Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. Quest Love
Speaker 1: your host Sexually. Have we ever a tag team? Ticolo?
Speaker 1: I don't think we have.
Speaker 2: Thanks, this is.
Speaker 1: The it's the tag teamages of fun Tikeolo in Quest Love.
Speaker 1: How you doing, man? How's your week? Then?
Speaker 2: It's hectic?
Speaker 1: But I did. Are you about to talk about it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 4: We had our first like little brother show in like
Speaker 4: two years over the like last weekend.
Speaker 1: How was that?
Speaker 2: It was insane, very surreal.
Speaker 4: Afterwards, I had these two kids come up to the
Speaker 4: meet and we're like, this is the greatest show we've
Speaker 4: ever seen. Two white girls seventeen and her sister who
Speaker 4: was twelve. Wow, that was the first. The toy year
Speaker 4: old she said it was the first show she'd ever
Speaker 4: been to ever. And I was sitting there talking with
Speaker 4: my home girl er Lette, and were just sitting there
Speaker 4: and I was like hi.
Speaker 2: They was like, oh my god, you guys were getting
Speaker 2: so high.
Speaker 1: It was so great.
Speaker 2: And I love the pink. I love you in the
Speaker 2: pink shirt. We love the pink. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: thanks for the fashion to you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But how did they know they even see you? Well,
Speaker 1: both of them were younger than your career, straight.
Speaker 2: Up I got albums older than both of them.
Speaker 4: So they were We were opening for a band called
Speaker 4: silvan Eso and they pick up to them that's fine.
Speaker 1: So yes.
Speaker 4: So they did like a three night kind of festival
Speaker 4: thing in Durham and we were like the support act
Speaker 4: for night too, and yeah, man, we came out there
Speaker 4: and you know, it was our first show.
Speaker 2: Me and Pool put the set together like the night before.
Speaker 4: It was like, okay, we do this, do that, do that,
Speaker 4: and we went out there and at the end of
Speaker 4: the show, towards the end. Normally we were asked at the beginning,
Speaker 4: but for this night, we asked it the end. We
Speaker 4: was like, how many was your first time seeing little
Speaker 4: brother for the first time, and like the hands went up.
Speaker 4: They had no idea who we were, but like we
Speaker 4: rocked that shit and so it was. It was crazy.
Speaker 4: It was like to be you're now a twenty year veteran,
Speaker 4: straight up no bro facts, Like twenty years in to
Speaker 4: still be picking up new fans, that is that's kind
Speaker 4: of surreal.
Speaker 2: And I'm noticing too that post COVID crowds.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And Rick, we can ask you about it as well
Speaker 2: if you want to win.
Speaker 4: It seems to me like post COVID concert crowds and
Speaker 4: pre COVID concert crowds are two different things, yes, because
Speaker 4: like everybody's high, everybody's high.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just I mean, I remember the first gig
Speaker 3: we did. Hi, by the way, I remember the first
Speaker 3: gig we did.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna introduce you for Goohead. This is like this
Speaker 1: is the cold Open.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's good. Yeah, first gig we did in the UK.
Speaker 3: And that first gig was kind of crazy because we
Speaker 3: did it at a place called Networth, which is a
Speaker 3: legendary country house if you like, just outside of London,
Speaker 3: and it's been amaze see gigs done there. But we
Speaker 3: played to about two and a half thousand people instead
Speaker 3: of two hundred and fifty thousand people because they all
Speaker 3: brought their car and they had a picnic space and
Speaker 3: so they all sat in their cars or on the
Speaker 3: bonnet of their car, the roof of the car, and
Speaker 3: they were all given a picnic space. So it went
Speaker 3: on for about a mile of this this thing. But
Speaker 3: it was amazing because when the sun went down, everyone
Speaker 3: was using their car lights to sort of say yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was amazing. So it was a really strange gig.
Speaker 3: But I could see, especially in the crew and the
Speaker 3: people who'd been building the stage and you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, and everything you could see people were really
Speaker 3: really emotional. I mean, being on stage is an emotional
Speaker 3: thing full stop, but being on stage in front of
Speaker 3: a crowd after that, all that time that was it
Speaker 3: was amazing, absolutely incredible, and we did a few that
Speaker 3: summer that were just just amazing. You know. It just
Speaker 3: made you feel lucky, made you feel i don't know,
Speaker 3: like a newfound respect for being allowed to do what
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 2: You know, it was very much like watching the route.
Speaker 4: It was not versus in the past where you would
Speaker 4: see people kind of in their bodies for lack of
Speaker 4: a better word, where it's like.
Speaker 2: Throw your hands up, scream shot whatever. It's like all
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 4: You can just see them just kind of in their heads,
Speaker 4: like they're just watching it and like, you know, like
Speaker 4: just kind of taking it in and they're enjoying, they're
Speaker 4: having a ball, but they're just in their heads, just
Speaker 4: kind of watching it. And yeah, that was definitely something
Speaker 4: I noticed. I'm like, okay, yeah, these post COVID shows,
Speaker 4: in the pre COVID this it's a whole different.
Speaker 1: Well that said, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that
Speaker 1: our guest is probably beyond just fame. Okay, So he's
Speaker 1: a musician, singer, songwriter from the UK. I like to
Speaker 1: say the UK, like I'm from the UK. I only
Speaker 1: lived there for four years, but I make people from
Speaker 1: the UK actually think that, you know that I'm an actual,
Speaker 1: like lifelong resident there, you know. And he came into
Speaker 1: our radar, at least my radar for a lot of
Speaker 1: us here in the States, you know, of course in
Speaker 1: the late a and made it absolutely impossible to forget
Speaker 1: his music. And I'll say that's an actual achievement. And
Speaker 1: even to this day, those singles, very strong, very potent
Speaker 1: singles are dropped and it's instant happiness and joy, you know,
Speaker 1: and even going has so much to say, I'll be
Speaker 1: it kind of an unusual achievement, but I will well,
Speaker 1: I'll ask you, fante, if Michael Jackson owns Halloween and
Speaker 1: Mariah Carrey owns Christmas, I almost think that our guess
Speaker 1: today might own April Fool's Day, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a weird quote to say. And you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: even implaning that our guess is a joke or his
Speaker 1: music is a joke. Far from it. But you know,
Speaker 1: for clarification purposes, I'll say that, you know, we all
Speaker 1: live in the the you know this like the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty fifth year of really the internet sort of in
Speaker 1: our lives, and I think I would say that the
Speaker 1: first mean he yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: They have been the first what we now know is
Speaker 4: Internet being cultured, Like, yes, that's the first one.
Speaker 2: I think. I think he really was originating.
