speaker 1: There's no bone in there. You know that that might satisfy.
Speaker 1: But if you want something that's you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to just jump in at the deep end and
Speaker 1: you go for the King Prawn Vindaloo, and if you're
Speaker 1: completely nuts, go for the King Prawn foul which is
Speaker 1: the legendary hottest of curries. And these days, of course
Speaker 1: they're made with the benefit of chili peppers that have
Speaker 1: been refined and hybridized in Arizona and New Mexico. So
Speaker 1: these days it could be but jell Okia or the
Speaker 1: or the or the the or the or the Reaper
Speaker 1: that you know, the hottest chili peppers on planet Earth.
Speaker 1: I know because I've grown those and you know, one
Speaker 1: goes an awfully long way in terms of spicing up
Speaker 1: your your supper. Okay, you mentioned Indy, you mentioned Britain.
Speaker 1: I have to ask what is your take unclapped in
Speaker 1: It is the anti vax the answer? And what is
Speaker 1: your stance on Brexit? Well, I'm afraid to say that
Speaker 1: people like Van Morrison and Eric Clapton just a name two,
Speaker 1: in the attitude towards COVID, its effects and the vaccine. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I am ashamed of what they what they say, it really, really,
Speaker 1: frankly makes me very angry because it's a you would
Speaker 1: think you would think that they would be bright enough
Speaker 1: to know better. And there are people who genuinely have
Speaker 1: a reason not to have the vaccine. But if you're
Speaker 1: a responsible citizen of planet Earth, and I think you
Speaker 1: should take the chance and have your double vaccine or
Speaker 1: your triple vaccine. And I mean I've actually had five
Speaker 1: holes in my arm in the last twelve months, three
Speaker 1: to do with COVID, one for pneumonia and one for
Speaker 1: an annual flu vaccine. And I hate needles, I mean
Speaker 1: I absolutely hate needles. Drives me nuts. And but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, three of those five are
Speaker 1: about are about protecting, helping to protect people around me,
Speaker 1: my family, my friends, or complete strangers. I think it
Speaker 1: is a bit of a civic duty, frankly, to bite
Speaker 1: the bullet, be vaccinated, and much less chance that you
Speaker 1: could be the person who inadvertently infects somebody else, who
Speaker 1: may be vulnerable, who may end up in hospital sadly
Speaker 1: may die even with O macron, which is not the
Speaker 1: pussycat quite that we were hoping for, but it's better
Speaker 1: than nothing, and we have to accept that. Even though
Speaker 1: infection rates in my country have now seemingly in the
Speaker 1: last week turned the corner and started to go down,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're almost half of what they were two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, but our death rates, which lag behind the hospitalizations,
Speaker 1: which lag behind infection rates, you know, are still going up,
Speaker 1: and at the at a rate quite as high as
Speaker 1: the worst of two thousand and twenty one, but still worrying.
Speaker 1: And in your country, you know, you're you are as
Speaker 1: of yesterday, pretty close to the highest daily infection rate
Speaker 1: that's been recorded, and O macron is still going up
Speaker 1: and death rates are still going up. It's um you
Speaker 1: know we're not out of this yet. And I'm afraid
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton and others send an irresponsible message in my
Speaker 1: view to two people. They just simply fall into that
Speaker 1: that kind of fake news and and conspiracy theory stuff
Speaker 1: that that does seem to appeal to so many people,
Speaker 1: but it's it isn't really without foundation. And when I've read,
Speaker 1: because I go online and I look at what some
Speaker 1: of these people say, and I looked to see where
Speaker 1: they got it from, and it is it's neither science,
Speaker 1: common sense or common decency in my view to take
Speaker 1: an anti vax state a status in your in the
Speaker 1: way that you influence others. But that's just me. I'm
Speaker 1: a low abiding citizen. I'm a nice guy, and I
Speaker 1: definitely don't want to catch COVID about possibly avoid it
Speaker 1: because I'm in that vulnerable category with underlying health conditions.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm taking a little bit of extra
Speaker 1: care and I'd like to think other people would do
Speaker 1: the same thing on my you know, for for my sake.
Speaker 1: And what about Brexit. Brexit is well, I remember when
Speaker 1: I I woke up to Brexit. I was in Poland
Speaker 1: to do a concert and I woke up in the morning,
Speaker 1: around six seven in the morning and to hear the
Speaker 1: the early results of the Brexit Pole and was pretty
Speaker 1: horrified to find out that it was in favor of Brexit.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think that the EU needed a
Speaker 1: sharp shock to wake it up to the fact that
Speaker 1: as an institution, the EU was I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a post war thing, you know, it was about bringing
Speaker 1: the European countries together so they wouldn't murder each other
Speaker 1: in battle. And then it developed into an economic union,
Speaker 1: which is fair enough. And then it became the EU,
Speaker 1: which was okay, but then it became increasingly caught up
Speaker 1: with trying to homogenize the whole, the whole fabric of
Speaker 1: Europe into accepting the same set of laws, same set
Speaker 1: of taxation standards, and a whole lot of things that
Speaker 1: I felt were removing the national culture and pride and
Speaker 1: individual nation's sense of who they were, including in the UK.
Speaker 1: So I think the EU needed a bit of a
Speaker 1: sharp shop to wake it up. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I was I was disappointed that we
Speaker 1: had not been able to find and accommodate some kind
Speaker 1: of a rational way to remain broadly within Europe while
Speaker 1: having more of our own laws, in our immigration policies,
Speaker 1: in our own hands, rather than as part of a
Speaker 1: European directive. Unfortunately, it resulted in us leaving the EU,
Speaker 1: and I'm rather sad about that. I've been paying my
Speaker 1: my German reunification tax since whatever it was nineteen eighty nine, when,
Speaker 1: after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification
Speaker 1: of Germany as a as a performer going there to work,
Speaker 1: part of the withholding taxes that we would pay were
Speaker 1: that small part that went towards the cost of reunifying Germany,
Speaker 1: which is basically building roads and infrastructure and housing and
Speaker 1: the whole shooting match of what had been the Eastern
Speaker 1: Germany ground into the into the dirt by the communist
Speaker 1: regime as an offshoot of of the USSR. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I am sorry that we've left the EU.
Speaker 1: I'm a European, I'm I'm a I'm a Britain first,
Speaker 1: but I feel very strongly a European. It's where I've
Speaker 1: spent much of my life and I hope, in what
Speaker 1: remains of it I get to spend some more time
Speaker 1: in Europe. So yeah, I'm sorry to have left but
Speaker 1: I didn't want to. In a way, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: glad we didn't stay on the terms that we were on.
Speaker 1: I just felt there was prospects to tough it out
Speaker 1: a little more and get more of what we wanted
Speaker 1: while still remaining part of Europe. Not a problem that
Speaker 1: you guys have. It's you, But you do have the
Speaker 1: problem of NATO, and you do have the problem of
Speaker 1: an angry Mr Putin who's hell bent on trying to rebuild,
Speaker 1: you know, from the ashes of the USSR, trying to
Speaker 1: rebuild a broader empire than the one that he lords
Speaker 1: over at the moment. I have a photograph, we can
Speaker 1: find this online, a photograph of of when I went
Speaker 1: to play in St. Petersburg, I think in or ninety
Speaker 1: one and met the mayor of St. Petersburg at the
Speaker 1: time and his assistant kind of rather odd, weird looking
Speaker 1: little man who was looking daggers at me. In this photograph.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be the KGB Major Putin. Although
Speaker 1: he was the chief economic advisor to the Mayor of St. Petersburg,
Speaker 1: he was actually a major in the KGB at the
Speaker 1: same time. And Putin is just the look on his
Speaker 1: face as I'm you know, smooching with his boss is priceless.
Speaker 1: And when I was well, it was brought to my
Speaker 1: attention many many years later that there was a photograph
Speaker 1: of us in the same frame. But you can see
Speaker 1: something about putin that and look in his eyes. It's
Speaker 1: he's a frightening guy. I actually have a huge admiration
Speaker 1: for him as a international statesman and politician. But he's
Speaker 1: a very scary man, and I can you know, like
Speaker 1: everybody else, we know what he's trying to do. But
Speaker 1: as someone who's supposed to be in Ukraine in um
Speaker 1: in the middle in the one at the end of
Speaker 1: the first week of April UM, it's one of those
Speaker 1: slightly nerve wracking prospects that will Ukraine still be Ukraine
Speaker 1: by the time I get there, Will I which would
Speaker 1: be another gig in Russia? Well, I'm gonna be in
Speaker 1: Russia for that matter, and whenever it is sometime not
Speaker 1: too far off to do some concerts there that have
Speaker 1: been rescheduled three times already, like most of our concerts
Speaker 1: since early two and twenty, we're on our third or
Speaker 1: fourth rescheduling of dates that people bought tickets for in
Speaker 1: the middle of two thousand and nineteen and we've not
Speaker 1: showed up for work yet. I mean's so embarrassing. Just
Speaker 1: staying on the politics one more time. A couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, the lead piece in the New York Times
Speaker 1: our ed page was about the UK sliding into authoritarianism
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson passing all these laws about being arrested if
Speaker 1: you protest, etcetera. Do you think there's a possibility we
Speaker 1: certainly have this issue in the US and needles sat
Speaker 1: Putin is an authoritarian or is that overblown? But I
Speaker 1: think it's a bit overblown. We are pretty much a
Speaker 1: liberal society and media. You know, we have a couple
Speaker 1: of right wing newspapers, but they're not anything like as
Speaker 1: far to the writers say fox Um. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, whilst our liberal side of things
Speaker 1: maybe a little more, a little bit more to the
Speaker 1: left than than CNN, we're still generally speaking, I think
Speaker 1: we're relatively tolerant country. And you know, once in a
Speaker 1: while you've got to try and get to grips with
Speaker 1: what is increasingly what is referred to here as wokeasm.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a those who have adopted really an
Speaker 1: ultra liberal position because they are partly following trends and
Speaker 1: not wanting to appear hostile or out of touch and
Speaker 1: so on. But you know, there's got to be some
Speaker 1: common sense in all of it. And you know, some
Speaker 1: of it I go along with, and some of it
Speaker 1: i've you know, I feel a little awkward about. But
Speaker 1: generally speaking, you know, we are pretty much a liberal country,
Speaker 1: and the most extreme of our right wing media and
Speaker 1: those within the Conservative Party are still puttycats compared to
Speaker 1: the Republicans of the USA, not all of them, but
Speaker 1: most of them. And you know, one of my great
Speaker 1: chums was and absolutely died in the whole idealistic Republican
Speaker 1: and and he was someone you could have a spirited
Speaker 1: to argument or discussion with. But he was a true
Speaker 1: Southern gentleman and loved by all Democrats and Republicans alike,
Speaker 1: particularly during his stint not only with with Fox, but
Speaker 1: as the as the press secretary for for President Bush,
Speaker 1: actually two President Bushes. He was he was the scriptwriter
Speaker 1: for Dad and then it was the press secretary for
Speaker 1: for Junior, and and I was in his office one
Speaker 1: day in the White House and he um, he said,
Speaker 1: dropping names, but we were we were there just as
Speaker 1: you know, unexceptional guests to watch a press conference, and
Speaker 1: went back to Tony Snow's office. Tony Snow's the name
Speaker 1: of the man. And and we got back to his
Speaker 1: office after the press briefing and the phone rang, and
Speaker 1: it was Barbara Starr from CNN, and I could read
Speaker 1: his body language and the tone of his voice. He
Speaker 1: was being so polite and nice to her. And she
Speaker 1: was trying to get the scoop, trying to pin him
Speaker 1: down on all that you know rubbish, you just said,
Speaker 1: you know, covering up for Bush. But you know, what's
Speaker 1: the real story here, what's the real And and he
Speaker 1: was so nice and poline. He said, Barbara, you know,
Speaker 1: if I if I could give you anything more, you'd
Speaker 1: be the first person I would call. It's it's really
Speaker 1: nice to hear from you. And but you've got the
Speaker 1: you've got the impression he was somebody that was it
Speaker 1: was really appreciated as a as a person of honor
Speaker 1: and discretion and a gentlemanly way of doing things. And
Speaker 1: he had a very easy relationship with the media left
Speaker 1: and right alike. And I remember before Tony died finally
Speaker 1: tragically after repeated illness, with with colon cancer. He I
Speaker 1: did say to him, Toney, would you ever, you know,
Speaker 1: would you consider a political career, you know, shift away
Speaker 1: from being a backroom boy to actually, you know, running
Speaker 1: for serious office. Um? And he was sort of bashful
Speaker 1: about it. No, No, my wife wouldn't really want me
Speaker 1: to do that, and blah blah blah blah blah. But
Speaker 1: I've always thought that Tony, Tony would have been the
Speaker 1: Republican president for the USA that the USA really needed. Um.
Speaker 1: Sadly he was never around to do that. That his
Speaker 1: last gig wasn't for Fox. His last gig he was appointed.
Speaker 1: He took on the job with CNN to be their
Speaker 1: Republican reporting the upcoming election where Obama won. And that
Speaker 1: was Tony's that the last appointment he had at that point.
Speaker 1: I guess he knew he wasn't going to make it.
Speaker 1: And sadly he was never able to take on that
Speaker 1: appointment because he became very seriously and died before before
Speaker 1: that happened. But it was an interesting, an interesting twist
Speaker 1: that you know, Tony was so appreciated and revered that
Speaker 1: he would be taken on by CNN to be the
Speaker 1: the voice of the Republican Party within CNN whenever they
Speaker 1: were talking out and analyzing the the events leading up
Speaker 1: to the election. So I, you know, I missed Tony.
Speaker 1: He was a good guy and he would have been
Speaker 1: a good precedent. And he was a flute player. And
Speaker 1: that's how I got to know because his his whole
Speaker 1: passion was playing the flute. He and I argued. I
Speaker 1: said that he was the model for the the anchorman
Speaker 1: flute playing sequence, the jazz flute bit, and he claimed
Speaker 1: that no, he couldn't. Possibly it must be me. In reality,
Speaker 1: it was probably both of us. But I would never
Speaker 1: classify myself as a jazz flutist and an anchor man.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a media person, he was a
Speaker 1: you know, he was a and so was Tony. So
Speaker 1: I always had my bet that it was modeled on Tony,
Speaker 1: But who knows. We'd have to ask the writers and
Speaker 1: the and the the actor. You know, where did he
Speaker 1: get that idea for him? Okay, let's go back and
Speaker 1: set the scene in the sixties in US, there's certainly
Speaker 1: always been music, but generally speaking, the early sixties were
Speaker 1: very vapid, and then at the beginning of the sixty
Speaker 1: four the Beatles arrived. What was going on in the UK?
Speaker 1: You know, we hear about the blues records being imported
Speaker 1: by soldiers. We hear the scene in Liverpool, the Beatles
Speaker 1: play at the Cavern Club. You know, as I say,
Speaker 1: in the US, people saw the Beatles on it solivan,
Speaker 1: They picked up electric guitars. What was your experience of
Speaker 1: the scene. Well, I had already picked up an electric guitar,
Speaker 1: I think at the time, possibly when the Beatles came along.
Speaker 1: That's another one of my questions. What motivated you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't really that I was a Beatles fan.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember when they first appeared with a
Speaker 1: song called Loved Me Do, and I think what appealed
Speaker 1: to me about it was the harmonica that kind of
Speaker 1: set me off in the track of playing harmonica. But
Speaker 1: you know, they were okay, but they were a pop
Speaker 1: group and I had already at that point discovered as
Speaker 1: and blues, and I was not really enamored too much
Speaker 1: of of the early Beatles. Although they were catchy songs,
Speaker 1: you could see the expertise and the energy and the
Speaker 1: the ghost youthful the thing that they put across that
Speaker 1: that allowed a generation of people to to feel passionate
Speaker 1: about being young and expressing themselves. But for me, that that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the UK at that time, you know,
Speaker 1: was a curious mixture of different sorts of music, and
Speaker 1: the pop music of the day was still for the
Speaker 1: most part it had been emulating Elvis Presley and other
Speaker 1: derivative imitations of other US acts, So it hadn't really
Speaker 1: we hadn't really home grown very much. That was anything
Speaker 1: to feel good about until until the Beatles came along,
Speaker 1: and and and and In America you had to endure
Speaker 1: Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark five um as, the
Speaker 1: imports from the UK, which people loved sure enough. But
Speaker 1: when the Beatles arrived in town, it was a whole,
Speaker 1: a whole new ball game. And then it seemed a
Speaker 1: quite quick movement towards something where the Beatles we saw
Speaker 1: them mature and developers musicians. And then the big landmark
Speaker 1: thing that made a difference to me and I'm sure
Speaker 1: many of my peers in the UK, was the advent
Speaker 1: of what became not progressive rock but progressive pop. It
Speaker 1: was Sergeant Pepper in the summer of sixty seven, and
Speaker 1: within a couple of months of that there was the
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd was Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and
Speaker 1: these two albums they were like a signpost. It was.
Speaker 1: It was like walking down a walking down a path
Speaker 1: in the middle of the woods and suddenly coming across
Speaker 1: a fork in the road and a signpost they're saying,
Speaker 1: you know this way, And it was a huge motivator,
Speaker 1: you know, to hear what you could do with pop
Speaker 1: music on the one hand and what you could do
Speaker 1: with psychedelic rock on the other. So it was quite
Speaker 1: important to me, not as the actual musical style or
Speaker 1: the or the elements of the of the music, or
Speaker 1: the personalities of people playing. It was just that motivation
Speaker 1: that you could actually take it into your own hands
Speaker 1: and write and record and put music out. There wasn't
Speaker 1: mainstream pop music. Of course, the Beatles had George Martin,
Speaker 1: without whom I'm sure they couldn't have made that record,
Speaker 1: and Pink Floyd had Said Barrett, without whom the lyrics
Speaker 1: and the essence of those songs wouldn't really mentor busting amount,
Speaker 1: but they were. They were real signposts and landmarks in
Speaker 1: my early days as a teenager. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: definitely a step forward from the the imitative rock and
Speaker 1: roll of Britain's music scene in the from the late
Speaker 1: fifties through to the mid sixties, which was frankly a
Speaker 1: little embarrassing. You were just copying people singing with American
Speaker 1: accents and wearing the clothes and pretending to be um,
Speaker 1: you know, the American artists that they revered and whose
Speaker 1: careers they aspired to. Okay, so you're an art school.
Speaker 1: Is that a holding place? Where do you envision being
Speaker 1: an artist or a designer? And how do you pick
Speaker 1: up the guitar and how does that become your direction
Speaker 1: in life? Well, I had a guitar at the age
Speaker 1: of I think eleven. I persuaded my first of all
Speaker 1: I had had I think when I was eight or
Speaker 1: nine years old, I got an Elvis Presley ukulele. That
Speaker 1: was my birthday present or Christmas present. Boats not online,
Speaker 1: but you know, a mail order thing. And and I
Speaker 1: remember the black and white add for this ukulele, and
Speaker 1: it was a picture of Elvis playing what looked like
Speaker 1: a full sized guitar, and it was. It cost twenty
Speaker 1: two and sixpence, which you know, in those days was
Speaker 1: probably a couple of dollars, and naively, I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the real deal. And what what arrived
Speaker 1: in the post was this thing that was, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen inches long and fragile piece of plastic with nylon strings.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't stay in tune, and I mean it was
Speaker 1: really quite horrible, but you could actually play a few
Speaker 1: chords and and and some simple tunes. And I went
Speaker 1: on from there to get a beating up old Spanish
Speaker 1: guitar to which I attached steel strings, which of course
Speaker 1: meant that the action lifted up off the fret board
Speaker 1: to the point where you had bleeding fingers and the
Speaker 1: attempt to play C major and and it was. It
Speaker 1: was pretty out of tune, but I managed to begin with,
Speaker 1: along with a couple of school chumps, to make some
Speaker 1: vaguely musical noises in the style of what was called skiffle.
Speaker 1: Skiffle in the UK and the in the fifties was
Speaker 1: kind of homegrown music form. It was a precursor to punk.
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't have to be able to play
Speaker 1: a musical instrument, you just kind of did it. And
Speaker 1: you don't have drum kits. You had a washboard, you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of corrugated metal thing that used for scrubbing
Speaker 1: clothes on. And a t chest bass which was literally
Speaker 1: a wooden t chest that he was packed in. And
Speaker 1: you had a pole, you know, like a like a
Speaker 1: broom pole, and a piece of string that was stretched
Speaker 1: between the two and you have bum bum boom by
Speaker 1: pulling the pole tighter or loosening it off. And so
Speaker 1: that was skiffle, and it was homemade, very simple music
Speaker 1: that was essentially derived from bluegrass and blue grass in
Speaker 1: his turn, of course, derived from folk music from the UK,
Speaker 1: from Scotland, Ireland, England, and from from Northwest Europe. So
Speaker 1: it had turned around and come back to the UK
Speaker 1: is as a music form that we could all pick
Speaker 1: up on. You know. There was some energetic and fun
Speaker 1: songs from the few artists who were able to record
Speaker 1: and perform, but blue bluegrass in the form of skiffle
Speaker 1: was something that I think probably was the starting point
Speaker 1: for many of the musicians of my my era. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've not really talked to any of them, so I
Speaker 1: don't know most of them, but I would be surprised
Speaker 1: if they hadn't also followed the same the same tracks
Speaker 1: as I did. As a teenager, you know, through through
Speaker 1: those early music forms, and I think what we didn't
Speaker 1: like was the cheesy, show busy, imitative British pop music,
Speaker 1: which was based on the American stuff that you know,
Speaker 1: we we all preferred the real dealing. We're going to
Speaker 1: do American music, then let's let's let's do Muddy Water,
Speaker 1: Let's do Harling Wolf, Let's do even Chuck Berry or
Speaker 1: or Bo Diddley, you know, which was obviously that the
Speaker 1: pop side of the blues. But those of us who
Speaker 1: grew up with us and jazz as teenagers, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we we set our sights on something a
Speaker 1: little more esoteric until it dawned on us that we
Speaker 1: were middle class white boys. We weren't black. We didn't
Speaker 1: have the experience, the background, the culture. We were just
Speaker 1: still copying something that really wasn't ours. Which is why I,
Speaker 1: after a few months of being in a blues band,
Speaker 1: you know, I was anxious to try and write my
Speaker 1: own songs and step away from the accusation potentially of
Speaker 1: just ripping off black American folk music, which I revered
Speaker 1: and to this day still do. I would hate to
Speaker 1: be thought of as just a copyist. So you make
Speaker 1: this transition, how do you end up going down south
Speaker 1: to London and becoming professional? What is your goal? And
Speaker 1: you were really starving, so what was that like and
Speaker 1: how did you keep yourself on track with the dreams
Speaker 1: supposed to giving up? When I grew up, I mean
Speaker 1: I was born in Scotland, but I moved to the
Speaker 1: age of twelve, I think, to the north of England,
Speaker 1: to a town called Blackpool, a seaside town I've often
Speaker 1: likened to either the worst of New Jersey. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a town where people go to have a good time,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty desolate in winter. And um, the boardwalk
Speaker 1: in in a in Atlantic city or in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: it's it's reminiscent of the promenade in Blackpool. People strut
Speaker 1: up and down and ever. In the summer it's nice,
Speaker 1: you know, eating ice cream and eating burghers or doing
Speaker 1: what you do, same sort of thing. But you couldn't
Speaker 1: really think about being a full time musician in Blackpool
Speaker 1: because the only opportunities really were to be essentially a
Speaker 1: cover band, or or to be something really very show
Speaker 1: busy and do you know some sort of very conspicuously
Speaker 1: pop music, but everybody knew that if you wanted to
Speaker 1: if you wanting to make it, you know, sure you
Speaker 1: could go to Manchester or the or Liverpool and playing
Speaker 1: some clubs that were perhaps more the the the up
Speaker 1: and coming places. But long term, everybody the gout feeling
Speaker 1: was you've gotta go. You gotta go to London. That's
Speaker 1: where you make it. That's where the music industry has
Speaker 1: really centered, the record companies, the biggest clubs and venues
Speaker 1: and so on. So around sixty seven I decided that,
Speaker 1: you know, I should bite the bullet and leave home
Speaker 1: and try for the London opportunity should it, should it exist,
Speaker 1: But you know I had a plan B and a
Speaker 1: plan to see you know, it wasn't like I was,
Speaker 1: you know, burning my boats and so it was. It
Speaker 1: was a dangerous move, but it worked out in the
Speaker 1: sense of having a couple of months of abject poverty
Speaker 1: and literally going hungry and going very very cold, because
Speaker 1: sixty seven and in the UK was one of the
Speaker 1: coldest winters on record. But you know, it picked up
Speaker 1: again January February. Got to get at the Marquee Club
Speaker 1: and things moved on. From there and my days of
Speaker 1: eating recycled off cuts of meat and bits of past
Speaker 1: their cell by date vegetables and cooking them up. And
Speaker 1: then you didn't want to waste anything, so you would
Speaker 1: cook it up and then and then you'd add something
Speaker 1: else to it next day, and something else. That the
Speaker 1: part just stayed on the stove and you just kept
Speaker 1: sort of adding to it, and so everything stewed in
Speaker 1: its own juices. But it kept me, kept me going
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks of the bad period of time.
Speaker 1: And then you know, we've got a few gigs. I
Speaker 1: had enough money to go and buy you know, take
Speaker 1: away Chinese or something that was unbelievably I mean, absolutely
Speaker 1: lutally just the most amazing experience was to go in
Speaker 1: a Chinese takeaway and order some egg fried rice and
Speaker 1: and some sweet and style pork and you know, some
Speaker 1: noodles and whatever, and take it back to your lonely
Speaker 1: little bedsit room, and and it would still be warm enough,
Speaker 1: and and you know, you put your hands on it
Speaker 1: to try and warm your hands up first of all
Speaker 1: before you ate it. It was that that was just
Speaker 1: the most amazing, wonderful experience of being independent, being on
Speaker 1: your own, away from your parents, and I spent most
Speaker 1: of my time alone because I didn't really have any friends,
Speaker 1: know anybody down there, apart from the guys in the band.
Speaker 1: But there they lived in actually in nearby town, so
Speaker 1: we didn't see each other unless we had a gig
Speaker 1: to go to. So I spent a lot of time alone.
Speaker 1: It was quite useful because I learned to play a
Speaker 1: little bit of flute and I started to write some music,
Speaker 1: and I read several of Jack carro Act's works, which
Speaker 1: were an interesting, um parallel to my own rather desolate life.
Speaker 1: I remember reading Desolate Angels as a time when I
Speaker 1: was particularly cold and miserable and alone, and in a
Speaker 1: way it was somebody sharing that experience of a stark,
Speaker 1: rather bleak situation that that gave me a little bit
Speaker 1: feeling that I wasn't alone in the world. Um so
Speaker 1: I yes, I I you know, it all worked out
Speaker 1: and I can't complain. I only went hungry for two weeks,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, So ultimately band puts out the album
Speaker 1: this was Was it always you were band? Or was
Speaker 1: it more of equal voice, equal membership? Well, I guess
Speaker 1: right at the beginning, Um, you might have thought it
Speaker 1: was for guys who had an equal stake in things,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're equal voices. But in reality, Mick
Speaker 1: Abraham's the guitar player and I were you know, more
Speaker 1: dynamic musical forces. And we needed Mick because he was
Speaker 1: a you know, virtue as a guitar player and a
Speaker 1: and a shouter, a blue shouter. You know, he'd like
Speaker 1: to give it a lot of energy, and you know,
Speaker 1: he had a lot going for him as a blues
Speaker 1: and rock performer, and he was vital to the band
Speaker 1: um But I was the odd bawl who brought something
Speaker 1: else to the party that was not mainstream in terms
Speaker 1: of blues or an approach, and he and I always
Speaker 1: had an uneasy relationship. I think he was uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: me because of my musical aspirations didn't stop with you know,
Speaker 1: imitative blues, and the other guys tended after a while
Speaker 1: to come more towards me than Mike. It was very
Speaker 1: set in his ways and a bit of a mercurial
Speaker 1: character from time to time. But when we really fell
Speaker 1: out with Mick towards the end of of we were
Speaker 1: already getting a little bit established in the UK, and
Speaker 1: it was at a time when it was make or break,
Speaker 1: you know, would either build upon that early small success
Speaker 1: and find a new guitar player or you know, go
Speaker 1: back home to mummy, as were the options. Okay, so
Speaker 1: how did it end with Mick? And is fat Man
Speaker 1: on stand up about Mick? Well, it's not really about Mick.
Speaker 1: It was just the only time we have a traveled
Speaker 1: abroad because Mick wouldn't get on an airplane, but we
Speaker 1: could get a ferry to Denmark and we went to
Speaker 1: play in two clubs on the ferry from the east
Speaker 1: coast of England. And on the way back to the
Speaker 1: ferry to get the ferry home, we went past we
Speaker 1: had a little bit of time in how we went
Speaker 1: past a porn shop m in es Buerg, and I know,
Speaker 1: just in the porn shop there was a mandolin hanging
Speaker 1: there and I went in and you know, with my
Speaker 1: whatever I learned for doing the club dates, I bought
Speaker 1: a mandolin. Had no idea how to play or tune
Speaker 1: up or anything. And on the way back, because it's
Speaker 1: quite a long ferry journey, so we were it was
Speaker 1: an overnight thing and Mick and I were sharing a
Speaker 1: cabin and I really annoyed him by tuning up and
Speaker 1: trying to play this mandolin, and he was just getting
Speaker 1: really really testy about the fact I was keeping him awake.
Speaker 1: And but you know, a little bit of a tune
Speaker 1: coming on other what this is good? I like this.
Speaker 1: And and we used to tease Mick, who was pink cherubic,
Speaker 1: sort of slightly chubby. He wasn't fat, you know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't a beast. He was just a little just a
Speaker 1: little chubby in a healthy chubby kind of a way,
Speaker 1: whereas the rest of us were sort of rake thin,
Speaker 1: basically because his mom cooked for him. And when we
Speaker 1: were start think, but I used to tease me about being,
Speaker 1: you know, not fat, but you know, being a little chubby.
Speaker 1: And so I wrote this song I Don't want to
Speaker 1: be a fat man. And it wasn't really about him.
Speaker 1: It was just, yeah, just a little notion really, And
Speaker 1: but he was convinced I was. It was a sort
Speaker 1: of bitter attack on his corporeal presence, and and and
Speaker 1: he wasn't too happy about it. But it wasn't really
Speaker 1: about me. I mean, I never write songs that are
Speaker 1: about real people because I would never betray a relationship
Speaker 1: by by making it so, you know, so intrusive into
Speaker 1: somebody's life. But there is an amalgam of personalities and
Speaker 1: people that's an as an observer. Since I'm that kind
Speaker 1: of a writer, I might draw together a few different
Speaker 1: people and that becomes a character in a song. But
Speaker 1: it's never about a particular individual. I was certainly never
Speaker 1: name name hims or you know, take an individual as
Speaker 1: a model for a song. I would just hate to
Speaker 1: embarrass somebody or betray something that is private between us
Speaker 1: as a relationship, whether it's a couple of guys or
Speaker 1: men and a woman, or you know, it's for me,
Speaker 1: it's it's all, you know, pretty private stuff. So have
Speaker 1: you ever listened to a blood Wind Pig record? And
Speaker 1: I know he's had his health issues, but what's your
Speaker 1: relationship of any with Mick today? Well, Mick went on
Speaker 1: to do blood Wind Pig and got a lot of
Speaker 1: help from us and our managers and record company, and
Speaker 1: Bloodwind Pig were on tour with Gester Hotel a couple
Speaker 1: of points along the way and and after Blood Wind Pig,
Speaker 1: I mean just sort of mixed band. But they threw
Speaker 1: him out of his own band in the end because
Speaker 1: I think they just he was a tricky chap, you know,
Speaker 1: to to work with. I mean, very nice man, you know,
Speaker 1: he's had absolutely bighearted, nice guy, but just so insecure
Speaker 1: and bundle of nerves and twitchy and it always um
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of awkward to be around, so
Speaker 1: desperate to be liked. It was, it was overbearing. But
Speaker 1: after Blood Wind Pig, Mick went on, you know, through
Speaker 1: a various musical and unmusical activities, and when he started
Speaker 1: working again, you know, I played with him a few
Speaker 1: times and we did some songs for one of his
Speaker 1: solo albums and so on, and once in a while
Speaker 1: we've spoken. Mike unfortunately these days having stuff with very
Speaker 1: serious little health, it's not really you know, he's not
Speaker 1: really able to have conversations on the phone or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think changed emails a few times.
Speaker 1: But but Mick's you know, you know, he's not well.
Speaker 1: And I always been a little sad that he's not
Speaker 1: able to do anything anymore at all musically. But my
Speaker 1: son was actively engaged in doing a sort of tribute
Speaker 1: charity concert in London for make and which I was
Speaker 1: I couldn't I couldn't go to I wasn't. I was
Speaker 1: away somewhere else, but it was nice to think that
Speaker 1: my son James was one of the organizers of a
Speaker 1: fundraiser for Mick to recognize his his role in those
Speaker 1: years of being part of the British music scene. And
Speaker 1: Mick has a lot of parles, a lot of friends
Speaker 1: who were stand by him, and you know he was
Speaker 1: in his day, he was one of those guitar players.