Speaker 1: Well, definitely one of the earliest examples of the sticky
Speaker 1: factor as we you know, as something viral, you know,
Speaker 1: which in the eyes of gen Z like that's that's
Speaker 1: a serious achievement our I guess, yes, it's it's the same.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're, you're you will be here forever,
Speaker 1: long after we're going from Earth, you know. And in
Speaker 1: the fact that even his name can imply, you know,
Speaker 1: not only being a proper nown but you know, to
Speaker 1: be rick rolled is to is the new Oki dokie
Speaker 1: falling for the ok having successfully pulled the prank I'll
Speaker 1: say that in my research, I didn't realize that YouTube
Speaker 1: themselves when they you know, established in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, YouTube themselves actually invented what we
Speaker 1: call rick rolling. For the two three of you that
Speaker 1: don't know what rick rowling means, it's the thing where
Speaker 1: someone shares a serious video with you and then about
Speaker 1: twelve seconds and your hit with again the irresistible course
Speaker 1: of never going to give you up. And you know,
Speaker 1: I will say that probably during the pandemic, I'm giving
Speaker 1: a shout out to my pal jin Grabel from Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: who is one of the biggest rig Ghastly fans ever.
Speaker 1: I've fallen down a vicious rabbit hole and looking at
Speaker 1: all anything that you do in concert, she'll instantly send me, so,
Speaker 1: you know, to see these Springsteen covers are born to run,
Speaker 1: and your Nirvana covers and you know, the everything from
Speaker 1: your food fighters to a CDC covers you on drums,
Speaker 1: all these things you covering, like the Smith songs, Like
Speaker 1: I'm really genuinely this, you know, I had to have
Speaker 1: you on the show because I've like discovered a rekindled
Speaker 1: fandom for our guests to day that goes way beyond,
Speaker 1: just like you know the Rickrolling part of his career,
Speaker 1: but you know there's a long time coming. So welcome
Speaker 1: to your quest of Supreme. This is Rick Astley. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Man, Thank you. It's a pleasure to be Thanks for
Speaker 3: that extraordinary introduction as well. I'll take that on board
Speaker 3: in a very heartfelt way. So it's nice to be.
Speaker 1: Well, we mean it. Where are you right now?
Speaker 3: Right now? We're between Vegas and Fresno. I'm on tour
Speaker 3: right now. I got invited last year to come to
Speaker 3: America and do a tour with Are you ready for this?
Speaker 3: New kids on the block on Vogue as I call
Speaker 3: them on Vogue. I've been told you've got to say
Speaker 3: en Vogue. I'm like, no, I'm European. It's on Vogue
Speaker 3: and Salt and Pepper. And we're having a lot of fun,
Speaker 3: i can tell you. And we had a day off yesterday,
Speaker 3: which is which is always nice obviously me in Vegas,
Speaker 3: we hade a bit fun. But the gigs have just
Speaker 3: been amazing and it's very unusual for me because I
Speaker 3: haven't done anything like this, certainly in America anyway, where
Speaker 3: you get a group of artists together and go out
Speaker 3: and do that. I have done it in Europe a
Speaker 3: different places, but I've never really been to America and
Speaker 3: do it. And obviously it's we're just having a ball
Speaker 3: right now. So I'm on my bus right now heading
Speaker 3: to Fresno.
Speaker 1: So that that also explains the video that came out
Speaker 1: with the four of you bring Back the Time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so's so weird because normally, you know, I'll see
Speaker 1: package tours and acts get together and you know, they
Speaker 1: might interact with each other whatever. But the fact that
Speaker 1: you guys got together to sort of collaborate and no
Speaker 1: one saw this coming, Like, could you explain the genesis
Speaker 1: of how that came to be? Who put it together?
Speaker 3: So yeah, so we've got a phone call and do
Speaker 3: you want to come and do the mixtape tour? And
Speaker 3: for me, I was kind of like, well, America is
Speaker 3: a very different ball game. For me. It's I grew
Speaker 3: up listening on what in America and doing gigs here.
Speaker 3: Doing gigs here was always kind of like one of
Speaker 3: the pinnacle things. You know, having some records on the
Speaker 3: radio here was always an amazing thing because I know
Speaker 3: then whether they liked them or not, whether they liked
Speaker 3: my voice or not. I know Luther Vandrossad might me sing.
Speaker 3: I know Al Green did, Bill Withers did, and those
Speaker 3: guys unknowingly taught me to sing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So I kind of I always been Coming to America
Speaker 3: is an amazing thing. With the MIXTEP tour is something
Speaker 3: completely different because the New Kids fans are absolutely crazy
Speaker 3: and I'm truly sure they know by now because we've
Speaker 3: done a few gigs. But I meet that with a
Speaker 3: lot of love. But they're absolutely crazy. So when I
Speaker 3: kind of google googled the previous mixtape tours and the
Speaker 3: fans and the everything, I spoke to Donnie Donny Walburg
Speaker 3: quite a bit about it, and I just so, you
Speaker 3: know what, let's just do it. We're gonna have a
Speaker 3: lot of fun. It's not normal in the sense that
Speaker 3: because it's a mixtape. I go on sing some songs
Speaker 3: and then I hang around backstage and I watched the
Speaker 3: guys on I'm at the side of the stage watching
Speaker 3: different artists, and then I kind of get ready to
Speaker 3: go back at stage. You're going to do it again,
Speaker 3: and I've never done that. It's kind of a it's
Speaker 3: much more of a show in that respect.
Speaker 1: Interact a review.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And Johnny walked me through that, and
Speaker 3: he talked me through that and explained how they do it.
Speaker 3: And so I think once you get over that and
Speaker 3: kind of realize what it is as opposed to going
Speaker 3: up and opening for an artist and doing your forty
Speaker 3: five minutes, doing your hour, and then going off and done,
Speaker 3: it's a totally different thing. And also one of the
Speaker 3: things that I have huge respect for them for doing this.
Speaker 3: They open the gig, they go on first, and then
Speaker 3: they introduce, and then they introduce an artist. Tell me
Speaker 3: a headline act in the world. Who does that?
Speaker 1: A meal? I'd about to say I pioneered this, Okay, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but I no no ideas original. But you know, I
Speaker 1: always hated the ideal of like someone goes on first,
Speaker 1: someone goes on second, which is you know, which I'm
Speaker 1: also kind of I know it's comedy, but oh d
Speaker 1: l monique thing, because I just think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's more unique to do. Motown reviews used to be
Speaker 1: that way, like three songs from CV, three songs from
Speaker 1: the Supremes, three songs to and then people come back
Speaker 1: and interact. So I've been I've been doing that for
Speaker 1: like twenty years, and I'm finally when you said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, ah, finally someone else is doing it.