Speaker 1: Maybe not so obviously on the level of the Eric
Speaker 1: Clapton or Peter Green or Jimmy Page or any of
Speaker 1: those guys, but he was, you know, he was a
Speaker 1: revered blues and rock guitarist and until his little health
Speaker 1: took over, you know, he was still doing pretty well. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go to stand Up. This is obviously a different
Speaker 1: era and Needles say, it's not streaming, it's vinyl. The
Speaker 1: white album would come out, which was actually a response
Speaker 1: to overdone packages. But in sixty nine you put out
Speaker 1: stand Up and it literally stands up when you open
Speaker 1: the cover. Whose idea was that, well, I have to that.
Speaker 1: Then all the credit goes to Terry Ellis, our manager,
Speaker 1: because the the first album cover this was that was
Speaker 1: that was my idea and Terry, bless him, went along
Speaker 1: with it. I mean, Warner Brothers and Ireland I think
Speaker 1: hated it because he can't possibly do this is a
Speaker 1: picture of a bunch of old guys with a lot
Speaker 1: of dogs around them, and then the name of the
Speaker 1: band isn't even on the front cover. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't do that. But but Terry kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: he stood by us, and that was what I wanted
Speaker 1: it to be like, and so he went along with it,
Speaker 1: and I think it got people's attention because who who
Speaker 1: would bring out an album cover and the name of
Speaker 1: the band isn't even on the on the front of
Speaker 1: the cover. It was on the back. But nonetheless it
Speaker 1: was it was my my, my one. And then stand up.
Speaker 1: Terry had come up with a with an artist in
Speaker 1: the USA who did specialized in in wood cuts, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what Terry saw this, but it was,
Speaker 1: you know, very graphic. And as having been to our school,
Speaker 1: I did some would cut some things at school, so
Speaker 1: I was quite quite um, you know, quite happy to
Speaker 1: go along with that. And and Terry came up with
Speaker 1: the idea of a gate fall cover that you would
Speaker 1: open up and there would be this sort of pop
Speaker 1: up thing of the band, and you know what, was it? Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: well if you can make that work, let's let's let's
Speaker 1: do it. And that indeed was the was the was
Speaker 1: the album cover, which you know was quite in its way,
Speaker 1: quite iconic, and the fact that the album then did
Speaker 1: go on to do very well in the UK. In fact,
Speaker 1: we were on our second US tour. Um. I remember
Speaker 1: being in Loose Midtown in Manhattan in the breakfast room,
Speaker 1: having breakfast with the guys, and in walked Joe Cocker
Speaker 1: and came over to our tables. That our congratulations. So
Speaker 1: why what's happened? He said? Your album just went to
Speaker 1: number one in the UK charts? So can I can
Speaker 1: I have kind of you're gonna eat all of that bacon?
Speaker 1: Can I have a bit? So the the you know,
Speaker 1: the the good news was we were away from the
Speaker 1: UK and could do nothing about it, but we had
Speaker 1: a number one album in England and that was when
Speaker 1: Terry said, Wow, you know we've got to We've got
Speaker 1: to capitalize on this. We need something to keep the sea,
Speaker 1: put it to keep the pot boiling while we were
Speaker 1: out of the UK on a long tour. So can
Speaker 1: you can you write a hit single that we can
Speaker 1: release in the UK while we're away, and to humor him,
Speaker 1: I say, yeah, sure, no problem, just give me a
Speaker 1: couple of hours. And by then I think we we've
Speaker 1: gone to Boston, and so we checked into a holiday
Speaker 1: in the hotel alongside a band called Pentangle who were
Speaker 1: also checking it at the same time, and and I said, Okay, Terry,
Speaker 1: give me a couple of hours. I'll meet you in
Speaker 1: the lobby and I'll write a hit single while I'm upstairs.
Speaker 1: I was just I was just fooling around, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just just just winding him up. But I
Speaker 1: went back down to the lobby and he said, have
Speaker 1: you written it? If you got it? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: sort of, maybe, I don't know. He said, right, well,
Speaker 1: i'll book you into a studio in New York next
Speaker 1: week and we'll go and record it. So I had
Speaker 1: to come up with, you know, something slightly more refined
Speaker 1: from that basic idea, and we went in and recorded
Speaker 1: the backing track to Living in the Past and in
Speaker 1: a studio in m I think it was actually in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, which across the river, and and then we
Speaker 1: went then to the West Coast. I remember then I
Speaker 1: did the flute and vocal over dubs in the studio
Speaker 1: and in uh I think it was in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and we did the mix and sent it back to
Speaker 1: the UK and it was it was released and amazingly
Speaker 1: got to number three in the UK Singles charts. So
Speaker 1: in fact I had written its single, but it was
Speaker 1: one of those silly things. I was just bluffing, just
Speaker 1: fooling around. But the fact that it was in five
Speaker 1: four time signature it really wasn't a mainstream pop song
Speaker 1: was quite gratifying because until that point there's only ever
Speaker 1: been one other top ten hit in five four times signature,
Speaker 1: which was was Dave brew Becks Take five. And so
Speaker 1: it was kind of a nice, nice feeling that you'd
Speaker 1: you brought something relatively new to the world of you know,
Speaker 1: the pop music charts and music TV because it was
Speaker 1: on top of the pop sore famous um uh weekly
Speaker 1: television show that did the latest pop music stuff. So
Speaker 1: that's how that worked out, and the stand up did
Speaker 1: did pretty well and and in its own right, it
Speaker 1: paved the way for what came next. Okay, but staying
Speaker 1: with the second album for a minute, my favorite song
Speaker 1: you have such an incredible memory. I look into the
Speaker 1: Sun come about. I'd rather think it was something I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where it was on a guitar or where
Speaker 1: the fiddling around with the Hammond organ. It was in
Speaker 1: the studio that I've got this really simple little line
Speaker 1: and it was just meant to be a song about optimism,
Speaker 1: um optimism and perhaps in the face of some adversity.
Speaker 1: It was a very simple, you know, cheerful, quietly upbeat
Speaker 1: song that didn't strike me as it was, you know,
Speaker 1: so important to the album as a whole, compared to
Speaker 1: songs like a New Day Yesterday for example, which I
Speaker 1: knew it was a power, a full song, and the
Speaker 1: worlds like for a Thousand Mothers and things that were
Speaker 1: a bit more animated, and we're look into the sums
Speaker 1: that you know, gentle placid piece. There are two or
Speaker 1: three like that on it that were gentle um reasons
Speaker 1: for waiting I think was another one that was a
Speaker 1: similar sort of a feel. So yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: just trying to bring something in the way of dynamic
Speaker 1: range into the broad context of rock music, so it
Speaker 1: didn't all have to be crash, bang wallop with drums
Speaker 1: and bass pounding away on everything you could, you could,
Speaker 1: you could do things that are a little bit more
Speaker 1: varied and musically a little den less dense, and you know,
Speaker 1: had different dynamics. And perhaps in the case of a
Speaker 1: song like that, it was giving me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: not have to pretend to be a rock singer, which
Speaker 1: I've never felt terribly able to do. Um, So I
Speaker 1: could just sing it in a relatively quiet, easy voice,
Speaker 1: and it was nice to do something relaxed. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the next album, let's talk about it from an outside perspective.
Speaker 1: Many critics felt that the first album was best, needless
Speaker 1: to say, that was a sound, a different sound. Second
Speaker 1: album great reviews. Now for people who are younger today,
Speaker 1: they will need not even understand the power of the
Speaker 1: rock press. But that meant something back then. Third album
Speaker 1: commercial breakthrough. But from the perspective of those paying attention,
Speaker 1: it seemed a little bit more obvious, less cerebral, less internal,
Speaker 1: and more on the surface. And of course you had
Speaker 1: to cry you a song, which was a legendary riff song.
Speaker 1: So just to what degree was this premeditated or those
Speaker 1: on the outside are making this all up and you
Speaker 1: just cut a record? Well, it was very much a
Speaker 1: reflection of being on tour in America in sixty nine
Speaker 1: when we'd you know, we we we were just just
Speaker 1: making our presence felt. You know. We played in few
Speaker 1: clubs and we've been an opening act on a few
Speaker 1: theater shows. Um. But with the benefit album, it was written,
Speaker 1: most of it was written when I got back to
Speaker 1: the UK, but it did reflect on that what was
Speaker 1: a sometimes a rather dark experience of being in the USA.
Speaker 1: Suddenly we were either headlining and modest venues on our own,
Speaker 1: but we were traveling a lot and spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time away from home, and and I I think
Speaker 1: it's it's much of it is. It's rather darker in
Speaker 1: musical terms, not in a negative way, but it just
Speaker 1: it just reflects the perhaps some of the ice elations,
Speaker 1: some of the cultural confusion that comes out of visiting
Speaker 1: another country and then finding that after the first initial
Speaker 1: getting to know it, suddenly you begin to realize that
Speaker 1: we don't really necessarily fit in and just feel a
Speaker 1: little I felt out of place increasingly in in in
Speaker 1: in American culture. Glenn are bass player. You know, he
Speaker 1: loved America. He love he just loved everything about it.
Speaker 1: He was a party guy. You know, he just had
Speaker 1: made lots of friends and went out at night and
Speaker 1: you know he had a great time. But Martin Barr
Speaker 1: and Clive and myself, you know, we were kind of loaners.
Speaker 1: You know, we just go back to the hotel room,
Speaker 1: read a book, watchum. Dick Cavert was here around there.
Speaker 1: But it was that it was that sort of era,
Speaker 1: you know, where you just you picked up on American culture,
Speaker 1: but you you did it in a slightly more vicarious way.
Speaker 1: You know, you saw it from as an observer and
Speaker 1: picked up things from television and media and the newspapers
Speaker 1: and Smiley's a New York delicate testament that did the biggest,
Speaker 1: the biggest Um, chicken liver sandwich is known to mankind
Speaker 1: and child strawberry malted milkshakes. A guy with Martin Barren,
Speaker 1: who are starving Hungary, we managed to scrap between us
Speaker 1: a few dollars together, and we we bought. We bought
Speaker 1: these enormous wedges of chicken liver sandwich and salad dressing
Speaker 1: and lettuce and tomato and all the trimmings, and and
Speaker 1: then these huge pots of strawberry malted milkshake. Went back
Speaker 1: to our horrible hotel and ate ourselves into a stupor
Speaker 1: having gorged on entirely unhealthy food. But those are the
Speaker 1: sort of the amusing moments and what was otherwise quite
Speaker 1: often a other a bit depressing in a way for
Speaker 1: those of us who were missing being at home. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't suddenly we were getting noticed and we were
Speaker 1: not famous, but you know, people knew who we were,
Speaker 1: but we made us he feel even more sort of displaced,
Speaker 1: and I think some of that came out in the album.
Speaker 1: But you know, an important part of it was I
Speaker 1: remember being in in the USA at the time when
Speaker 1: when Buzz and Neil walked on the Moon and and
Speaker 1: Michael Collins, who didn't and was in charge of the
Speaker 1: the command module. You know, I decided that was worthy
Speaker 1: of a song was to write about Michael Collins being
Speaker 1: the guy who didn't get to go to the moon
Speaker 1: or step onto the moon, and the awful position that
Speaker 1: he would have been in. And I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: well planned for, and the eventuality that Neil and Buzz
Speaker 1: either landing didn't made it back or crashed in the
Speaker 1: first place, and Michael Collins had to return home to
Speaker 1: Earth alone. He would have been the most vilified and
Speaker 1: hated person on the planet. And but that was his gig,
Speaker 1: that was the job, that's what he signed up for,
Speaker 1: and I always felt it was rather a touching experience. Oddly,
Speaker 1: my son in law played Michael Collins in a in
Speaker 1: a movie about the moon landing many years later. Not
Speaker 1: a fame, not not a highly successful movie, but he
Speaker 1: did play Michael Collins. Was a curious um. We had
Speaker 1: to do all of his research about Michael Collins and
Speaker 1: everything to do with that. That that that journey, but
Speaker 1: that that was one of the moments I do remember
Speaker 1: being an America and feeling really sort of enraptured with
Speaker 1: the whole the whole thing about America and Space Race.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a you got really caught up in.
Speaker 1: It was very exciting being there at that time and
Speaker 1: at the same at the same time turning down the
Speaker 1: opportunity to go and play at Woodstock, which was pretty
Speaker 1: much around the same time of the year, along with
Speaker 1: Led Zeppelin, who also decided not to take up the
Speaker 1: invitation to go to Woodstock. And what was the thinking there,
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're thinking was, but I would
Speaker 1: imagine Peter Grant might have had the same view as
Speaker 1: I do, which was we didn't want to get tarnished
Speaker 1: with the brush of the dying embers of the hippie
Speaker 1: era and you know, sort of a naked drug taking
Speaker 1: massid throng of people who were you know, falling over
Speaker 1: themselves to um love the music of ten years after,
Speaker 1: who were forever stuck with that Woodstock appearance for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives to this day. Um, it's what
Speaker 1: people remember ten years after four. Leo Lyons, the bass player,
Speaker 1: when I met him a few years ago on some
Speaker 1: festival that we were playing at, and and he just
Speaker 1: come off stage and I said, oh, what, what what? What?
Speaker 1: What did you play tonight? Lee? Or what's the set
Speaker 1: list taped to the side of his guitar And I
Speaker 1: leaned over to look at it, and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just the usual set list. And I said that
Speaker 1: that wasn't the set list just for tonight. He said, no,
Speaker 1: that's been taped to my guitar since nine nine we
Speaker 1: played at Woodstock, So you have no regrets for not
Speaker 1: playing No, No, I think we're way too early for us.
Speaker 1: We were we were we were not yet fully formed,
Speaker 1: and we were just you know, we needed time, We
Speaker 1: needed time to develop and become a little more mature musically,
Speaker 1: and it would have been awful if we If we'd
Speaker 1: gone on, we probably would have done really well. You know,
Speaker 1: people were like, wow, is that band even better than
Speaker 1: ten years after? But it was too early for us.
Speaker 1: I mean I came for the who they were on,
Speaker 1: but they were already established. They knew what they were doing,
Speaker 1: that who were the who they were, They had a repertoire,
Speaker 1: they had an identity. But Jethro Tell was just an
Speaker 1: embryonic finding our way sort of a bunch of young
Speaker 1: guys who weren't sure what they were going to do. Um.
Speaker 1: So it would have been way too early to achieve
Speaker 1: any kind of mass exposure and any sudden success. It
Speaker 1: was much better just to step step back into the
Speaker 1: shadows and meet up with the Zepps and be their
Speaker 1: opening act for a few more shows. That was better
Speaker 1: learning process for me than confronting a bunch of naked
Speaker 1: um hippies. So you talk about being somewhat of a
Speaker 1: loner being in the hotel room, reading this is an
Speaker 1: error when backstage in rock life was really exotic. So
Speaker 1: when it comes to drugs and groupies. That was not
Speaker 1: your experience personally. You just were who you were, and
Speaker 1: you took it on the road. Well. As I was
Speaker 1: a little bit terrified about drugs. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not a sort of moral position. It's just that
Speaker 1: I saw so many people, you know, clearly not doing
Speaker 1: themselves any favors as a result of taking drugs, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's, um, it scared me. You know, Frank
Speaker 1: Laddis didn't really want to take that risk. I was.
Speaker 1: I smoked a lot of cigarettes back in those days,
Speaker 1: so I assumed that my tendency to have an addictive
Speaker 1: personality was such that if I ended up, you know,
Speaker 1: smoking marijuana, I'd probably be doing it most of the
Speaker 1: hours of the day. Wouldn't be something I would just
Speaker 1: you know, do once or twice a week, it would
Speaker 1: be I would I was terrified it would it would
Speaker 1: take hold of me as a cigarette smoking did. And
Speaker 1: so I never did any of that, and which got
Speaker 1: me the reputation being a party pooper, because you know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't go to you know, let Zeppelin's rhoadies
Speaker 1: decided to put on a party and we got invited
Speaker 1: and I didn't show up, you know, everybody thought, oh,
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's he's a snob, he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's some arrogant doesn't want to join in and be
Speaker 1: one of the boys. But I was afraid to be
Speaker 1: one of the boys. And I I was uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the you know, with the sex, drugs and rock and
Speaker 1: roll bit. I mean, the rock and roll bit was
Speaker 1: sort of okay, you know, it was it was a living,
Speaker 1: but the sex and the drug it's were a bit terrifying,
Speaker 1: you know, because even then we knew that. But you know,
Speaker 1: there were some pretty nasty strains of gonorrhea going around,
Speaker 1: and girls were quite frightening to me, you know, because
Speaker 1: they were they were very um forward in their behavior
Speaker 1: into quiet withdrawn um English boys who perhaps were you know,
Speaker 1: not not used to these sort of things. You know,
Speaker 1: they're very forward and confident nature of a lot of
Speaker 1: American young females. They you know, they were quite frightening really.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really go in that direction. It wasn't
Speaker 1: something that's um yeah, you know, I'm sure I had
Speaker 1: a a few relationships, short term and otherwise with with
Speaker 1: with girls when I was in my twenties, but it
Speaker 1: just wasn't the big thing for me. I was never
Speaker 1: lured into that kind of party behavior and the the
Speaker 1: one night stands and the you know, the whole rock
Speaker 1: and roll excess things. It seemed everybody else was doing it,
Speaker 1: So I suppose that was a good reason for me
Speaker 1: not to do it. I just I prefer to try
Speaker 1: and you know, be different, do my own thing. So
Speaker 1: I read a lot of books, and I watched a
Speaker 1: lot of late night talk shows, and I read the newspapers,
Speaker 1: and I tried to use the time in a constructive
Speaker 1: way rather than not be able to remember the next
Speaker 1: morning what I'd done the night before, which is something
Speaker 1: that's just befallen many bass players in just Hotel, they
Speaker 1: all seemed to be the party guys. The bass players,
Speaker 1: they they all seem to be the ones who wanted
Speaker 1: to go and have a good time. And I know,
Speaker 1: and at least one case, his idea of a really, really,
Speaker 1: really good time was when he couldn't remember anything that
Speaker 1: happened from the end of the show until coming to
Speaker 1: sound check the next day. It was just just a
Speaker 1: complete blank in his mind. Um so he could he
Speaker 1: measured having a good time by the fact that he
Speaker 1: couldn't remember it, which to me seems utterly ridiculous that
Speaker 1: why have a good time and then you can't remember it?