Speaker 1: That's dope. Even up until twenty seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen,
Speaker 1: there will be occasional towns in which the roots and
Speaker 1: new Kids on the Block will be in the same
Speaker 1: hotel and absolutely nothing has changed. Like now, you know,
Speaker 1: Donnie told me, like, you know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: it was it was the mother's trying to hook up
Speaker 1: the daughters. But now it's like you have daughters taking
Speaker 1: their mothers to new Kids on the Block shows and
Speaker 1: they're hanging around the hotel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there's a lot I'm telling you what has
Speaker 3: kind of shocked me a little bit. Of course, most
Speaker 3: of the audiences of an age because they were there
Speaker 3: for the first records, they bought the first records, they
Speaker 3: went on all the tos. But I'm telling you, it's
Speaker 3: kind of odd. There's a lot of younger people in
Speaker 3: that audience and they know all their tunes and they
Speaker 3: are like fully paid up members of being the blockhead
Speaker 3: family and everything, and it's really nice to see. But
Speaker 3: I think you know we're talking. You guys were talking
Speaker 3: about the internet before. That's just changed the way that
Speaker 3: everybody listens to music obviously and gets their music, but
Speaker 3: also the way they feel about it. And they don't
Speaker 3: sometimes have the same thing that I certainly did when
Speaker 3: I was a kid about Oh, that's for old people.
Speaker 3: And I don't think older people are afraid to go
Speaker 3: and say, well, you know what, I want to go
Speaker 3: and see this artist, even though I'm old enough to
Speaker 3: be their mom or dad. I just want to go
Speaker 3: and see them. And I think that that generational thing
Speaker 3: has gone away to a great degree. You know, well,
Speaker 3: I just think the festival thing, if you look at that,
Speaker 3: it's so plectical these days. Who you can be on
Speaker 3: before or after or on the next stage. It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So when you look at the audience there's a bit
Speaker 3: of that as well, you know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 3: random bag of people that just want to wear music,
Speaker 3: you know, don't really Yeah, so it's I think it's
Speaker 3: quite a beautiful thing, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Now I do too.
Speaker 4: I think this like with the audience now, you know,
Speaker 4: because no one has to pay for music anymore. I
Speaker 4: think that it's just pretty much they have the room
Speaker 4: to explore in a.
Speaker 1: Way that we didn't.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, if we had to go
Speaker 4: to the record store you had ten dollars, Yeah, ten
Speaker 4: dollars was a choice, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: You had to make real decisions.
Speaker 4: But now you know, with everything available, they just hear music,
Speaker 4: you know, And I saw that. That was what I
Speaker 4: started to get, Like, they don't even think, like my
Speaker 4: kids and my sons, like, they don't even look in
Speaker 4: terms of genre or anything. If they like it, they
Speaker 4: like it and that's all they know, and that's all
Speaker 4: they care about.
Speaker 3: I think the other thing is they don't they don't
Speaker 3: actually care if the artist is dead. And I don't
Speaker 3: think that in a callous ware and no emotion where
Speaker 3: they're just like, I love this, What is it? Oh
Speaker 3: it's Frank Sonatra. Oh really do you know who? Frank
Speaker 3: Socenarta was not really well coming on? A look at
Speaker 3: this and I'll explain it to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there no more context, there's no more new music
Speaker 4: and all music it's just music, you know, in music,
Speaker 4: that's it, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So can you tell us where in the UK
Speaker 1: were you born? I'm assuming that you were born in
Speaker 1: the UK, where were you born?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I was. I was. I was born in
Speaker 3: a very very small town and it's equidistant from Liverpool
Speaker 3: and Manchester. It's right in the middle of both of them.
Speaker 3: It's about twenty miles either side. That town is called
Speaker 3: Newton the Willows and that is hyphenated as in Newton
Speaker 3: in the Willows. It sounds a lot posher than it
Speaker 3: actually is. It's okay. It was an okay place to
Speaker 3: go up and everything. And my sister still lives there
Speaker 3: and my mum up until she passed away, recently lived
Speaker 3: there and it's an okay town. But it's a small town.
Speaker 3: And we then, so for us go into either of
Speaker 3: Manchester or Liverpool was our way of going to a
Speaker 3: shop might have some actual trendy clothes or you know,
Speaker 3: more than one record store, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Where you could go to like four of that, you know.
Speaker 3: And obviously the first time we really went to stores
Speaker 3: to go and look at musical instruments, that was in Manchester.
Speaker 3: Because you know, you jumped on the train or you
Speaker 3: got you know, an older brother sister to take you
Speaker 3: and you went into Manchester. That was our big deal.
Speaker 1: With you know, I see. Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: your first musical memory was.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say, obviously for anybody. I know. The
Speaker 3: jungle Book record was a massive thing for me. I mean,
Speaker 3: our kids love Disney and they love music because it's
Speaker 3: because it's amazing. The quality of it is always great.
Speaker 3: They're still doing great music, I think for the jungle Bug.
Speaker 3: For me, we had that vinyl record at home and
Speaker 3: I'm the youngest of four, so my sister was into
Speaker 3: all kinds of music. She used to go and watch
Speaker 3: a lot of what she used to watch everything. She
Speaker 3: going to Manchester, Liverpool, and so she had a really
Speaker 3: great record collection. But a lot of her music was
Speaker 3: like there was a lot of progressive rock in it,
Speaker 3: but she'd also have like quite a bit of Bowie
Speaker 3: which she'd have a lot of American classic soul as well,
Speaker 3: Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder obviously, things like that. She loved
Speaker 3: the Beatles as well, So I broke with a lot
Speaker 3: of that. But I wanted the jungle Book because obviously
Speaker 3: to me, I've been taken to the movies to see
Speaker 3: the film, and once you've seen a film like that
Speaker 3: and then you've got the vinyl of it at home,
Speaker 3: you can you can plan to watch the movie again
Speaker 3: in your head, can't you. I just loved it, and
Speaker 3: that's so for me that I probably just sat there
Speaker 3: waiting for everyone to leave the room and then got
Speaker 3: my moment to put because we probably had one record
Speaker 3: player when I was five years old, do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? That was probably it so, But I
Speaker 3: think in terms of I just went to see Paul
Speaker 3: McCartney actually a week or so ago in Fort Work
Speaker 3: in Dallas, and a lot of the Beople's music as
Speaker 3: for anybody obviously, of course for everybody on the planet,
Speaker 3: but it was a bit of a game change in
Speaker 3: some of those records, I think, even as a really
Speaker 3: young kid, because a lot of their music at certain
Speaker 3: times has got a lot of childlike quality to it.
Speaker 3: There is we all, there's all, there's we all live
Speaker 3: in a yellow submarine in there. And that's so that
Speaker 3: as a kid, that brings you in, do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? And then all of a sudden you're
Speaker 3: listening to I don't know the Holestalgic Pepper or what
Speaker 3: I've been thinking, what is this? But it's when I
Speaker 3: say childlike I don't mean that in any geogratory obviously.
Speaker 3: I mean there's a real innocence to some of their stuff,
Speaker 3: even though it becomes really complicated and intricate and beautiful
Speaker 3: as well, there's a real simplicity to it at times,
Speaker 3: you know. So, so I think the Beatles were quite
Speaker 3: an easy one to get into as well well.
Speaker 1: Because they were they were influenced by you know, timpan Alley,
Speaker 1: which you know that that sort of era of music,
Speaker 1: a timpan Alley is closer to show tunes and.
Speaker 2: Your musical stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's rather genius that you can
Speaker 1: create music that an eight year old that can stick
Speaker 1: to an eight year old and an eighty year old
Speaker 1: at the same time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, and seems hip.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the the first music that you purchased
Speaker 1: yourself with your own money?
Speaker 3: Well, it wasn't money exactly. My dad had given me
Speaker 3: some money to go and buy a pair of jeans,
Speaker 3: right and there was a store. This wasn't in Manchester
Speaker 3: or Liverpool. This is a local town. Tour was a
Speaker 3: small town. There's a little store that so told jeans
Speaker 3: and all kinds of different things that kids would wear.
Speaker 3: You know, and he gave me the money and I
Speaker 3: went in and I bought the jeans. I was probably
Speaker 3: only about nine years old of this, but he's probably
Speaker 3: outside in the car waiting for me, kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And I went in saying nine I could have whatever.
Speaker 3: Went in and it also had like a little record
Speaker 3: store as part of it, which was a bit bizarre,
Speaker 3: I guess, but whatever, And you bought a pair of
Speaker 3: jeans on that day and they allowed you to have
Speaker 3: a single. So I went in next door and I'm
Speaker 3: just looking. I had no clue, and I knew my
Speaker 3: dad was in the car like waiting, and he's like
Speaker 3: he's not going to be messed around, you know. So
Speaker 3: I just said, I'll have what other's number one? Please?
Speaker 3: And it was luckily it was I Feel Loved by
Speaker 3: Donna Summer. So I got a great record out of it. Anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that but that wasn't my so I was eleven.
Speaker 3: Now I think that it wasn't necessarily a choice, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't really my money, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It sort of came with the pair of jeans. But
Speaker 3: it was quite It was quite a thing because when
Speaker 3: I went home, I suddenly kind of realized I own
Speaker 3: this record. It's not one of my brothers or my sisters.
Speaker 3: This is mine, do you know what I mean? Because
Speaker 3: all I've done really was just pinched their records and
Speaker 3: just played them. You know, That's all I've done up
Speaker 3: to that point.
Speaker 1: So at least by that point did you have a
Speaker 1: singing voice? Were you?
Speaker 3: I was always picked to be in school plays. I
Speaker 3: was in a church choir as well. But it's not
Speaker 3: as you guys will know. It's not a gospel or anything.
Speaker 3: It's a very very Church of England and very kind
Speaker 3: of straight and white like you know that. But it's
Speaker 3: still singing with other people, and that I still think
Speaker 3: that thing of a choral group of people making that
Speaker 3: that I'm going to say, noise. I'm not even to
Speaker 3: fall like music right now. Just making that noise together
Speaker 3: is the most what's the word to use, It's the
Speaker 3: most sort of primeval way of making music because you know,
Speaker 3: when you take away the organists, and I remember we
Speaker 3: used to do that. We used to sing just on
Speaker 3: our own a lot of the time, especially when he
Speaker 3: was like getting us through different pieces to learn them
Speaker 3: and everything. It's just a bunch of people using this
Speaker 3: to make a noise, and it's quite I'm not saying
Speaker 3: I used that at all today, but I think it's
Speaker 3: still it did something to me, even though on dinner
Speaker 3: for a couple of years, but it definitely made me
Speaker 3: aware of the fact that a group of people come
Speaker 3: together harmonize or not and what have you, and make
Speaker 3: music and that's and there's no even instrument to go through,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? And I even think
Speaker 3: from a timing point of view, because I got into
Speaker 3: playing drums as a little kid and stuff, and we
Speaker 3: say little kid, I was probably in the teenage years.
Speaker 3: If you're not in sync and in time as a choir,
Speaker 3: it's just a mess. And I think that even sort
Speaker 3: of got me going a bit with you know, got
Speaker 3: to be on the river, you know, on the beat
Speaker 3: and everything. You know.
Speaker 1: So basically singing with a choir taught you how to
Speaker 1: blend with other voices.
Speaker 3: And I guess, yeah, I mean, I'm still not very
Speaker 3: good at that now, to be honest, I'm one of
Speaker 3: those archetypal kind of big head from a person singers
Speaker 3: that when I'm try and do harmonies, I'll do the
Speaker 3: harmony and I'm great and then at some part I
Speaker 3: go off lost it now and I start singing the yeah,
Speaker 3: because I find it really hard to do it. And
Speaker 3: even when I do, you know, when I'm working on
Speaker 3: something at home and I'm just putting harmonies in and stuff,
Speaker 3: sometimes have to map them out on a piano and
Speaker 3: then bang them into my head, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: literally to be able to get me singing the harmony.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So so by the mid seventies, and I've heard, you know,
Speaker 1: this narrative from people that grew up in London at
Speaker 1: the time. I mean, so many types of music sort
Speaker 1: of avenues could be traveled by, Like of course, you know,
Speaker 1: the the punk movement is you know, is ramping up.
Speaker 1: Then the sort of I guess you could say mod
Speaker 1: movement or or you know, whatever they call Rudy's or
Speaker 1: whatever you would categorize the specials or madness that those
Speaker 1: types of whatever sky groups or whatever. And then of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I know about the history of Northern soul
Speaker 1: and generally just you know, the respect that the UK
Speaker 1: has for soul music in general. And of course you
Speaker 1: know seventy seven is where disco is also having its moment.
Speaker 1: What grabbed you? I mean to be eleven at that time,
Speaker 1: when there's like five options to go to. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what grabbed you the most?
Speaker 3: I think. I think I've always still I always have
Speaker 3: responded to singers full stop, because I think as much
Speaker 3: as I admire I mean, you know, possible getting to that,
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I mean, because I started playing
Speaker 3: drums as a kid, I always loved fans that had
Speaker 3: interesting drummers. So the Police that he loved, and they
Speaker 3: weren't punk, but they sort of came out of the thing.
Speaker 3: Phil Collins is one of my all time favorite drummers
Speaker 3: and he's not even remembered as a drummer at the time.
Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. But anyway, but they go, they go. I
Speaker 3: know that. I think certainly with my sister, played a
Speaker 3: lot of Motown at home, and a lot of Northern
Speaker 3: Soul as well, actually, and they're very, very very similar.
Speaker 3: And to be honest, I struggled to find out which
Speaker 3: is which half the time, but whatever, and all of
Speaker 3: those records and very much about the vocals. I mean,
Speaker 3: you were mentioned in Motown before about when they used
Speaker 3: to go out and do tours and stuff like a
Speaker 3: review tour and stuff. Any one of those vocalists would,
Speaker 3: in my opinion anyway, kind of wipe the floor with
Speaker 3: a lot of people who've had the chance to make
Speaker 3: records since. To be honest, I think Motown was an
Speaker 3: absolute golden era for vocalists. Was even though the songwriters
Speaker 3: and producers of those records were incredible and amazing and
Speaker 3: they had such a platform to go from as a singer,
Speaker 3: those voices have stood the test of time forever, and
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a person with a pulse that
Speaker 3: doesn't respond to Motown. And obviously it's the groove, it's
Speaker 3: the feel, it's everything. It's also because Marvin Gay, Diana Ross, whatever,
Speaker 3: you know, name any of them, when they sang you
Speaker 3: didn't question it at all. It was just truly amazing.