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to save them my good times
Speaker 1: and recall them for years to come, not have them
Speaker 1: fade into some deep abyss of of what did I
Speaker 1: do last night? And you know why have I now?
Speaker 1: You know these nasty scars or cuts on my face
Speaker 1: or my heir or my arms because I got in
Speaker 1: the fight off, you fell down a fire escape, or
Speaker 1: on one occasion, somebody who should be nameless trying to
Speaker 1: flush himself down a toilet. True story, I personally rescued him.
Speaker 1: I mean he was going to going nowhere, obviously, but
Speaker 1: he was in the toilet bowl, yanking on the chain,
Speaker 1: try and determined to end it all. So I drank
Speaker 1: him out. And is it an airport? And I got
Speaker 1: him on the plane soaking wet. But no, we weren't.
Speaker 1: We weren't no names to be mentioned. In fact, forget
Speaker 1: that I even said any of that. I just made
Speaker 1: it up. It's not a true story. Who came up
Speaker 1: with and how did you create the riff for to
Speaker 1: cry of a song? Well, I have to credit the
Speaker 1: people who worked in that kind of Vein. I mean,
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton and Cream had already come and gone by
Speaker 1: then in the sense of Cream being a not a
Speaker 1: direct influence, but they were the the obvious precursors to
Speaker 1: Led Zeppelin and Jeth Retell arriving on American shores. Cream
Speaker 1: did you know, after the after Homer's Home Is Dave
Speaker 1: Clark five, the Beatles, then the Cream were the next
Speaker 1: big thing. They just stampeded across the country being this amazing,
Speaker 1: doing it on their own terms, not not not not
Speaker 1: in any way fitting into any mold. And that's why
Speaker 1: America loved Cream because they quite clearly really did care
Speaker 1: whether you like them or not. They were going to
Speaker 1: do what they did when they got on the stage,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't like it fair enough, if you
Speaker 1: did like it, then you know, thanks will take the
Speaker 1: money and run. So Cream were the first example of
Speaker 1: that kind of hit and run band who really didn't
Speaker 1: care whether you like them or not. And when Zeppelin
Speaker 1: came in, it was just the same. They gave that
Speaker 1: impression they were there doing this for them. It was
Speaker 1: very hedonistic, very self serving, and they really didn't care
Speaker 1: whether you like them or not. And I probably picked
Speaker 1: up on a bit of that. I think in the
Speaker 1: early days of jethro Tell and you know, it seemed
Speaker 1: to be what Americans generally speaking, seemed to seem to
Speaker 1: really be drawn towards people who didn't try to appeal,
Speaker 1: they didn't try too hard to be liked. They sort
Speaker 1: of recognized the genuine and the honest nature of bands
Speaker 1: who just came and did their thing, whereas there there
Speaker 1: were others who desperately wanted to be successful in the
Speaker 1: USA because that was the big prize, was to be
Speaker 1: a hit in the USA, and they conspicuously tried too hard,
Speaker 1: and the American audiences seemed to see through that and
Speaker 1: reject them as some as wanting it too badly. Um,
Speaker 1: so I guess they came across across maybe as being
Speaker 1: you know, not genuine again mentioning no names, but we
Speaker 1: you know, we we had a few bands who period
Speaker 1: with us, who tried too hard and didn't do well
Speaker 1: at all. Um, but we didn't really care that much.
Speaker 1: So the next step is actually, sorry, I'm mentioning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you asked me about to cry, And so it was
Speaker 1: really it was a kind of a post cream. Eric Clapton,
Speaker 1: who in a band called Blind Faith and then and
Speaker 1: they Eat had a couple of good riffs in that,
Speaker 1: and I guess I took that as a not hopefully
Speaker 1: not to copy it, but just just to take as
Speaker 1: an example something that was a repetitive riff. And and
Speaker 1: to cry your song was was very much in the
Speaker 1: style of Eric Clapton at the time of Blind Faith.
Speaker 1: There's a song I can't remember what it's called, Dad
Speaker 1: da da da da da da da da duh. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's that kind of a thing, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the monophonic guitar riff on the lowest strings. And Martin
Speaker 1: would sometimes lend me his electric guitar so I could
Speaker 1: write songs and and you know, come up with that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So the next step is aqualon you
Speaker 1: create it. Do you have any idea how big it
Speaker 1: will be? Sometimes, you know, people say I was totally
Speaker 1: close to other people say, as soon as it sits,
Speaker 1: the market's gonna go Guard Gangewin suddenly Jeff Road tall
Speaker 1: as big as they were before Everywhere headline arenas did
Speaker 1: you anticipate that well. On the last day of mixing
Speaker 1: the album, um, which had been a bit of a
Speaker 1: tortious experience because it was a brand new studio that
Speaker 1: Island Records had just built conversion from an old church
Speaker 1: and in London, and there are a lot of technical problems,
Speaker 1: teething problems with the studio that Zeppelin were in. The
Speaker 1: in the same studio where they were in the crypt
Speaker 1: of the of the church, which was a much more
Speaker 1: compact and nicer sounding room to work in. We were
Speaker 1: in the main body of the church. It was just
Speaker 1: echoing and horrible and cold and strange atmosphere and technically
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. So it wasn't you know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't really sure what we had. I mean songs, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt fairly confident about most of the songs, but
Speaker 1: sonically in terms of the end result, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: a little worried about it. And John Evans, the keyboard player,
Speaker 1: and I we went we've been working all night and
Speaker 1: we went out to in the early hours of the
Speaker 1: morning to some little cafe that served taxi drivers and
Speaker 1: off duty policeman and things with a hot breakfast at
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning or something. So we sat
Speaker 1: in this place and I remember sitting there, we were
Speaker 1: eating some breakfast and dead tired, just you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to go straight to bed, home to bed after that.
Speaker 1: And I said to John, what do you think, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what do you think we've got here? Is it? Is
Speaker 1: it going to work? And he looked at me as
Speaker 1: I don't know. I said, no, I don't know either.
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember that definite feeling of being
Speaker 1: a little nervous that it was either going to be
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end or it could be the
Speaker 1: beginning of the next sort of step up the ladder.
Speaker 1: And I really had no idea. And we delivered the
Speaker 1: record of the record company, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: Julie pressed and put out and some media response, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't huge. You know, I have to say, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a out of the box. It didn't set everybody
Speaker 1: on fire, you know, it was it was okay, it
Speaker 1: is so pretty well. And some of the music on
Speaker 1: the album, I suppose Aqualung song My God for example,
Speaker 1: that they were and Locomotive Breath. In Europe particularly, they
Speaker 1: made an impact acts um, partly because the subject matter
Speaker 1: and partly because of the music. But it was doing okay,
Speaker 1: but nowhere near what it became over the next two
Speaker 1: or three years when it gradually with us performing more
Speaker 1: shows and different parts of the world and bringing out
Speaker 1: new albums aqual and continued to sell at at a
Speaker 1: very steady and generous pace. And um, and I suppose
Speaker 1: more than anything else, became the the archetypal jethro Tyle record,
Speaker 1: not only of the seventies but of all time, and
Speaker 1: in many ways because it was a mixture of rock music,
Speaker 1: of gentle acoustic music, of quirky, you know, fun music,
Speaker 1: and strange, really very insular and gentle moments that were
Speaker 1: sort of singer songwriters stuff. It was a mixture of
Speaker 1: music in terms of dynamic range and musical style, and
Speaker 1: I think that, um, you know, that was part of
Speaker 1: what gave it an identity. That's people probably didn't like
Speaker 1: every song on the album, but the doubtless there were
Speaker 1: people who really loved the acoustic songs and weren't that
Speaker 1: struck with the loud rock ones and vice versa. But
Speaker 1: there was something in there perhaps for a broad spectrum
Speaker 1: of listeners. And it's certainly kind of broke open all
Speaker 1: of the European territories for us because we hadn't we
Speaker 1: spent too much time playing in the USA and the UK,
Speaker 1: and it was really with Aqua Lung that we were
Speaker 1: then playing frequently, giving equal time to all the European
Speaker 1: countries where we could perform, and that it really took
Speaker 1: off broadly in Europe as well, in Spain and Italy
Speaker 1: and France and Germany, and so we were we were
Speaker 1: becoming quite international really at that point in terms of
Speaker 1: not being the biggest band on planet Earth, but being
Speaker 1: you know, one of the you know, one of the
Speaker 1: the lesser but sort of well known and appreciated groups
Speaker 1: that were not mainstream in terms of the rock music
Speaker 1: that was the most successful and popular. So we were
Speaker 1: doing doing okay. So the next albums thick as a brick.
Speaker 1: To what degree was that premeditated I'm talking about music
Speaker 1: one long piece? And to what degree was it just
Speaker 1: kind of a lark, let's just do something different. Well,
Speaker 1: it was both of those things. It was predicated really
Speaker 1: on the fact that Aqualung had a few songs that
Speaker 1: maybe kind of tied together a little bit um and
Speaker 1: and then the packaging and the album cover and the
Speaker 1: way that the album was sequenced on side one and
Speaker 1: side two along with the liner notes. I tried to
Speaker 1: bring a bunch of rather disparate songs and music styles,
Speaker 1: try and bring them together a bit with the with
Speaker 1: them with artwork and packaging, which would sort of draw
Speaker 1: things together a bit, even if they didn't deserve it.
Speaker 1: And I think that gave people the impression this was
Speaker 1: a concept album, which it really wasn't. And ill from
Speaker 1: the word go, I said, this is not a concept album.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of songs, you know, but music critics
Speaker 1: and writers were determined to perpetuate this idea that it
Speaker 1: was a concept album. So naturally I came to start
Speaker 1: work on another album and thought, right, well, they thought
Speaker 1: that was a concept album, Let's give them the mother
Speaker 1: of all concept albums and go completely over the top
Speaker 1: in a you know, in a very exaggerated way. And
Speaker 1: I just thought of this kind of parody really of
Speaker 1: concept albums, prog rock, you know, pretending it being written
Speaker 1: by an eight year old boy, and and and writing
Speaker 1: an album through the through the eyes of childhood, but
Speaker 1: a childhood distorted by the post war years of growing
Speaker 1: up with a lot of prejudices and views that came
Speaker 1: down to a young generation of people from that postwar
Speaker 1: derision of our of our opponents, and you know, we
Speaker 1: we talked about Jerry as the un We talked about
Speaker 1: the Japs. You know, we we were we were taught
Speaker 1: to be really rather unpleasant and rather right wing, nasty
Speaker 1: little children, and we didn't turn out that way. But
Speaker 1: you know that that was what came down, that that
Speaker 1: was the sort of general tenor of children's comics and literature.
Speaker 1: You know, we it was reinforcing a lot of stereotypes
Speaker 1: that I think we could have done with that. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it was mostly a bit of fun.
Speaker 1: And I think most of us just recognized that, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, our parents went to war and did all this,
Speaker 1: that that's the way it's that's the way we're being
Speaker 1: handed down that message. But I couldn't help but feel
Speaker 1: that as a child growing up, that you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to try to make sense of a difficult world.
Speaker 1: You've got to try and make sense of the things
Speaker 1: that are stereotypical, that are prejudice, that are um perhaps
Speaker 1: adult ideas that are increasingly becoming irrelevant as as time
Speaker 1: goes on. And so I wanted to try and see
Speaker 1: through the eyes of a child making sense of a
Speaker 1: difficult adult world and that's really what the album was about.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it may seem like, well, it is
Speaker 1: on the one hand, a spoof for parody, a lighthearted
Speaker 1: bit of fun, but it also has a quite a
Speaker 1: serious message lying underlying the whole thing. And I would write,
Speaker 1: um the album in you know that I'd do the
Speaker 1: next three minutes in the morning when I woke up,
Speaker 1: you know, quite early. Usually I start working around eight
Speaker 1: or nine in the morning and write the next three
Speaker 1: or four minutes of music. And then after lunch I
Speaker 1: would go and meet the guys rehearsal room in the
Speaker 1: south of London, in the Rolling Stones rehearsal Room, and
Speaker 1: and then we would add we'd learned what I wrote
Speaker 1: that morning and added to what I've done the day before.
Speaker 1: And so we built up the album over a period
Speaker 1: about ten days of rehearsal so that we could play
Speaker 1: it all the way through. And then we went into
Speaker 1: the recording studio and we played it all the way
Speaker 1: through and took another ten days to record the album,
Speaker 1: and then actually a bit longer to do the album
Speaker 1: cover because it was quite involved and you know, it
Speaker 1: took quite a bit of time putting it all together
Speaker 1: and shooting all the photographs and doing everything. Actually took
Speaker 1: longer to do the album cover than it did to
Speaker 1: record the record, but it was worth it again because
Speaker 1: it was one of those zany ideas. I mean, Terry
Speaker 1: our manager, he really didn't like the album covered. Nobody did.
Speaker 1: They thought this was just insane, you know, sixteen page
Speaker 1: newspaper is an album cover and even but he, you know,
Speaker 1: he kind of went along with it, as he did
Speaker 1: with them the first album, and it um, it was
Speaker 1: part and parcel of what made that album, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of stand out from the crowd, And poor old
Speaker 1: John Lennon had embarked upon an album which was released
Speaker 1: shortly afterwards and was already in the works at the
Speaker 1: time when Things as the Brick was released and actually
Speaker 1: went to number one in the American charts, and and
Speaker 1: John Lennon's album, which featured the front cover front page
Speaker 1: of the New York Times, was released shortly afterwards, and
Speaker 1: of course he and his record company must have seen,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea has already been done and out
Speaker 1: there and is bigger and better in the sixteen phays newspaper.
Speaker 1: But you can't pull it, you know, he did that
Speaker 1: they had already printed, however, million copies of John Lennon's
Speaker 1: album and the artwork and everything, So it must have
Speaker 1: been quite galling in a way. You know, when you
Speaker 1: you've got an idea, you think, wow, this is good,
Speaker 1: and then somebody's actually beaten you to it and and
Speaker 1: quietly sneaked something out there, and now you're you're the
Speaker 1: you're the imitators and the late most to an idea
Speaker 1: that I think it was very important to the album.
Speaker 1: It was one of the worst John Lennon albums anyway,
Speaker 1: sometime in New York City, So don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about that album cover. I asked about
Speaker 1: the standing up on stand up we have because of
Speaker 1: brick rock history is littered with acts bitching about their
Speaker 1: label saying they wouldn't let me do it, or they
Speaker 1: let me do it, and I had to eat the price.
Speaker 1: You had a very unique situation and that your managers
Speaker 1: were the record company. Now in America, they were distributed
Speaker 1: by other labels, Warner Brothers Center. By the end of
Speaker 1: the by time you at the eighties, they have their
Speaker 1: own freestanding company. So a number of questions, what did
Speaker 1: Terry Ella's do, What did Chris Wright do? And I
Speaker 1: always felt that Chrysalis was built on the back of
Speaker 1: jeth Row Tall, So I wonder did they acknowledge that
Speaker 1: financially they give you a piece of the company because
Speaker 1: for a long time, Jethro Top was the only successful act.
Speaker 1: So how did it work with you and your managers?
Speaker 1: And the money Molley began when nobody wanted to record
Speaker 1: Jet Hotel back in and Terry's I believe his father's
Speaker 1: bank manager loaned some money and so Terry and Chris
Speaker 1: took the chance and we made the records with borrowed money.
Speaker 1: We had no record company, no deal, and then they
Speaker 1: hawked around the tapes to try and find a deal,
Speaker 1: and eventually Chris BLACKWELLO Island Records took it on and
Speaker 1: um and it was released through Ireland, the first album.
Speaker 1: And and then Terry and Chris had a you know,
Speaker 1: they're a little older than I was, but they were
Speaker 1: learning on their feet, you know, they were learning the job,
Speaker 1: learning about the music industry, and so they ankered after
Speaker 1: not just being agents or managers, but the idea of
Speaker 1: having a record company. And and so crystalis Records was
Speaker 1: born as a label. They were able to renegotiate their
Speaker 1: deal with Island Records in the UK and with Warder
Speaker 1: Warners in the USA, actually with the Reprise label who
Speaker 1: then they got their label copy, but it was still
Speaker 1: marketed and distributed by a major record company in the
Speaker 1: in most most parts of the world, but it was
Speaker 1: it looked like a Crystalist record, and Jethro Tell was
Speaker 1: the first act to be signed to Crystalists. But it
Speaker 1: would be a little bit too generous to say, um, Crystalists,
Speaker 1: it was founded on the back of Jets Hotel or
Speaker 1: you know, there's a bunch of other acts at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, we were all important to Crystalist records and
Speaker 1: who else who else in the sixties early seventies on
Speaker 1: Chrystmas had anywhere near the level of success of Jeff
Speaker 1: roll Well ten years after did pretty well to begin with,
Speaker 1: and then procol Harum for example, came along that they
Speaker 1: were quite meaningful, and then a whole bunch of other
Speaker 1: acts um that that passed through the Crystalist ranks over
Speaker 1: the next few years. But you know, sure Jester Hotel
Speaker 1: was important, but i'm you know, I would Christened and
Speaker 1: Terry are both generously said that Obviously Jesstel was very
Speaker 1: important to them at the time, but you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't the only We weren't the only thing. I think
Speaker 1: they would have made it without Jethro Hotel. It's just
Speaker 1: that we that the process was speeded up a little
Speaker 1: by the fact that we were successful enough that Terry
Speaker 1: and Chris could renegotiate the deals. And when they renegotiated
Speaker 1: the deals for higher royalties and different deal structures, they
Speaker 1: passed the benefits of that on to us. You know,
Speaker 1: we we they they volunteered to say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys, you should get a bigger royalty now, because
Speaker 1: we're getting a bigger royalty, and so they were generously
Speaker 1: took that initiative. And I mean Terry and I were
Speaker 1: always I didn't have so much to do with with
Speaker 1: Chris because he was really more looking after ten years
Speaker 1: after in procol. But Terry was, you know, the one
Speaker 1: focused on our careers, and he and I were always
Speaker 1: butting heads and disagreeing on a whole lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And sometimes, you know, he won the argument, sometimes I
Speaker 1: won the argument. And I think think as a brick
Speaker 1: album cover as an example of you know, me winning
Speaker 1: the argument. I really think this is what we should do. Terry,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to work. Other times. You know, Terry,
Speaker 1: you know he was he was the one who was
Speaker 1: responsible for the benefit album cover and I wasn't really
Speaker 1: keen on it at all. But you know, okay, Terry,
Speaker 1: if you think this is right, let's do this. And
Speaker 1: I think that was part of the relationship is that
Speaker 1: both of us had our very strong opinions, but we
Speaker 1: were not not averse to having a discussion, however spirited
Speaker 1: and sometimes loud it might be. But you know, we
Speaker 1: we both knew we could picturelate and say okay, let's
Speaker 1: do it your way. And I think that was the
Speaker 1: strength of that relationship that we were both learning as
Speaker 1: we went along. I was learning about the technical issues
Speaker 1: of production and making records. He was learning about the
Speaker 1: business side of not just managing the band, but you know,
Speaker 1: developing a record company. So you know, we got we
Speaker 1: we got absolute can't blanche to do whatever we wanted
Speaker 1: in musical terms, and that those who were involved in
Speaker 1: the marketing and distribution, like Warners or or Ireland or
Speaker 1: then BMG in the US, in in Europe, you know,
Speaker 1: they were just they were there to do a job,
Speaker 1: and they didn't really have any creative saying what we
Speaker 1: were doing. I think Warners might have tried to do
Speaker 1: that in the early days, but they soon accepted that,
Speaker 1: you know, we were selling records and even if they
Speaker 1: didn't quite get it in terms of why they were selling,
Speaker 1: they they went along with it. And and we we
Speaker 1: we never had any any kind of um real uh,
Speaker 1: contentious input from record companies. You know, you quite often
Speaker 1: they had no idea what they were getting to Let
Speaker 1: deliver the master tapes. That was it. And you know,
Speaker 1: Crystal has trusted me to do that, and I trusted
Speaker 1: them to once they've got the master tapes, and I
Speaker 1: trusted them to get on with it and do the
Speaker 1: best job they could in terms of the the commercial
Speaker 1: application of that. That that's the bit they were supposed
Speaker 1: to be good at. Its exactly the same to this day.
Speaker 1: You know, I hand over the master tapes, and when
Speaker 1: it comes to marketing and promotion, I'm a pussycat. I'm
Speaker 1: paying somebody else, you know, effectively to to use their expertise,
Speaker 1: their knowledge and there and the weight of their the
Speaker 1: their authority. In the case of inside out of boutique
Speaker 1: label and owned by Sony Records that we have distributed
Speaker 1: and marketing by Sony effectively, which is an ideal, an
Speaker 1: ideal blend of being with a major, But at the
Speaker 1: same time, at the front end we're with a sort
Speaker 1: of boutique label, which is very much like how Chrysalis
Speaker 1: were in the first two or three years. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, things come perhaps full circle in that regard.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about the money needles. Say Chrysalis was
Speaker 1: sold to E M I early nineties, h E M
Speaker 1: I was ultimately sold again broken up at this late date.
Speaker 1: Do you still get royalties for those jeth World Toll
Speaker 1: records in two Did you own the publishing or was
Speaker 1: the publishing split with Chrysalis, And what's the status of
Speaker 1: that today. Well, the royalty rate that we were on
Speaker 1: right at the beginning was a very small one. Is
Speaker 1: better than the Beatles got when they started, but it
Speaker 1: was a pretty small piece of the action. Um, and
Speaker 1: then it was redressed considerably around the time of Thick
Speaker 1: as a Brick where we started, and quite quite a
Speaker 1: meaningful royalty rate at that point. And I was also
Speaker 1: getting paid as a producer because I was the guy
Speaker 1: writing the music and producing the records. I was a
Speaker 1: man in the studio taking on the mantle of all
Speaker 1: of that. By seventy four, I was running the business
Speaker 1: of jet Rotele financially, so I was paying all the
Speaker 1: bills and running it is you know, from a commercial stand.
Speaker 1: But what my company was UM. So we were getting
Speaker 1: a pretty good royalty rate at that point, UM, and
Speaker 1: by I don't know, by the end of the seventies,
Speaker 1: we were on what was probably the you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of highest level of royalty artist royalty rate that
Speaker 1: anybody was getting paid. And Chris and Terry were always
Speaker 1: you know, making sure that we were being rewarded in
Speaker 1: the same way as the highest paid artists of the day.
Speaker 1: So our contracts were being renewed and renegotiated and we
Speaker 1: were getting better deals. But you know, it was never
Speaker 1: a subject of no one was being held hostage or anything.
Speaker 1: You know, It was just that I think it was
Speaker 1: recognized that you you were all there to share the
Speaker 1: benefits together, and so you try and be fair about it. UM.
Speaker 1: But the publishing side of it, you know, originally was
Speaker 1: published you know, it's Chrystalis Publishing. And then along the way,
Speaker 1: Crystalis UM went into the publishing side with BMG, So
Speaker 1: it was Christmas BMG and then um, and then it
Speaker 1: became just BMG, which is just to day. And I'm
Speaker 1: I'm still published by BMG at the same rate as
Speaker 1: it was when I was published by in the latter
Speaker 1: days of crystalis so um, you know, without without without
Speaker 1: going into the percentage terms, it's about as high as
Speaker 1: you can get. That comes to me, and they get
Speaker 1: the sort of you know what I suppose is for
Speaker 1: probably fairly standard in the business for people of our statue. Um.
Speaker 1: So yes, I mean I owned the publishing and I
Speaker 1: that was in the days of Terry and Chris. You know,
Speaker 1: they said, well you should own your own publishing. It's
Speaker 1: that you're writing all these songs. And you know, if
Speaker 1: we if we make our cutters as the licensed publishers,
Speaker 1: then that's good. So that's the way that it worked.
Speaker 1: And so I continue to license our products and renew
Speaker 1: those licenses with BMGH. I've got a long standing relationship
Speaker 1: with it goes back forty years or something. So it's
Speaker 1: the way that that one works. And in this day
Speaker 1: and age, you know, I know, I mean long gone
Speaker 1: of the days when I used to employ lawyers to
Speaker 1: negotiate record contracts. You know, we've figured that one out
Speaker 1: a long time ago. So quite happy to feel confident
Speaker 1: in negotiating a record contract these days and for some
Speaker 1: years in the past. And and so I I know
Speaker 1: how all that works. I know what the deal points
Speaker 1: and the structures and all the small print are all about.
Speaker 1: And you know, at the royalty rate that we get
Speaker 1: today is um. You know, it's the it's it's it's
Speaker 1: that's sort of top rate you would get. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't. I don't believe anybody gets more
Speaker 1: than we get. What they might get is bigger. Advanced
Speaker 1: is But I'm not an advanced guy. I just say, look,
Speaker 1: keep your money. You know, when we sold the record,
Speaker 1: then you can pay me. But record companies and their
Speaker 1: cash flows and all the rest of it, they sometimes
Speaker 1: insist us to promoters or we want to pay you
Speaker 1: some in advance. And so yeah, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: mind having an advance, but I'm more comfortable and getting
Speaker 1: a high royalty and a notional advance just as an
Speaker 1: act of good faith to make sure that having laid
Speaker 1: out some money, a record company going to make the
Speaker 1: effort to try and sell product in order to recoup
Speaker 1: their advance. But I'm always, always much prefer to have
Speaker 1: a big royalty small advance. And if record companies want
Speaker 1: to pay me a bigger advance, well that that's fine,
Speaker 1: but it's not what I'm shooting for at all. I
Speaker 1: just want to I just want a good royalty rate.
Speaker 1: We're all we're all in the business of risk together.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that you know, the back end
Speaker 1: is the important thing. If you've done well, then that's
Speaker 1: when you can afford to be generous. If you're a
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a record company, you can afford
Speaker 1: to pay your ours generously once we've sold the records.
Speaker 1: If you don't sell them, everybody's a loser. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be the business I want to be
Speaker 1: in for sure. Would you ever sell your publishing, which
Speaker 1: is something that's happening with a lot of acts of
Speaker 1: your vintage at this point, Well that that that process
Speaker 1: came back. I came up many, many, many years ago
Speaker 1: as the idea of cashing in on your publishing and
Speaker 1: taking a lump sum or taking a lump sum, you know,
Speaker 1: selling it for a period of time and then getting
Speaker 1: it back. I mean, all of that's been going off
Speaker 1: years and years and years, and frankly it's not something
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I looked at it, you know,
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of offers to do that, but
Speaker 1: it's not something that it's very hard to value because
Speaker 1: especially with a swing towards digital UM technology and digital
Speaker 1: UM ways of getting music, you know, when it when
Speaker 1: it's you're dealing in the world of streaming and hardly
Speaker 1: any paid downloads these days. It's mostly streaming and of
Speaker 1: course physical products. That it's quite difficult really to put
Speaker 1: a value on the on the residual life of of
Speaker 1: copyright UM in publishing terms as fairly generous, you know,
Speaker 1: seventy five years after the death of the composer, but
Speaker 1: in up until a few years ago UM in the UK,
Speaker 1: the life of copyright was was really rather minimal. It
Speaker 1: was it was fifty years UM and then it went.
Speaker 1: And so we were facing the time when many acts
Speaker 1: of the sixties were going to fall out of copyright,
Speaker 1: some of them famous people like the Beatles, but hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds and hundreds of artists who maybe only ever
Speaker 1: had one hit or some marginal record sales suddenly that
Speaker 1: that that little royalty that they were depending on every
Speaker 1: year to pay for the heating bill or to you know,
Speaker 1: put food on the table was going to disappear. And
Speaker 1: I was one of those people, you know, making a
Speaker 1: strong play with the UK government for extending life of
Speaker 1: copyright for um in recorded product and the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of the day who I went to meet with and
Speaker 1: tried to persuade him and did some back of an
Speaker 1: envelope calculations to point out the value to the exchequer
Speaker 1: of keeping copyright going and what this meant in terms
Speaker 1: of gathering tax um. Just it was taking a political
Speaker 1: view that copyright was something old fashioned and should be
Speaker 1: free for everybody, blah blah blah. But luckily through the EU,
Speaker 1: in fact it was reversed and we did in fact
Speaker 1: get an extension to the life of copyright more or
Speaker 1: less in parallel with how it already was in the USA.
Speaker 1: So it's it's become a little more generous. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's a little more value in copyright than
Speaker 1: there was perhaps twenty years ago in the UK. I
Speaker 1: mean it would be valued a little higher, you know,
Speaker 1: the residual rights of of copyright, and I don't think,
Speaker 1: personally speaking, I would ever be seduced into selling copyright,
Speaker 1: and I think I would rather I would rather be
Speaker 1: passing it on to my family, um initially and continuing
Speaker 1: to you know, pay tax on that revenue, which is
Speaker 1: um is to me, I'd rather be at the focus,
Speaker 1: the center of it, rather than is somebody else's asset
Speaker 1: to fool around with and offset against other corporate losses
Speaker 1: or do whatever they might do with it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just really would rather I and my successors entitled
Speaker 1: or hands on about it. I mean, Luckily, I have
Speaker 1: a son who's grown up with me in the music industry,
Speaker 1: and so he's you know, he's he understands all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and Will is already taking a an increasingly leading role
Speaker 1: in managing the assets of of both my personal musical
Speaker 1: income and the corporate musical income, and he one day,
Speaker 1: not too far from now, will be it will all
Speaker 1: be on his shoulders. He may decide, hey, I've had enough,
Speaker 1: I want to sell it. When that's that's his decision,
Speaker 1: not mine. Ultimately, release Crest of the nave In becomes
Speaker 1: mega successful. But also the inside story is the album
Speaker 1: was focused group in terms of what singles. So did
Speaker 1: you know that would be a commercial comeback into what
Speaker 1: degree was the focused story true and did it affect
Speaker 1: anything on the record. Well, I I may be wrong
Speaker 1: in this, but I do think it was my idea
Speaker 1: that we did that because I wasn't really sure that
Speaker 1: there has been a huge change in not so much
Speaker 1: in Europe, but certainly in the USA. That's big swing
Speaker 1: away from what used to be called a O R
Speaker 1: radio too very tightly regimented and researched playlists UM, and
Speaker 1: the swing away from that a our album product to
Speaker 1: alternative rock and contemporary pop and rock, and stations like UM,
Speaker 1: like KLOS or double any W suddenly that they were
Speaker 1: trying to get hip and do the new thing, and
Speaker 1: and they changed their format, their playlists and everything, and
Speaker 1: jet rteal just wasn't getting radio but sorry, playtime anymore
Speaker 1: in the in the way that we had during the seventies.
Speaker 1: But I think what happened was that the audiences that
Speaker 1: the demographic that the American radio was increasingly playing to
Speaker 1: prove to be fickle. They didn't actually spend the money
Speaker 1: on the products that were being advertised on American radio
Speaker 1: in the way that's been before, and so gradually it
Speaker 1: swung back again to to not a complete reversion, but
Speaker 1: to something that then became known as classic rock. And
Speaker 1: many of those stations then went back to playing the
Speaker 1: kind of music that they played before. And I assume
Speaker 1: they replenished their coffers because the slightly older demographic was
Speaker 1: was supporting the advertising that brought them their revenue. And
Speaker 1: it we we began just to sort of get a
Speaker 1: sniff of that, I suppose in the latter part of
Speaker 1: the eighties, and I suggested that we should play the
Speaker 1: record initially, not to the media, not to the press,
Speaker 1: because chances are we've got a rough ride and people
Speaker 1: would not be approving. I said, why don't we play
Speaker 1: it to the fans, you know, and get a body
Speaker 1: of thought and opinion, and we can, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: choose the lead tracks we put to radio as a
Speaker 1: result of what we think jeth rot Health fans want.
Speaker 1: And and we did that to a degree, I mean,
Speaker 1: not not in a hugely detailed, massive survey, but you know,
Speaker 1: to a small focus group kind of thing. And it
Speaker 1: got the record company interested. That was the most important thing.