Speaker 1: Do you have a memory of your first concert.
Speaker 3: I can't remember which came first. My sister, like I said,
Speaker 3: used to go to gigs all the time. So when
Speaker 3: I was about ten, my sister took me to see
Speaker 3: one was Super Tramp, which is self explanatory for anybody
Speaker 3: who knows Super Tip music, and I'm sure everyone does
Speaker 3: unless you've been living under a rock as a ten
Speaker 3: year old kid. I was completely blown away, but blown
Speaker 3: away in loads of different ways. Because I was ten,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't really have been there, perhaps, but I think
Speaker 3: she used to think I was like fashion accessory to
Speaker 3: bring a ten year old kid to a gig where
Speaker 3: everyone's kind of smoking different things and what have you
Speaker 3: and hanging out and deliver. But it just blew me away.
Speaker 3: And their music I think is because the other band,
Speaker 3: and I don't know which was first, was a band
Speaker 3: called Camel and that's a progressive rock band. And I've
Speaker 3: said this before, who have flute solos longer than some
Speaker 3: of the records I've made, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like, yeah, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't about vocalists. It was about the music.
Speaker 3: It was, you know. And but the super Tramp One
Speaker 3: I think was amazing for so many different reasons. They were,
Speaker 3: well still are, but they were such an amazing band
Speaker 3: because they had great, like sort of pop songs. Maybe
Speaker 3: that's not a fair term to call them, but they
Speaker 3: were very popular. So there were pop songs, but the
Speaker 3: instrumentation and the way they used to go about it
Speaker 3: was really quirky, was really different and kind of a
Speaker 3: bit like nothing else, but to me anyway listening to it.
Speaker 3: So I came out of well both of those geeks,
Speaker 3: but I can't remember which one was first. And I
Speaker 3: think it was a game changing for me. I kind
Speaker 3: of thought, I want to do that because when the
Speaker 3: lights went down, it turned on the smoke machine and
Speaker 3: then the colored lights come on and it all even
Speaker 3: back then, you know, going to a gig was like
Speaker 3: this mystical, mythical experience. It was like something. It was
Speaker 3: like another world, you know. So yeah, so I think
Speaker 3: both of those were game changes a big time.
Speaker 1: The first band you were in it was called FBI.
Speaker 3: Well that was the second one. I was in a
Speaker 3: band called give Way because we have a sign in
Speaker 3: the UK. You may have it in America. I can't remember.
Speaker 3: It's a triangle it says give Way. And our bass
Speaker 3: player Jeff, stole one on the way home from somewhere
Speaker 3: and stuck it in front of my drums and we said, oh,
Speaker 3: that's what we're called then, right, Okay, So yeah, that
Speaker 3: was That was when I was still at high school,
Speaker 3: as you call it, And there were three bands who
Speaker 3: did an audition for the music teacher to see who
Speaker 3: could play at the Valentine's Disco, right, And we were
Speaker 3: like fifteen going on sixteen at this point. And I
Speaker 3: was never one of the cool kids at school. I
Speaker 3: wasn't really a geek. I wasn't like, you know, a
Speaker 3: swap or whatever. I just I just got through school,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean. I just kept my
Speaker 3: head down and got through it. The other couple of bands,
Speaker 3: one of them was all the cool kids, like there
Speaker 3: was a catching of the football soccer team captain of
Speaker 3: this day, you know, the good looking guys. They had
Speaker 3: all the nice guys. But you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: they were the cool kids, you know, and we weren't.
Speaker 3: But we could play. So we did the audition and
Speaker 3: we blew the other bands away. I was singing So
Speaker 3: Lonely by the Police from the drums, which was like
Speaker 3: the coolest thing in the world because it was like,
Speaker 3: you know, we were doing police songs and they were
Speaker 3: doing something that wasn't anywhere near school of that. And
Speaker 3: we did a couple of other things. We also did
Speaker 3: a Joy Division song, which again was like just the
Speaker 3: coolest thing in the world. I think it's you know,
Speaker 3: the teachers were not expecting that at all. And so
Speaker 3: we got the gig and I got five Valentine's Cards
Speaker 3: that year.
Speaker 1: Are you the lead singer of the group or well, no.
Speaker 3: No, no, the bass player Jeff was. But I used
Speaker 3: to sing a couple from the drums, and.
Speaker 1: And again always was then hard to sing so lonely.
Speaker 3: I sang it an octave lower. Yeah, yeah, and I
Speaker 3: just think again, talk about pivotal moments and stuff. Not
Speaker 3: because I've got the Valentine's cards, but we were We
Speaker 3: walked around school for the next two weeks as if
Speaker 3: we were different people, like people. I'm not we we
Speaker 3: didn't have high five back then. I don't think. I
Speaker 3: don't think it was a thing to high five somebody.
Speaker 3: But it was like people just kind of like, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, just getting acknowledged in the corridors
Speaker 3: at school or right in the playground or what I mean.
Speaker 3: We were just we became different people overnight because we've
Speaker 3: done this gig, and it was like, yeah, I don't know, really,
Speaker 3: it was very It was very interesting I think in
Speaker 3: terms of your ego and just just the absolute joy
Speaker 3: of walking off stage going wow, we just we just
Speaker 3: did that. That just happened. People actually listened to dance
Speaker 3: and you know, so, yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I went through that in high school. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: the band that blew everyone away. I was one of
Speaker 1: the bands that got blown away because I went to
Speaker 1: school with boys the men. So yeah, so I still
Speaker 1: say they cheated, but you know they you know, they
Speaker 1: had tuxedos and glitter and top hats and canes and everything,
Speaker 1: and they were singing. They were singing new addition songs,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like all my hopes and dreams
Speaker 1: to impress, like who I wanted to impress is it
Speaker 1: went down the drain, because like could.
Speaker 3: They could they sing that great? Then? As well?
Speaker 1: Dude? They were? They were, Yes, they were. If ever,
Speaker 1: there was a group of people ready for their close up.
Speaker 1: It was boys to men. And the thing was that
Speaker 1: after that Valentine's thing was over, Like girls were treating
Speaker 1: them like it was you know, you ever see the
Speaker 1: I Want to Hold Your Hand movie, first film about
Speaker 1: the Beatles. Yeah, yeah, like they were chasing them in
Speaker 1: like seventh period and all this stuff, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's just them, Like what the hell, they're not stars,
Speaker 1: they go to our school. But yeah, they after that performance,
Speaker 1: things were never the same again.
Speaker 3: Listen, I feel your pain. I also think it's a weird, weird,
Speaker 3: weird thing. I was not one of the kind of
Speaker 3: cute kids at school or good looking kids by any
Speaker 3: stretch of the imagination, right, But I think what happens
Speaker 3: is when you've been on TV and on a record
Speaker 3: cover and on what have you, the media themselves start
Speaker 3: calling your handsome or start calling you something. I don't
Speaker 3: know what, but you know, and and it's like, now
Speaker 3: you got this wrong. I'm exactly the same as I
Speaker 3: was last week. It's just about a hit record. But
Speaker 3: I mean, that is pretty crazy to be at school
Speaker 3: with boys to men and them singing the way they do.