Speaker 1: Is it energized the record company a little bit because
Speaker 1: they were getting direct feedback from the fans who were
Speaker 1: going to buy this record or not. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what what got them to sit up and take
Speaker 1: notice of Crest of Benave and and the New York
Speaker 1: office of Crystalists were suddenly making a lot more effort
Speaker 1: than they perhaps had been to sell products and and
Speaker 1: to and to promote it in a way that was
Speaker 1: much more hands on and active. And the promo guy
Speaker 1: in New York was was, you know, really um you know,
Speaker 1: you really took it on as a personal crusade to
Speaker 1: try and get your hotel noticed. And we got some
Speaker 1: MTV play, and generally speaking, we um, we were. We
Speaker 1: were not exactly back in favor, but we were getting
Speaker 1: noticed again. And and the record company then nominated us
Speaker 1: for a Grammy and a new Grammy category and the
Speaker 1: rest of all that story, of course you know or
Speaker 1: too well, but it was just the beginning of um
Speaker 1: of It wasn't exactly a comeback. It was just sort
Speaker 1: of in a way, well you said, refocusing jet hotel
Speaker 1: with a with a with a demographic that that kind
Speaker 1: of knew us already, and it was just remind people
Speaker 1: we were still around, and you know very much that
Speaker 1: that is not that is not just due to me
Speaker 1: or the record, but it was the efforts of crystalists,
Speaker 1: particularly in the USA, and particularly of Kevin Sutter, the
Speaker 1: promo guy in New York. He was, you know, he
Speaker 1: should take the credit for a lot of the success
Speaker 1: of that album. Well, he's always told me the story.
Speaker 1: Good to have it confirmed by you. Now somewhere around
Speaker 1: thick as a bricks, certainly passion play, the media turns
Speaker 1: against Jeff row Tall. Did you sense this? And I
Speaker 1: would say, generally speaking, jeth Row Toll doesn't get any respect,
Speaker 1: although I believe it deserves so much. And then some people,
Speaker 1: you know, put it in the progressive camp. It's not
Speaker 1: in the progressive camp in my particular world. How do
Speaker 1: you view all that? And I think that any band,
Speaker 1: any artists, will there will be a love affair with
Speaker 1: the critics and and the public alike for a mile,
Speaker 1: and maybe that last year three or four records, and
Speaker 1: then something used coming along, and maybe, and understandably, particularly
Speaker 1: you know music journalists who have been perhaps flattered by
Speaker 1: record companies and managers and invited to concerts and given
Speaker 1: free tickets and all the rest of it. Suddenly they
Speaker 1: begin to feel, you know, they're in the pocket potentially
Speaker 1: that people will see them as being a soft touch.
Speaker 1: They're always going to write good reviews and and necessarily
Speaker 1: they're going to say, no, well, this time we're going
Speaker 1: to buck against the system. We we we don't think
Speaker 1: this does deserve a good review. We're going to give
Speaker 1: it a stinker, you know, and and show that we're
Speaker 1: independent minds and independent writers. And I think to a
Speaker 1: degree that's what happens, and certainly happened with Jester Tell
Speaker 1: around the time of a Passion play, most notably in
Speaker 1: the UK press, but also in the USA too and
Speaker 1: in Australia. I remember, we've got some really really bad reviews,
Speaker 1: and I can understand why, and to some extent I
Speaker 1: having known some of those journalists. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: you know, I had to say, look, hey, I think
Speaker 1: you got this about right. You know, it wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't that great. Had a lot of criticism could be
Speaker 1: leveled at a Passion play, and some of it quite justifiably,
Speaker 1: but of course it hurt at the time, but it
Speaker 1: was greatly exaggerated, you know, especially with the ridiculous press story.
Speaker 1: Jethro Hotel quit because of a horrible front page, bad
Speaker 1: review and Melody Maker. We didn't quit. The first thing
Speaker 1: I heard of it was when I walked down Oxford
Speaker 1: Street in London and saw the copies of Melody Maker
Speaker 1: on the news stand with this headline thing, and I what.
Speaker 1: I bought one to read it, and I was absolutely insensed.
Speaker 1: How what where did they get this from? So I
Speaker 1: went to the nearest phone box and called my manager,
Speaker 1: called Terry Ellis that Crystalists, said what the hell is this?
Speaker 1: Who who put this out? He said, ah, well, sorry,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention it to you, But I thought
Speaker 1: this was a good idea. We've got another front page
Speaker 1: headline and Melody Maker. I mean one of the times
Speaker 1: when Terry and I definitely butted heads and did not
Speaker 1: agree on on the way forward. But it made us.
Speaker 1: I thought it just looked really rather petulant and stupid,
Speaker 1: and it took a while to come back from that.
Speaker 1: But I actually took Ray Coleman, the editor of Melody Maker,
Speaker 1: to tars. Ray, you knew this wasn't right, you knew
Speaker 1: you were being fed a line. You just you just
Speaker 1: went along with it because you were prepared to take
Speaker 1: it at face value because it was a big story
Speaker 1: you could use on the front page. You know, you
Speaker 1: could have just picked up the phone to me and said,
Speaker 1: is this right. I was a bit bit upset with
Speaker 1: Ray and I mean, of course we did things together
Speaker 1: in the future, and he was a lovely chat but
Speaker 1: you know, he was convenient for him to believe what
Speaker 1: he was being told, and it was. It was definitely
Speaker 1: not not It was a total piece of manufactured front
Speaker 1: page grabbing hysteria and I think actually rather silly thing
Speaker 1: to do. And what about the Prague Moniker. Well, I
Speaker 1: was always very pleased to be in the realms of
Speaker 1: progressive rock in people's estimation, because that that term first
Speaker 1: came about as far as I'm aware, in the UK
Speaker 1: music press in nine and I first saw the term
Speaker 1: progressive rock applied to a few bands, including Jeff Hotel,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wow, that's interesting. I quite like that.
Speaker 1: I quite like the idea being progressive rock. That's that
Speaker 1: seems to me what I do, and and so that
Speaker 1: was fine. But then of course they got shortened to
Speaker 1: Prague rock and then just Prague and by the time
Speaker 1: the early punks came along, Prague was a derisory term.
Speaker 1: Meant to meant to describe people who were um basically
Speaker 1: obsessed with showing off the instrumental prowess, and who were
Speaker 1: arrogant and old fashioned and and generally speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: up their own artists, to put it mildly, and and
Speaker 1: I think probably bands like Yes and Genesis and Emerson
Speaker 1: Lake and Palm we do have to bear some responsibility
Speaker 1: for that. Great musicians and great artists as they were,
Speaker 1: but Jethro Tell was a bit more rough and ready,
Speaker 1: I think, a bit more, you know, but there was
Speaker 1: a rougher edge to what we did, partly because we
Speaker 1: weren't as good as they were in terms of musical ability,
Speaker 1: but also there was an edge to some of the music,
Speaker 1: particularly in the lyrics. So um, I guess, um, I
Speaker 1: guess that's why some of the bands from the punk
Speaker 1: era secretly were actually Jethro Hotel fans, like Johnny Rotten
Speaker 1: from the Sex Pistols, huge huge fan of Aqualung and
Speaker 1: then you know some of the other folks. Remember being
Speaker 1: approached by Joey Ramone at a Swiss festival. It was
Speaker 1: just all over and we wanted autographs because his mom
Speaker 1: was a huge fan and and and the guitar player
Speaker 1: from the Had Hot Chili Peppers, or or the Guys
Speaker 1: and the Stranglers or Sting, and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people who were part of that early punk thing. Who
Speaker 1: was secret jethro Hotel fans um. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: this because this firsthand experience. You know, they've actually said so,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they weren't just being nice to me.
Speaker 1: Well perhaps they were, but it's it's just kind of
Speaker 1: nice to know that that you did actually make an
Speaker 1: impact on that next generation of musicians, even though they
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly admit publicly to liking Genesis or jeth Hotel
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be, but secretly they did. We
Speaker 1: were part of their learning process, part of their background,
Speaker 1: their points of reference musically, and even though what they
Speaker 1: do was musically very different, it was still informed in
Speaker 1: some way by the music that had gone before. And
Speaker 1: I think Johnny Rotten saw in the song Aqualung and
Speaker 1: saw in the album cover of that he saw a
Speaker 1: persona a character that was angry and yet sensitive and fearful,
Speaker 1: you know, the way was depicted on the Aqualong album cover.
Speaker 1: And then that's Johnny Rotten. That's that's how he appeared
Speaker 1: when he first appeared on TV. That's going a hunched
Speaker 1: guy with sort of the same kind of pose and
Speaker 1: and and he's a mixture of aggression and anger and
Speaker 1: yet fear and vulnerability. I think he captured that in
Speaker 1: in his stage persona. Um, maybe I'm being a little
Speaker 1: fanciful in that, but he certainly told me he was
Speaker 1: a huge fan of that track. He also hit Wore
Speaker 1: the Long Coat. Okay. Many Jethroad Toll albums have been
Speaker 1: remixed by Stephen Wilson, generally speaking on against remixing, but
Speaker 1: he has a unique way of doing it without putting
Speaker 1: down the other people who have attempted the same thing
Speaker 1: with the Beatles and other acts. He seems just a
Speaker 1: scrape away that his Tritus the Steel Wool, and it
Speaker 1: sounds exactly like the original but better. So how did
Speaker 1: you get involved with him remixing your records? How do
Speaker 1: you feel about all that? He told me that you
Speaker 1: wanted to fix some mistake from the past, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: this is for fans, and this is how the fans
Speaker 1: remember it, so you can he tell me the experience there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that that is. That is how Stephen feels about it,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I told him to remix that
Speaker 1: coolong and five point once around sound and put the
Speaker 1: saxophone in another room. I said, just leave out the saxophone,
Speaker 1: which he said, now we can't do that. We've gotta
Speaker 1: we've got to keep everything there and the way it was,
Speaker 1: but we'll just make it a little more transparent because
Speaker 1: it was too dense that album. It's just too much
Speaker 1: going on all the time. But you know, the whole
Speaker 1: point about when I was asked by the record company,
Speaker 1: you know, about doing remixes, and I somewhere, I think
Speaker 1: I'd heard that Steven Wilson had remixed that classic first
Speaker 1: King Crimson album. So and having believe that that Robert
Speaker 1: Fripp was quite a kind of a control freak, hands
Speaker 1: on guy, I thought, well, if he lets Stephen Wilson
Speaker 1: remixes the big album, then you know he must be
Speaker 1: all right it. So I've suggested Steven Wilson to the
Speaker 1: record company I think at that point still Warners, and
Speaker 1: I think that Coolong they wanted to do. And so
Speaker 1: I said, we'll send him a couple of tracks and
Speaker 1: see how he gets on. And he and I communicated,
Speaker 1: and and so Stephen sent me a couple of you know,
Speaker 1: rough mixes having got the digital masters, you know, because
Speaker 1: obviously was transferred from the track analog tape to twenty
Speaker 1: four bit audio, and then in that process you can
Speaker 1: then tackle it in a different way. You can clean
Speaker 1: up all the tracks. You can get rid of those
Speaker 1: little clicks and hisses and hums, you can you can
Speaker 1: delete the extraneous noise between lines of vocal or verse
Speaker 1: and choruses. You can have absolute digital silence, and so
Speaker 1: suddenly the music is much more transparent, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have all that sort of general kind of analog
Speaker 1: mulchi kind of back grounds. Suddenly it's it's you can
Speaker 1: see through the clouds, you know, it's it's it's daylight.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what Stephen has always done well,
Speaker 1: that he cleans everything up and then he he analyzes
Speaker 1: the way the original mixes were done and sets out
Speaker 1: not to replicate it, but to generally speaking, have the
Speaker 1: same stereo field in terms of positioning instruments and gives
Speaker 1: them the same dynamic um kind of place. But you know,
Speaker 1: he fine tunes everything to a degree that I think
Speaker 1: makes the music ultimately it is clearer punchier, more transparent,
Speaker 1: and in some ways, you know, here's a bit of
Speaker 1: a trade off because you're dealing with analog tapes that
Speaker 1: are fifty years old and they can only probably they
Speaker 1: get baked in an oven, so that glues the oxide
Speaker 1: onto the backing for one more pass, which is your
Speaker 1: one and only chance really to to lift off that
Speaker 1: audience transfer it to the digital domain. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the tape has lost a little bit of quality
Speaker 1: it's at very often the high end seems to suffer,
Speaker 1: certainly with certain tape batches that came. I think the
Speaker 1: A album suffered very badly from loss of oxide, and
Speaker 1: it was quite a tough one to try and recapture
Speaker 1: the high end on that album. But to an extent,
Speaker 1: you know, you it's a bit of a trade off there.
Speaker 1: But by and large the balance lies in favor of
Speaker 1: being able to clean things up, tidy things up, give
Speaker 1: it a bit more punch, a bit more transparency, and
Speaker 1: and not radically change the balance of instruments or the
Speaker 1: or the stereo fields positioning of instruments. But then, of course,
Speaker 1: part of the remixing process isn't just recreating a stereo mix.
Speaker 1: It's a it's five point one surround, and and in
Speaker 1: that regard I'm more than happy to hand over the
Speaker 1: reins because I do not have a five point one
Speaker 1: surround system. I'd actual you don't own a record player.
Speaker 1: I used to have a CD player, but Apple stopped
Speaker 1: putting CD players in the desktop computer, so I don't
Speaker 1: even have one of those anymore. So I'm being used
Speaker 1: to listening for twenty odd years now. I mean, I
Speaker 1: only listen to music as digital audio files. But then
Speaker 1: for the most part, I'm listening to twenty four bit
Speaker 1: digital audio files, which are great quality. Um that's the
Speaker 1: medium in which I work as a writer, as a producer,
Speaker 1: as a recording engineer, and when I'm recording for other
Speaker 1: people as a guest. You know, I'm always used to
Speaker 1: hearing and hearing good quality music, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't as a music listener. I'm not really a music
Speaker 1: fan or a geek. You know, the idea of the
Speaker 1: Japanese tea ceremony of music listening by you know, gently
Speaker 1: blowing the dust off your vinyl record and setting it
Speaker 1: all up and putting it on the turntable and gently
Speaker 1: dropping the needle on in the right place. So you
Speaker 1: don't damage anything or make horrible noises, and then sitting
Speaker 1: back and listening to an entire album. It's a great
Speaker 1: thing to do, but it's it is, it's slowing everything down.
Speaker 1: It's just stepping back. And that's why I say the
Speaker 1: Japanese tea ceremonies are very formal and and stayed way
Speaker 1: of listening to music. And perhaps that's the way people
Speaker 1: did it in the sixties and seventies and they're doing
Speaker 1: it again today, and good luck to them. But frankly speaking,
Speaker 1: I if I have a record player, I don't know
Speaker 1: where it is. I know I did have one or
Speaker 1: two because I don't remember selling them, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the sort of thing I just don't really feel
Speaker 1: inclined to to acquire, um technical stuff, you know, gadgets
Speaker 1: and things. I've surrounded by these for all of my
Speaker 1: life and I still am today surrounded by gadgets. But
Speaker 1: I'm an acoustic guy. I like to pick up and
Speaker 1: play acoustic instruments and you know, and have a good microphone,
Speaker 1: and yes, I use all the technology when it comes
Speaker 1: to recording and mixt thing, but it's not stuff that
Speaker 1: I enjoy. It's just tools of the trade. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just a means to an end, whereas I can
Speaker 1: get quite attached to a good microphone or get attached
Speaker 1: to a nice musical instrument, but the rest of the
Speaker 1: ganger tree means little to me. It's um here today,
Speaker 1: gone tomorrow. It's it's it's all. It's all as good
Speaker 1: as the next update you know to your software. Okay,
Speaker 1: stay with software. That's a very modern viewpoint which a
Speaker 1: lot of older artists do not embrace, and they bitch
Speaker 1: about today's system. What do we know? No matter who
Speaker 1: you are, it's different from the pre internet era. Very
Speaker 1: hard to reach people. Okay, maybe the usual suspects will
Speaker 1: come to see you live, but to get your new
Speaker 1: music into the hands of the public, to have radio
Speaker 1: and other exposure outlets play it, it's difficult for absolutely
Speaker 1: everybody new and classic acts. So you have a new
Speaker 1: album coming out imminently, what was the motivation to do it?
Speaker 1: Also knowing that it's harder than ever for people to
Speaker 1: hear it. Many people don't record at all. Who are
Speaker 1: your vintage and how did it suddenly become Jethro Toll
Speaker 1: again as opposed to Ianni Anderson, Well, i've I mean,
Speaker 1: people have found up saying, oh, it's the first new
Speaker 1: jethro Tel album in twenty years, but it's not. It's
Speaker 1: actually nineteen. And secondly, there's been quite a few record
Speaker 1: releases in that period of time, you know. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, I started work on a new project
Speaker 1: which turned out to be as thick as a Break too,
Speaker 1: although I released it under my own name at that point.