Speaker 3: If they were singing like that back then, that must
Speaker 3: have been wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had every grown the palm their hands. Were
Speaker 1: you thinking of a music career by this point or
Speaker 1: was it just like, you know, our graduate school and
Speaker 1: then go to university and no, I think I wanted to.
Speaker 3: I think my upbringing was kind of what was it.
Speaker 3: I'm from a very working class area, but my dad
Speaker 3: had a little business. He ended up having a little
Speaker 3: garden center and we all we all have two brothers
Speaker 3: and my sister and all of us kind of off
Speaker 3: and on did work there. And I used to work
Speaker 3: there in school, holidays and after school and all the
Speaker 3: rest of it. And so we were lucky in the
Speaker 3: respect that we did kind of have a little job
Speaker 3: to go to. He didn't have a big he didn't
Speaker 3: employ lots of people or anything. I think he employed
Speaker 3: one or two other people, and then we kind of
Speaker 3: worked on stuff. And where we were from was kind
Speaker 3: of hit very very badly in the mid and late
Speaker 3: eighties in terms of the way that the world changed.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't we don't manufacture so much in
Speaker 3: the UK anymore, like like Americas to that degree, you know,
Speaker 3: and we don't do a lot, you know, coal mines
Speaker 3: and all the all the old things.
Speaker 1: That industry that were still hanging on too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and people, certainly from the little town where I'm
Speaker 3: from and a lot of towns around it, those things
Speaker 3: don't exist anymore. And it was in that transition period,
Speaker 3: you know. So we were really lucky that my dad
Speaker 3: did have a little business and it survived and everything,
Speaker 3: but we didn't really have a lot of money or
Speaker 3: anything like that. And I think for me, I just
Speaker 3: I wanted to I wanted to get out of that
Speaker 3: little town and I wanted to go and do something
Speaker 3: with my life. I don't know what that meant, and
Speaker 3: I think the truth of it was I kind of
Speaker 3: felt that music was a way of possibly doing that,
Speaker 3: and I did love music, don't get me wrong, I did.
Speaker 3: You know, I got a drunk it when I was fifteen,
Speaker 3: and I was never ever off it, just ever. I
Speaker 3: used to play in my dad's greenhouse, which he used
Speaker 3: to have this fairly big glasshouse, you know, where the
Speaker 3: plants were and all the rest of it. And he
Speaker 3: allowed myself to have a drunket there and my two
Speaker 3: friends to come and play there as well, which is
Speaker 3: we made an awful racket, even though we were you know,
Speaker 3: we thought we were great. But so that was pretty lucky.
Speaker 3: But I also think my mum and dad divorced when
Speaker 3: I was really really young, and I didn't the happiest
Speaker 3: of home lives, if you know what I mean. It
Speaker 3: wasn't It wasn't tough. It wasn't horrible in what a
Speaker 3: lot of people have been tough, but it definitely left
Speaker 3: the hole, there's no doubt about it. My mom and
Speaker 3: dad they both passed away now they never spoke to
Speaker 3: each other. Ever. If my mom rang the house, my
Speaker 3: dad would just kind of like he just put the
Speaker 3: phone receiver down and walk away. And that's how we
Speaker 3: knew it was my mom. And I was brought I
Speaker 3: was brought up by my dad. I lived with my dad,
Speaker 3: because it's a long story, but I saw my mom
Speaker 3: all the time. But I think I also felt somehow,
Speaker 3: even at that age, and I'm not saying I actually
Speaker 3: knew this, but I think I felt it somewhere that
Speaker 3: music and getting out of that was going to take
Speaker 3: me away from that, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: It was going to give me a different life where
Speaker 3: I could sort of start again. And I think sometimes
Speaker 3: if you if you brought up in a fairly unhappy house,
Speaker 3: which I was, you just want to kind of like
Speaker 3: turn the key on the door and walk into another
Speaker 3: space and just leave it where it is, do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. I'm not saying you can't ever
Speaker 3: go back there and just say, just just start again.
Speaker 3: And I did. I did feel that music was going
Speaker 3: to be the escape to do that, you know, to
Speaker 3: be coming getting a successful bound and just start again,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: So what did the moment happened for you where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm pursuing this.
Speaker 3: I'd have to say I was about seventeen, I think,
Speaker 3: because the band that I got in next was called FBI.
Speaker 3: And the first group I was in that we were
Speaker 3: in for a little while. One of the guys went
Speaker 3: to university and so we just and he's still a
Speaker 3: friend today. Actually I see him for coffee like once
Speaker 3: or two weeks were he went to university and you
Speaker 3: know all the rest of it, and we just split up.
Speaker 3: So I joined this other group and they were like
Speaker 3: they were called FBI because of it goes back to
Speaker 3: a group called the Shadows, who were the backing band
Speaker 3: for Cliff Richard. Do you know who Cliff Richard is?
Speaker 3: He's an English Cliff. Yeah, it goes through. So he
Speaker 3: was like the English Elvis if you like, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? He was like the you know, and
Speaker 3: and they had a song called FBI. I think I
Speaker 3: think that's where it comes from. And the guy who
Speaker 3: was the lead guitarist in this in this band that
Speaker 3: I joined called FBI, was a Shadows freak. He absolutely
Speaker 3: loved them, and so that his dad. I think he
Speaker 3: got it from his dad. Really, so they were doing
Speaker 3: covers like that. They were doing a lot of early
Speaker 3: early Beatle songs, which are fantastic and great, don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, but I would have loved to have been
Speaker 3: playing some of the later Beatles songs, but we weren't.
Speaker 3: We were playing the really really early ones, which is
Speaker 3: still great, like I say, and for a young band
Speaker 3: to learn to learn them anyway. And I got in
Speaker 3: that band as the drummer, and I sort of became
Speaker 3: the singer because I wanted us to kind of try
Speaker 3: and write some of our own material. And I borrowed
Speaker 3: a guitar from one of the guys and he showed
Speaker 3: me the three chords, and so I turned up at
Speaker 3: rehearsal a few weeks later and said, I've written some songs.
Speaker 3: Should we thrash them out? And I sort of became
Speaker 3: the singer because of that, really, because they're all looking
Speaker 3: at me, going, well, who's going to sing that? You know?
Speaker 3: And they said, well, you are so so that that's it.
Speaker 3: So we got a drummer and then from that point,
Speaker 3: I think I just sort of became the singer by default, really,
Speaker 3: And at that point I thought, if we're going to
Speaker 3: make this happen. I'm gonna have to push and drive this.