Speaker 1: And and then two years later there was Homoerraticus, again
Speaker 1: released under my own name, but in retrospect probably that
Speaker 1: should have been released as a jet Hotel album because
Speaker 1: it was the same bunch of guys who are on
Speaker 1: the Zelo Gene and have been playing with me for
Speaker 1: an average of about fifteen years, the longest lineup of
Speaker 1: jeth Hotel ever. And and then of course the String
Speaker 1: Quartets album, which once again got to number one in
Speaker 1: the Billboard charts of some obscure category classical crossover or
Speaker 1: whatever it's called. And it you know, I've not been
Speaker 1: I've not been asleep on my feet, you know. I've
Speaker 1: been busy working at things and obviously doing a huge
Speaker 1: amount of tours. But the time came in during two
Speaker 1: sixteen I decide I should I should make a new
Speaker 1: record again of two years after the previous one, And
Speaker 1: at the beginning of two thousand seventeen, I cracked on
Speaker 1: with the job of a new album, which I decided
Speaker 1: would be a Jet Hotel album. And decided I would
Speaker 1: write a bunch of of songs that each one would
Speaker 1: be about a different strong human emotion. That was the
Speaker 1: simple underlying theme. So I wrote down a list of
Speaker 1: words to describe human emotions, extreme human emotions, just one
Speaker 1: word for each each one, and I wrote and words
Speaker 1: like hate, vengeance, retribution, jealousy, anger, greed, and then some
Speaker 1: nice stuff like fraternal love, spiritual love, erotic love, compassion, companionship, loyalty.
Speaker 1: And I looked at my list of words which would
Speaker 1: hopefully become songs, and I thought, Wow, these are all
Speaker 1: words I remember reading in the Holy Bible. And so
Speaker 1: in a whimsical moment of fancy, I did an Internet
Speaker 1: search for examples of those words coming up in the Bible,
Speaker 1: and and perused that with you know, a mixture of
Speaker 1: amusement and some intellectual curiosity. Because I'm not a Bible
Speaker 1: scholar and I am. I copied and pasted some examples
Speaker 1: of those just as references when it came to write songs,
Speaker 1: and the songs for the most part of songs about
Speaker 1: the real world and the present day. But I allude
Speaker 1: two elements of the biblical stories here and there, and
Speaker 1: a couple of songs more obviously than others. But that's
Speaker 1: the that's the that's the background to the record. And
Speaker 1: it began in early two thousand and seventeen and I
Speaker 1: we recorded seven tracks, four of which were complete by
Speaker 1: the end of that that that year, and the rest
Speaker 1: I kept telling myself, well, get on to finish the
Speaker 1: rest of it, but we were on tour so much
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen and two thousand and nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I kept putting it off, and then suddenly the
Speaker 1: pandemic was honest, and another another period of more than
Speaker 1: a year went by when we couldn't get together and work.
Speaker 1: We were in lockdown, not allowed to be in each
Speaker 1: other's company, and I understided I would do the last
Speaker 1: five songs which I had written back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seventeen. They were all complete lyrically and musically, and
Speaker 1: I just went back and relearned them and recorded them
Speaker 1: at home as acoustic tracks, and which in a way
Speaker 1: it was probably a good thing because it gave the
Speaker 1: album rather like aqualung. It gave it a little bit
Speaker 1: more variety in terms of dynamics and musical style. So
Speaker 1: it was finally completed in and mixed and mastered in
Speaker 1: June of this year, and the album art was stunned,
Speaker 1: and I went in search of a record company who
Speaker 1: might be brave enough to take it on. And you know,
Speaker 1: we listened to the overtures of about six different record
Speaker 1: companies and two in particular who we went into much
Speaker 1: more depth with in terms of looking at the detail
Speaker 1: of potential deals. And I made my decision. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the the reality of today's world as we meant, meant
Speaker 1: we would have to wait for some time in order
Speaker 1: to get vinyl pressed, because it's the waiting time to
Speaker 1: get with vinyl pressed from scratches somewhere. Some people will
Speaker 1: say eight nine months, other people saying more than a year.
Speaker 1: That's the queue to be in if you want to
Speaker 1: get your new record pressed as a vinyl product. But
Speaker 1: I've already um jumped the gun a bit by by
Speaker 1: scheduling a release in the end of March two twenty
Speaker 1: three for the next album, So we're already in the
Speaker 1: queue for having that one pressed in time. But it's
Speaker 1: been frustrating, to say the least, having to wait from
Speaker 1: May June when I've sort of done the work, and
Speaker 1: then thinking it's not going to be out until January.
Speaker 1: It seems like another another long period of sitting on
Speaker 1: my hands and then having to be re energized to
Speaker 1: do all the press and promo, to try and um
Speaker 1: make its presence felt amongst that small but argent body
Speaker 1: of fans and perhaps introduced it to who people who
Speaker 1: have perhaps not too aware of Jeter Hotel, but might
Speaker 1: hear about it in what remains of the music media.
Speaker 1: You're heavily active. If you talk about being on the
Speaker 1: road so much that you can't finish the record, you
Speaker 1: talk about scheduling a record in what is the motivation? Now?
Speaker 1: There are a lot of acts they literally have to
Speaker 1: work to pay the bills. You've had much more success
Speaker 1: than many of those people. You're a smart guy. You
Speaker 1: own your own publishing. To what degree is money motivation?
Speaker 1: Some people they do the live gig because they just
Speaker 1: cannot get that response anywhere else in life. That feedback
Speaker 1: from the audience. So what keeps you still working on
Speaker 1: the road and still making new records. Well, part of
Speaker 1: it is just that that kind of creative urge that
Speaker 1: you seem to have been born with and as a child,
Speaker 1: you know, I can remember doing things. I was always
Speaker 1: happy in my own company, playing alone, writing, reading, drawing,
Speaker 1: and I mean that thing. I've always felt that creative urge.
Speaker 1: And I don't feel the need to be with other
Speaker 1: people necessarily to you know, for socializing, as I have
Speaker 1: too much had too much older brothers, but I grew
Speaker 1: up because they had left home. I was grew up
Speaker 1: more or less as an only child, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: particularly sociable at school, so I had plenty times to
Speaker 1: try and develop that sort of creative side of my personality.
Speaker 1: And I think that that never goes away. It's always
Speaker 1: becomes a little quietly burning thing in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind whatever else you're doing. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to making a new record, you're also I could say
Speaker 1: you we I am driven by another consideration, which is
Speaker 1: that time is running out. You know, the the sands
Speaker 1: of time are trickling through there in a very evident
Speaker 1: and seemingly ever increasing way. And I was bigger. If
Speaker 1: I don't do this now, it just could be too late.
Speaker 1: That applies to touring as well as making records. So
Speaker 1: I just want to crack on and do things that
Speaker 1: I haven't done yet. And as long as I feel
Speaker 1: that the that the creative juicies are flowing and the
Speaker 1: end result isn't too embarrassing, that I'm going to carry
Speaker 1: on doing it. And that's very evident in live touring
Speaker 1: because of course the pandemic, the eighteen months that we
Speaker 1: went through with not a single concert um that was
Speaker 1: a of a heavy toll, particularly for the band. Guys.
Speaker 1: I don't need to work, you know, I've got investments
Speaker 1: and money stashed. I'm you know, I'm fine. I don't
Speaker 1: need to work again. But they do. And so my
Speaker 1: band and crew, you know, they had a real tough
Speaker 1: eighteen months, was still having a tough time now because
Speaker 1: although we did twenty shows in the latter part of
Speaker 1: last year, and no we're near enough to recoup their
Speaker 1: lots of earnings in the in the previous year and
Speaker 1: a half. So you know, we we are. We're all
Speaker 1: I think a little obsessed by having to crack on
Speaker 1: with it and make up for lost time, and particularly
Speaker 1: older people like me, older artists. Um, if some some
Speaker 1: of us may have made the time may have come
Speaker 1: and gone, it's too late, you know, the narrow window
Speaker 1: opportunity unfortunately closed before some artists could re energize themselves
Speaker 1: and get back on the road. Is the time has
Speaker 1: gone by for some people. But for those of us
Speaker 1: who are in reasonable health and mentally um equipped to
Speaker 1: take on the you know, the stress and the mental
Speaker 1: reality of what touring and performing us about. Then, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're all struck by the the inevitability. If
Speaker 1: we don't do it now, there might not be another chance.
Speaker 1: A year or two or five years from now, it
Speaker 1: could be over. So I think that's a profound driving force.
Speaker 1: However desperate it sounds. There is a degree of desperation
Speaker 1: about it, but there's nothing wrong with that. You know.
Speaker 1: Some people are just desperate to have a good time
Speaker 1: and go and party with their friends down at the nightclub.
Speaker 1: And I'm desperate to get on the road and do
Speaker 1: some concerts and and carry on with the record that
Speaker 1: I began twelve days ago. It's twelve diggers, yeah, thirteen
Speaker 1: days ago. On the January, the Onet as I've done
Speaker 1: with the last three or four records. January the first
Speaker 1: nine AM, I told everybody that's when I'm starting the
Speaker 1: new project, and I did, and so I'm I'm now
Speaker 1: thirteen days into that, almost two weeks, slightly hampered by
Speaker 1: the fact that I've been spending many hours a day
Speaker 1: doing press and promo, but even today I managed to
Speaker 1: slip a couple of hours in working up some refinements
Speaker 1: on a couple of song ideas, and I am you know,
Speaker 1: I'm now in a position where I can be pretty
Speaker 1: confident by the end of this month, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be making some demos to send to the guys, to
Speaker 1: the band, in the band, and hopefully in the the
Speaker 1: periods that we have ahead of us, when although I
Speaker 1: hope we're on the road doing concert tours, we may
Speaker 1: end up still ending up rescheduling yet again, and so
Speaker 1: we may have time to start recording earlier than I
Speaker 1: might have otherwise. But you know where, there's another record
Speaker 1: in there for sure, and I know what it's called.
Speaker 1: I have twelve pieces of music. I've written the first
Speaker 1: draft of all the lyrics, and no, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell anybody you or even my family or anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to breathe a word about what what
Speaker 1: the record is and what it's about. And it's it's
Speaker 1: too precarious, you know, because I always reserve the right
Speaker 1: to change my mind, you know, scrap it if necessary,
Speaker 1: and start again. But you know, it's to me, it's
Speaker 1: like bad luck to tell people too much about what
Speaker 1: you're doing. I couldn't agree more soon as I tell people,
Speaker 1: then suddenly I can't do it now. You've also had
Speaker 1: adventures in salmon farming. How did that come about and
Speaker 1: how extensive was that? Well, I've been a musician for
Speaker 1: quite a bit of my life and I thought I
Speaker 1: did okay but doing that. But a little part of me,
Speaker 1: I suppose it's um, you know, there's it's just that
Speaker 1: it's just that feeling maybe that you you can turn
Speaker 1: your hand to something else, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: be too one dimensional in your in your life. So
Speaker 1: I thought, there's probably a couple of other things that
Speaker 1: I'm interested in doing, and maybe I should give them
Speaker 1: a go. And I we we we got involved in
Speaker 1: farming back in the late seventies, but that was you know,
Speaker 1: sheep and cattle and wheat and barley and oilseed, rape
Speaker 1: and stuff a bit bit bit bit ordinary, but I
Speaker 1: was bitten by the bug of aquaculture. I read about
Speaker 1: it actually in an airline magazine. I read an article
Speaker 1: about fish farm in this growing new industry, and I
Speaker 1: got quite interested in that idea. And I spent about
Speaker 1: a year trying to find um some potential um sites
Speaker 1: for marine aquo culture, which I was able to do
Speaker 1: and got it. Literally put notched a toe, but the
Speaker 1: whole of a both feet into the into the water
Speaker 1: to get going on that, and it was an interesting
Speaker 1: parallel career for twenty years to come, and during which
Speaker 1: period of time we my companies. You know, we're one
Speaker 1: of the major producers of smoked salmon, but unlike all
Speaker 1: the other companies, I was producing the broodstock, the egg,
Speaker 1: the hatchery, the fresh water part of salmon growth, the
Speaker 1: marine on growing of the fish, harvesting, processing, primary processing,
Speaker 1: and then and then finally the secondary processing and for
Speaker 1: the most part smoked salmon which was going to some
Speaker 1: of the premier outlets in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
Speaker 1: And so we weren't the biggest company, but we were
Speaker 1: the only company doing the whole thing you know, from
Speaker 1: brood stock and eggs right the way through to the
Speaker 1: finished product on the supermarket shells. And so there was
Speaker 1: quite a quite a an interesting time learning about a
Speaker 1: whole new kind of form of business and a mixture
Speaker 1: of business and science and biology. But of course it
Speaker 1: had a an unfortunate consequence in terms of its impact
Speaker 1: upon the marine environment, the sourcing of feed for salmon
Speaker 1: and and inevitably the use of of chemicals to to
Speaker 1: protect the fish from an antibiotics to present the fish
Speaker 1: from disease. And and we were very much in the
Speaker 1: spearhead spearheading of of trying to find the way to
Speaker 1: do that and not be impactful on the environment and
Speaker 1: not be overly reliant on on the artificial side of
Speaker 1: intensive farming. So we were, you know, we we were
Speaker 1: quite active. I mean, I was quite engaged with people
Speaker 1: like green Peace and Friends of the Earth, trying to
Speaker 1: you know, show them what it was we were doing,
Speaker 1: and trying and explain that this wasn't you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a perfect industry. But we weren't as bad as
Speaker 1: we were being made out to be in some quarters.
Speaker 1: But in the end, the inevitability caught up with me
Speaker 1: in the in the new millennium, I decided that I
Speaker 1: really there were a couple of things that I was
Speaker 1: finding uncomfortable about intensive aquaculture, and I decided it was
Speaker 1: time to call it a day. So I sold off
Speaker 1: various arms of the business to different companies and turned
Speaker 1: my back on aquaculture forever. But you know, twenty years
Speaker 1: of I wouldn't say enjoyment, And somebody was a bit
Speaker 1: scary because it was you know, I was I was
Speaker 1: the investor, the sole shareholder. I was taking all the
Speaker 1: risks and something was very, very risky to do UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, we nearly came a cropper a couple
Speaker 1: of times, but I managed to keep my shirt on
Speaker 1: and and I was able to get out of it
Speaker 1: without any losses, which is all I ever really wanted
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, all that any profits we ever made,
Speaker 1: I just turned it back into the company, and we've
Speaker 1: tried to use that for growth in the company rather
Speaker 1: than rather than I didn't need the income personally, so
Speaker 1: it was just something to UM to do for the
Speaker 1: sake of doing it and for the four hundred people
Speaker 1: that were employed on our fish farms and and processing plants.
Speaker 1: But anyway, been there, done that, won't be going there
Speaker 1: again anytime soon. I went back to being a full
Speaker 1: time musician because I part from anything else, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt I was being torn into two different directions
Speaker 1: all the time. With my available number of hours of
Speaker 1: waking energy, I thought I just should get on being
Speaker 1: a musician again. That's where I started and where I
Speaker 1: should finish. So I will look back on my years
Speaker 1: in aquaculture with a degree of fondness and some achievement.
Speaker 1: But it's not, you know, it's not something I think
Speaker 1: I miss if I if I ever, if I ever
Speaker 1: thought about carrying on with it, it would have been
Speaker 1: in shellfish farming, which is really very very almost zero impact.
Speaker 1: Um I'm you know, I would have been a muscle farmer,
Speaker 1: perhaps an oyster farmer, scallop farmer, but um, anything that
Speaker 1: involves intensive feeding and intensive husbandry where you're putting a
Speaker 1: lot of live animals into a small space and then
Speaker 1: having to bash them over the head or put toxic
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide into a bath to kill them. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not I'm not a veg I am
Speaker 1: mostly vegetarian, and I am one of those people who
Speaker 1: find it more increasingly difficult to justify eating something that
Speaker 1: had a face on it, which is why I can
Speaker 1: carry on. I think I could have carried on being
Speaker 1: a muscle farmer, because hard as you, hard as you
Speaker 1: may try, you don't see a pair of eyes or
Speaker 1: any anguish facing you. A lobster, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you do, and a squid or an octopus you certainly do.
Speaker 1: And so some stuff I just wouldn't want to do anymore.
Speaker 1: I personally killed thousands of fish, and at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, you got on and did it because I
Speaker 1: was working on the farm, you know, here and there
Speaker 1: in a part time capacity. And I I look back
Speaker 1: on the what would be seen as a rather callous
Speaker 1: attitude in in in just and just dispatching all these
Speaker 1: these beautiful creatures and turning them into what was then
Speaker 1: still a relatively luxury food. I couldn't have carried on
Speaker 1: doing that. Sound a bit of a softie. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a pussycat, partly because I like pussycats, and partly because
Speaker 1: I I actually really don't like being involved in harming
Speaker 1: living creatures. That goes against my principles and my my
Speaker 1: spiritual beliefs. But it's not to say that I never
Speaker 1: eat meat or never eat fish, but I do it
Speaker 1: very sparingly and try to um. You know, I mean
Speaker 1: eating meat is you know, I would have a difficulty
Speaker 1: arguing for it. But it if it's if it's been
Speaker 1: extensively reared, not intensively, and it's been organically reared, um,
Speaker 1: and it's had a good a good bit of time
Speaker 1: just sitting out there in the fields and chewing on
Speaker 1: grass and filling the sun on its back and and
Speaker 1: the wind and it's hair or its fleece or whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. Then I'm it's marginally easier to argue
Speaker 1: for it than something that's grown up on concrete and
Speaker 1: and never actually never actually stepped out into the open air. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, I have a problem with eating chicken
Speaker 1: because so often, of course it's battery real chicken. And
Speaker 1: I know from from experience as to what that looks like.
Speaker 1: Because we've occasionally taken in some some chickens that have
Speaker 1: been unwanted by intensive chicken farms, and we've brought them
Speaker 1: home to to rear and have another life at home
Speaker 1: with us and miractus. They all started laying again and
Speaker 1: and and living on for another couple of years of
Speaker 1: a happy life being being able to go out and
Speaker 1: in when it eastern and wander around a big space
Speaker 1: suitably fenced against the the invading foxes and dogs and
Speaker 1: cats that might otherwise do them hard. But you know
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm a bit of a softy when it
Speaker 1: comes to animals, and um, I don't feel embarrassed to
Speaker 1: say that. Not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: You have your opinion. For those who were fans of
Speaker 1: rock of Jeff Row Tall, they can't understand it. There
Speaker 1: are dozens of acts that should not be in the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If Jeff row Toll
Speaker 1: is not in it, what is your viewpoint of that? Well,
Speaker 1: I you know, I appreciate that people who are the
Speaker 1: best will in the world, you know, would be campaigning
Speaker 1: or arguing for Jeter Hotel being inducted into the Rock
Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame. But first of all, when
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: I was one of the first people to, having been asked,
Speaker 1: I donated some memorabilia to the Rock and Roll Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. So we were in there right from the right.
Speaker 1: From the get go. Jet Hotel was present in the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But if we mean
Speaker 1: being inducted into the rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: that's a different matter. And I've always felt that the
Speaker 1: American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that peculiarly
Speaker 1: American institution to celebrate American music and its influence perhaps
Speaker 1: elsewhere in some cases, but it's about musical Americana past, present,
Speaker 1: and hopefully in the future. And I don't believe that
Speaker 1: Jester Hotel really qualifies in regard to that, compared to
Speaker 1: many other artists. So I think it would be a
Speaker 1: bit of an anomaly for Jester Hotel to be in
Speaker 1: inducted into the American Rock and Hall rock and Roll
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Equally, there are some other bands who
Speaker 1: have been I also don't think really belonging there for
Speaker 1: similar reasons. But you know, there are there are many, many,
Speaker 1: many American acts who do deserve because they may not
Speaker 1: be very famous or necessarily have left so much behind them,
Speaker 1: but they are still influential, unimportant, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I've been given the recognition that perhaps they they deserve
Speaker 1: as part of that big, an evolving story of American music.
Speaker 1: So you know, That's how I feel about it. But
Speaker 1: we could go into the sort of mechanics of it,
Speaker 1: which is that I think the board that make these decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it still does, but it certainly
Speaker 1: did have a guy Jan Whenner, who was the editor
Speaker 1: of Rolling Stone, who had a particular dislike of jeth Hotel.
Speaker 1: And I've heard from a number of sources that you know,
Speaker 1: he absolutely would you hate jeth Hotel and wouldn't dream
Speaker 1: of of of us being in there. And that's fine,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm for different reasons, I kind of agree
Speaker 1: with him. You know, I don't know the man at all,
Speaker 1: never met him, but you know, he's entitled to his opinion,
Speaker 1: and that may be one of the reasons that that
Speaker 1: it's never been broke. But it would be difficult for
Speaker 1: me right now if somebody said, oh, guess what them,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to induct you into the Rock
Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame? Are you were you available
Speaker 1: two months next Tuesday to come to l A and
Speaker 1: be to be there? And I'm afraid I would have
Speaker 1: to say I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: supposed to be uh supposed to be playing in Santiago
Speaker 1: de Compostella in Spain that day, or I actually got
Speaker 1: to be in Moscow to do a show, um, or
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just washing my hair, but the chances are
Speaker 1: I would not be inclined, just as I didn't want to,
Speaker 1: even as the record company wanted to pay for the
Speaker 1: tickets for to fly us over to l A for
Speaker 1: the Grammy ceremony, which they would convincedly wouldn't win, so
Speaker 1: there's no point in wasting their money. But even if
Speaker 1: they had, I wouldn't really have wanted to go. I
Speaker 1: just don't really like long hold travel for the sake
Speaker 1: of it. I can I can be pressed, pushed, nudged
Speaker 1: onto an airplane if if I'm actually going to work
Speaker 1: and it's the band and the crew and we're all
Speaker 1: trying to earn a living. They are, But so just
Speaker 1: for the fun and games of some awards ceremony or something,
Speaker 1: my heart's not in it. I don't think I would
Speaker 1: want to go, and it would then be seen as
Speaker 1: very rude. If I had to turn around and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to come. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. People were just thinking I was.
Speaker 1: It was sour grapes. I was just saying it because
Speaker 1: I was miffed. I was peeved that we've not been
Speaker 1: previously asked. So I'm in a bit of a no
Speaker 1: win situation there. But in telling you this, since you
Speaker 1: were listened to by a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: in the media and in the music business, it will
Speaker 1: hopefully serve as a warning to anybody in the both
Speaker 1: in the Grammy system and in the the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame. There's no point in asking him
Speaker 1: because he's made it pretty clear he's not going to come. Well,
Speaker 1: there are a number of acts who have finally been
Speaker 1: inducted who didn't come, and uh, most notably Todd Rongwan
Speaker 1: in this last year. But without going down that path,
Speaker 1: I must admit that I was anxious about doing this.
Speaker 1: I only met you once, not that you would ever remember.
Speaker 1: I think the show was at the Kodak and it
Speaker 1: was after the show. I'm sophisticated enough to know it's
Speaker 1: very hard to come down, but you have a reputation
Speaker 1: as being somewhat difficult. So I am stunned that you're
Speaker 1: such a rack and tour and you're so loquacious. Now
Speaker 1: to me, I could talk to you till the end
Speaker 1: of time. I've given you more time than I've given
Speaker 1: anybody else. But you also say you're a loner. So
Speaker 1: is it that you don't suffer fools and there are
Speaker 1: certain people you'll talk to, or is it really you're
Speaker 1: talking to me but you'd rather be alone. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, brutally it is. It's part
Speaker 1: of the job. You know, you've you've got to overcome
Speaker 1: that desire for a seclusion. You get on with it.
Speaker 1: You know, you just have to get on with doing it.
Speaker 1: And if you're gonna do it, do it graciously, do
Speaker 1: it nicely, smile on the face, cracking joe and trying
Speaker 1: to try to make in it, trying to be genuine,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's what I do. If I have
Speaker 1: to do meet and greets after a show, I grown,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's one of checking my schedule. I'm
Speaker 1: meeting greet and I've got to do these things. It's
Speaker 1: Bob left Set guy. I've heard of him, yeah, And
Speaker 1: by fact that I mean I do remember meeting And
Speaker 1: my wife actually said to me today, said I remember
Speaker 1: meeting him backstage after a show. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm usually you won't find that many people who said
Speaker 1: I was shirlish or unfriendly or whatever. If if I
Speaker 1: say I'm going to say hello to somebody and meet somebody,
Speaker 1: I I do my best, you know, but but of course, privately,
Speaker 1: I'd probably just rather be, you know, I'd rather be
Speaker 1: heading back to the hotel and watching David Letterman, or
Speaker 1: or you know, getting to bed and going to sleep.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just not naturally a gregarious and chumby guy.
Speaker 1: But if I'm going to do it, I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and do it properly. Because I've met a couple
Speaker 1: of people who've been churlish and unfriendly and and it's
Speaker 1: a huge just appointment when you when you actually do
Speaker 1: get the impression that someone just is prepared to be
Speaker 1: really rude to you and cut you off just because
Speaker 1: they're not in the mood. And and so I I
Speaker 1: am aware of how that comes across, because I feel
Speaker 1: pretty badly towards off top of my head, two or
Speaker 1: three famous people that I actually said, oh, hi, really
Speaker 1: nice to meet you, Ian Anderson from jether Hotel, and
Speaker 1: they just turned their back on me and walked away.
Speaker 1: And what what did I do? What did that what
Speaker 1: did I do to upset you? Van mentioned mentioning their names,
Speaker 1: and so it's a it's you know, I'm I'm aware
Speaker 1: of how much it kind of hurts if you if
Speaker 1: you're a fan of somebody and then they and they
Speaker 1: treat you in a off hand or a dismissive way,
Speaker 1: is quite hurtful. So I would hope there aren't too
Speaker 1: many people who would have that tale to tell about me,
Speaker 1: But a lot of people who will say, I know,
Speaker 1: he just doesn't like to meet people and like to
Speaker 1: say hello. He looks say they're probably right, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I would hope they wouldn't. They won't be talking about
Speaker 1: personal experience as much as anecdotal stuff that goes around.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm a pretty friendly guy to most
Speaker 1: people when i'm you know, when I when I have
Speaker 1: to do it, when I'm confronted it was somebody stops
Speaker 1: me in the street. It's a fan, you know. And
Speaker 1: most of the time I'm gonna say, hi, really nice
Speaker 1: to meet you, thank you, thanks for you know, buying
Speaker 1: a record or do whatever. But if they then produce,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty albums from a from a bag that
Speaker 1: I know, we're going to end up on eBay that
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to lose my tolerance fairly quickly. And
Speaker 1: in these COVID times, and I've had the experience of
Speaker 1: this during the last few months. Is it's really not
Speaker 1: a great time to be grabbing hold of me and
Speaker 1: trying to get me to sign things or hug me
Speaker 1: while you're doing a selfie. You know, we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a pandemic right now, and I do not
Speaker 1: want to be the one who puts my band and
Speaker 1: crew out of work by getting COVID when I could
Speaker 1: avoid it. So, um, you know, I'm probably a little
Speaker 1: more inclined to be avoiding people right at the moment,
Speaker 1: and that may go on for some months to come.
Speaker 1: So I've tried to say two people, please, you know,
Speaker 1: from a distance, I will thank you and give you
Speaker 1: a smile and you won't see it because I'm wearing
Speaker 1: a mask, but I'm smiling at you. Trust me. But
Speaker 1: let's just leave it at there. That's just not trying
Speaker 1: to be too pressing about it. But what about your
Speaker 1: personal life? How social are you and your personal life?
Speaker 1: Is there anybody you email with every day or talk
Speaker 1: to every day? Do you go to dinner parties or
Speaker 1: you really more of a home body loaner. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a family and my my my daughter's family, and
Speaker 1: my son's family live you know, pretty close by, you know,
Speaker 1: quarter of an hour, half an hour, so we see
Speaker 1: them probably two or three times a week. My son
Speaker 1: in law comes almost every day to take the dogs
Speaker 1: for a walk. Since he's he's out of work even
Speaker 1: more than I am. Being a thespian and pandemic and
Speaker 1: other things have meant it's been very difficult for him
Speaker 1: to do the things that he's should have been during
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. But um, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we we were pretty close as a family and I
Speaker 1: we have a few friends, most of them long standing friends,
Speaker 1: not not in the music industry, but um but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I exchanged emails recently with who who was it?
Speaker 1: Um Uh. Mark Armond from Soft Cell is a big buddy.
Speaker 1: Unlikely because of the age difference in the musical style difference,
Speaker 1: but but he's become a big friend in the last
Speaker 1: few years and we do consciers together. He's a guest
Speaker 1: of mine on our cathedral shows every year when we
Speaker 1: do fundraises for churches and cathedrals and Tony Iomi, who
Speaker 1: sent me an email at Christmas and I must get
Speaker 1: together and have lunch. And you say these things, but
Speaker 1: you know, in reality, another year goes by, another two
Speaker 1: years go by, and you've sort of forgotten to do it.
Speaker 1: But I guess again, you know, if you're getting older,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, well, if I don't have lunch with Tony,
Speaker 1: one of us is going to pop off sometime soon.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not like we're lifelong friends, but
Speaker 1: we've known each other since nine a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's one of those people that you know, he's
Speaker 1: a good guy. And you know other people I suppose,
Speaker 1: um um that I don't really communicate with that that much,
Speaker 1: but there are a few people who are not necessarily musicians,
Speaker 1: but you know, politicians or sports people or journalists and
Speaker 1: people that I particularly at Christmas. You know, emails and
Speaker 1: best wishes fly back and forth for a few days
Speaker 1: of Christmas and New Year. Um. But it's um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just in balance. Really, I suppose probably true
Speaker 1: to say I have less less less of a a
Speaker 1: gregarious social life on a personal level than your average person.
Speaker 1: But it's not entirely absent um. It does, it does,
Speaker 1: it does get tempered, however, by the fact that at
Speaker 1: this particular point in time, getting together for a boozy
Speaker 1: lunch is probably not a good idea, since we and
Speaker 1: in your country were in the throes of the O
Speaker 1: macron dynamic surge. And although there are some signs at
Speaker 1: least where I live that things are tapering off. I mean,
Speaker 1: our infection rate would appear to have gone down to
Speaker 1: just over half during the last two weeks, which from
Speaker 1: very high levels, but it does appear to be seriously
Speaker 1: on the turn, and hopefully hospitalizations and deaths will soon follow,
Speaker 1: and maybe in you know, a week or two, you'll
Speaker 1: see the same thing at least in some US states
Speaker 1: that it is beginning to drop, and there are signs
Speaker 1: of that already in Europe. Europe in the US seemed
Speaker 1: to have been about three or four weeks behind the
Speaker 1: UK all the way through this um and apart from Italy,
Speaker 1: which started off very badly, but we all caught up
Speaker 1: with that pretty quickly. But since then Britain has tended
Speaker 1: to be one of the most infected countries with the
Speaker 1: highest impact on on our lives, and the rest have
Speaker 1: been you know, three four or five six weeks behind
Speaker 1: and so and then some European countries are even further
Speaker 1: behind and O Macron has not even really got there yet.
Speaker 1: So and their countries with you know, maybe twenty thcent
Speaker 1: vaccination rates, Boy, are they going to be in big trouble.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think in America, I've spoke to
Speaker 1: sending email from my American agents a few days ago
Speaker 1: suggesting some periods of times have come back, and there
Speaker 1: are a few shows in the USA in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twenty three, and I'd be reasonably confident that that
Speaker 1: can happen. As I'm hopeful, if not entirely confident, that
Speaker 1: most of the shows in two thousand and twenty two
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead, albeit some of them will have been rescheduled. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm trying to be optimistic about all
Speaker 1: of this, But at the same time, I've got to
Speaker 1: be realistic and be prepared to to go um begging
Speaker 1: the airlines for a refund on the tickets you bought
Speaker 1: that you know can't use. Actually managed just two days
Speaker 1: ago I finally got a refund from the very last
Speaker 1: flights that I had not been refund if I finally
Speaker 1: came through and they were from May two thousand and twenty.
Speaker 1: I finally got the refunds two days ago. They actually
Speaker 1: paid up brilliant, you know, so there is some honor
Speaker 1: even amongst thieves. I wouldn't go that far. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a flight like just after COVID began. I was
Speaker 1: stunned when they gave me my money back, which was
Speaker 1: over a year. In any event, Ian, this has been wonderful.
Speaker 1: Listen to the tracks that were already outside city Sisters.
Speaker 1: I really like I look forward to seeing you live again.
Speaker 1: I'm sure even more you look forward to being on
Speaker 1: the road. Thanks so much for taking the time. A
Speaker 1: great pleasure. Nice too, Nice to see you and talk
Speaker 1: to you, and great to see you're still as active
Speaker 1: and there's much a voice to be listened to amongst
Speaker 1: fans and the industry alike. So you keep at it
Speaker 1: and become filled with the same desperation as I am
Speaker 1: that it's not time to quit. Yes, and there's more
Speaker 1: to do. No, no, no, no. I'm not quite as
Speaker 1: old as you, but I'm feeling it and I'm not retired.
Speaker 1: You know. This is my one and only so in
Speaker 1: any event, thanks so much until next time. This is
Speaker 1: bad WEPST