Speaker 3: And I think when you started doing your own songs,
Speaker 3: you think that's a different thing. That's not just earning
Speaker 3: living on a Friday and a Saturday and having a
Speaker 3: regular job. Do you know what I mean? Like doing
Speaker 3: your job and then earning a bit of extra money.
Speaker 3: That's how do we how do we become how do
Speaker 3: we become known? How do we get people to hear
Speaker 3: these songs? And that that at that point is like, well,
Speaker 3: that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1: Then you know, by this point are you developing the
Speaker 1: voice that we know now or you're still trying to
Speaker 1: find well.
Speaker 3: I think I think one of the things is I
Speaker 3: think in the eighties or late eighties, a lot a
Speaker 3: lot of British music there was there was more kind
Speaker 3: of it was pop, definitely pop, and it was in
Speaker 3: the charts. It was successful, but it was a lot
Speaker 3: of people sang with a much lower tone or a
Speaker 3: lower register with their voice. It was very normal today
Speaker 3: and I think for twenty five years or more, everything's
Speaker 3: very very high with male singers most of the time.
Speaker 3: And I think back then a lot of records had
Speaker 3: a lot of for instance, the guy called Edwin Collins
Speaker 3: who was in a bank called Orange Juice, right, and
Speaker 3: he had this point, yeah, yeah, And there was a
Speaker 3: lot of them. There was I'm trying to think by
Speaker 3: now and I can't because I'm on the spot to
Speaker 3: think of them. But what I'm trying to say that
Speaker 3: there were a lot of voices that were deeper and
Speaker 3: it was kind of cool to be that. It was
Speaker 3: edgy and it was cool. But then when I listened to,
Speaker 3: for instance, if I listened to like Bill Withers, Bill
Speaker 3: Withers is obviously the greatest. He's written some of the greatest.
Speaker 3: One of the things I absolutely loved and still love
Speaker 3: about Bill Withers is that he's written some of the
Speaker 3: biggest songs in the world that five year old kids
Speaker 3: to eighty five year old grandma's now everybody knows. They've
Speaker 3: been in movies and everything. But he could probably be
Speaker 3: sat next to you eating a bowl of pasta in
Speaker 3: a nice restaurant somewhere, and I think ninety ninety of
Speaker 3: the people in the room wouldn't be able to recognize him.
Speaker 3: And I think that was for me, was like an
Speaker 3: amazing thing about him. Really, But that again that's another
Speaker 3: another universe to walk into. But I think but he
Speaker 3: had all the soul in the world, his lyrics, the
Speaker 3: actual music itself and the way he played and everything.
Speaker 3: But his voice obviously was incredibly soulful. But he didn't
Speaker 3: really do tricks with his voice. He didn't. He didn't
Speaker 3: do lots of trills and lots of this, that and
Speaker 3: the other, which a lot of people do associate with
Speaker 3: soul and R and B and everything. He didn't do that.
Speaker 3: He was for me, he was like a folk singer.
Speaker 3: Just theres a lot of soul in it, a lot
Speaker 3: of soul, and so I think somebody like him. And
Speaker 3: even though Luther could obviously do anything of his voice,
Speaker 3: and I remember seeing him live and walking out of
Speaker 3: the room and just sort of going, well, just forget
Speaker 3: it then, because that's that's that's it. There it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see, and in your personal time you tried to
Speaker 1: do a who.
Speaker 3: To be honest, that no, it's the answer. I very
Speaker 3: often still sing to this day. I will always sing
Speaker 3: never too much to my wife if we're ever in
Speaker 3: the car, that comes on or what have you, because
Speaker 3: that's one of our songs and I always sort of
Speaker 3: sing along with it. But he was one of those
Speaker 3: I don't care what anybody says about anybody else. He
Speaker 3: was one of those singers that it didn't matter what
Speaker 3: where he was in the whole range of the human voice,
Speaker 3: it sounded good everywhere. He could do anything, that guy.
Speaker 3: You know, so I.
Speaker 1: Got to know Luther's longtime manager, Sheep Gordon. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize how big Luther was in the UK. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: the point where I didn't realize that he could sell
Speaker 1: out like Wembley Arena.
Speaker 3: Wembley was the gig back in the day. Wembley was
Speaker 3: the gig in London. To go to Wembley Arena, Luthor,
Speaker 3: I think, did I think multiple nights there?
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, he did, like eight or nine nights there,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he was telling me that basically Luther had
Speaker 1: a more devoted and diverse fan.
Speaker 3: Base for sure, for sure over there then he.
Speaker 1: You know here, I mean here, yes, he could still
Speaker 1: you know, sell out Massive Square Garden all those things
Speaker 1: like maybe one, two, three nights in a row. But
Speaker 1: you know, he it took him a long time to
Speaker 1: sort of cross over to a pop market, you know,
Speaker 1: like here and now or do you give me the
Speaker 1: reason like there was occasional songs that made the top ten.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I didn't realize until like I finally
Speaker 1: watched like Live and Wimbley and realized that, Oh I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that Luther.
Speaker 3: It was huge and also he I think he and
Speaker 3: and a lot of other artists around him. But I
Speaker 3: mean he for me motally is the pinnacles, no doubt really.
Speaker 3: But I mean James Ingram was really big in the
Speaker 3: UK as well, Jeffrey Osborne, A lot of those singers
Speaker 3: around that time that that, you know, I think a
Speaker 3: lot probably a lot of ballads were bigger as well,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean. I think that was
Speaker 3: what's probably crossed them over to some degree as well.
Speaker 3: You know, But we used to go we would go,
Speaker 3: I say, we're a group of friends, some of which
Speaker 3: most of which were in the second band I was in.
Speaker 3: We would go to a little night when we'd go
Speaker 3: to different clubs around us actually in different towns and
Speaker 3: into Manchester and stuff. But in our little town of Newton,
Speaker 3: Leuillow's we have a little cricket club and it's been
Speaker 3: there forever and they used to have Monday nights and
Speaker 3: Friday nights and the Monday nights were under eighteen and
Speaker 3: the Friday were over eighteen, so there was alcohol and
Speaker 3: all the rest of it. But they also used to
Speaker 3: have occasionally on a Friday night, they had a guy
Speaker 3: called keV Edwards who was a DJ in the town
Speaker 3: I'm from, and he would only he would only play
Speaker 3: records that I'm not saying all of them were imported,
Speaker 3: but he always used to have records before anybody else,
Speaker 3: so he would play and we all used to go
Speaker 3: and we dress up. We wore jackets at times. This
Speaker 3: is in the this is in the sort of eighty
Speaker 3: five eighty six, right, we would go and wear jackets
Speaker 3: and ties. Well I'm saying, yeah, eighty five eighty six
Speaker 3: for sure, cheap ones. You know, we've just bought these
Speaker 3: jackets the ties with god knows where, do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. But we'd all go and we're dancing
Speaker 3: lines and all the girls, especially you, dance moves and
Speaker 3: different routines, and a certain song would come on and
Speaker 3: for instance, let's say, I'm not sure when Never too
Speaker 3: Much came out exactly, but let's say that that song
Speaker 3: came on. Some of the girls had actually even have
Speaker 3: a routine for it.
Speaker 1: Oh really, so it was choreographed.
Speaker 3: And that's not just my little town where I'm from.
Speaker 3: That is especially that was a very big thing in
Speaker 3: the north of England, but also in the South if
Speaker 3: you speak to people about I mean not just lead
Speaker 3: of Vantos obviously, because I like I say, he was
Speaker 3: probably the biggest one to cross over in so many
Speaker 3: different ways. I think a lot of that music that
Speaker 3: was around the cane from America, Black American soul music
Speaker 3: was a massive part of our getting down and having
Speaker 3: a good night and having a good you know, we
Speaker 3: wouldn't even drink alcohol. We'd just go out and drink
Speaker 3: an orangey sort of coca and what have you, because
Speaker 3: we wanted to go and dance to music and that
Speaker 3: was a big thing for us. It really really was.
Speaker 1: But an idea now we just do it on TikTok.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Take us on the path
Speaker 1: that leads you to actually pursuing a solo career and
Speaker 1: meeting with Stark It.
Speaker 3: Well, we were the second Memos in FBI. We weren't
Speaker 3: really making waves exactly, but we were getting back to
Speaker 3: gigs and we were earning a bit of money. And
Speaker 3: we were this, that and the other. We'd had one
Speaker 3: or two record labels coming have a look at us,
Speaker 3: but they were a bit you know, we were too
Speaker 3: naive really and we didn't really have it together really.
Speaker 3: But anyway, one of the guys who came up to
Speaker 3: see us actually saw us in what we used to
Speaker 3: call a battle of the bands, where you would you
Speaker 3: would have you know, over over maybe a couple of
Speaker 3: nights or even a couple of months, on different nights,
Speaker 3: banks would come together from an area and we'd all
Speaker 3: be competing for a prize basically, but also it was
Speaker 3: like little audiences you can get together and it's a
Speaker 3: judge as in one of those, and he requested that
Speaker 3: he really would like to see us against In other words,
Speaker 3: we did a showcase for him with a couple of
Speaker 3: other bands, and it sort of turns out that we
Speaker 3: kind of did that really because he liked my voice,
Speaker 3: heard something in my voice that he thought that there
Speaker 3: was some potential in it and he could do something
Speaker 3: with it. So he asked me to come down to London,
Speaker 3: and I did with the two guys who were kind
Speaker 3: of managing us at that point, and I didn't really
Speaker 3: exactly grasp who he was or what he was, but
Speaker 3: he had red leather pants and he had a Jaguar.
Speaker 3: That was enough for me. That was enough red leather
Speaker 3: pants and a Jaguar, I mean, come on, Yeah. So
Speaker 3: I went down to London to meet him and he
Speaker 3: kind of explained that, look, he wasn't interested in signing
Speaker 3: the band. He didn't really want to work with bands.
Speaker 3: He wanted to work with vocalists because he was part
Speaker 3: of this trio that were and they weren't really famous
Speaker 3: at that point. They hadn't really had any really big
Speaker 3: hits at that point. They were just on the cusp
Speaker 3: of it. They were right on the edge of it.
Speaker 3: But I didn't know that, but I kind of thought, well,
Speaker 3: I signed a little deal with their production company after
Speaker 3: about six months of chatting a couple of times about it,
Speaker 3: because I didn't really want to leave my friends, which
Speaker 3: they were they were, you know, my closest friends, and
Speaker 3: arrested it. But in the end, I thought, look, I
Speaker 3: drive the vand I write the songs. Sometimes I have
Speaker 3: to get people out of bed, so I'm just going
Speaker 3: to give this a try. And I did.
Speaker 1: And how hard was it breaking the news to them? Though?
Speaker 3: Well, that wasn't comfortable at all. I thought one or
Speaker 3: two of us were going to come to actual you know,
Speaker 3: fists and what everybody didn't. They didn't and it was all,
Speaker 3: you know, but it wasn't great, I'm honest. And at
Speaker 3: one point we were just going to try and keep
Speaker 3: the band together and I was going to pursue this
Speaker 3: and see what happened and see if we could marry
Speaker 3: the two together or get something going with a single
Speaker 3: or two and then see what we could do. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I signed the deal with them after after a little while,
Speaker 3: and then and then amazingly I had a number one
Speaker 3: record with an artist called Princess number one, so.
Speaker 1: You know that too, yeah, starters adding wait see some
Speaker 1: of the UK.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, dog Season Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: And number one Damn I did that.
Speaker 3: So I was kind of around. They had their own
Speaker 3: studio and I was kind of around in the process
Speaker 3: of them. I'm not saying I was on the sessions.
Speaker 3: I wasn't, but I was kind of around a little bit.
Speaker 3: And so they had this number one record and everyone
Speaker 3: in the business in the UK went, what is that?
Speaker 3: Who is that? What's who was? Who she was? Who
Speaker 3: produced it? We wrote it What's going on? Because it
Speaker 3: was quite it was a big record, it was a
Speaker 3: number one record, but I mean it was also quite
Speaker 3: a sort of an ear turn. It was like, what
Speaker 3: is that?
Speaker 2: Because it was?
Speaker 3: It was? It was it. It had like a toe
Speaker 3: in a lot of different places, if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, a finger in lots of pies. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't I'm not saying it wasn't R and B,
Speaker 3: but it sort of wasn't. And it was very British sounding,
Speaker 3: but it also sounded kind of like she was a
Speaker 3: great singer. Obviously is a great thing, you know, but
Speaker 3: I'm saying it it could have been. It was a
Speaker 3: lot of things, you know. Anyway, it was it was
Speaker 3: to me, it.
Speaker 1: Was like a less song. It wasn't a ballot, but
Speaker 1: it also wasn't a jam. But I always heard it
Speaker 1: in clubs and even even the chord structures and stuff like.
Speaker 1: It was very dreamy sounding and very very unique song.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 3: I think it's a cool record. I think so anyway,
Speaker 3: So and at the time they're also working they just
Speaker 3: started working around that time on Dead or Alive, so
Speaker 3: that you know, you spin me around record that whole
Speaker 3: album and everything right and the record industry I think,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going back. I'm kind of putting the thoughts.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I had the thoughts at the time.
Speaker 3: I'm just remembering what was going on and what I
Speaker 3: must have been thinking. But they they were looking at meeting,
Speaker 3: we'll sign this kid, and I think they'd signed somebody
Speaker 3: else as well, but we're not going to get to
Speaker 3: work on them because all of a sudden we're like
Speaker 3: beginning to be a little bit hot as producer writers,
Speaker 3: and people are asking for us to do things. So
Speaker 3: we can't start doing our own projects because people are
Speaker 3: throwing money out us and we need to pay the bills.
Speaker 3: So in a nutshell, people kind of sat me down.
Speaker 3: I said, look, we're gonna, you know, we are going
Speaker 3: to make a record, but we've got to get on
Speaker 3: with this thing right now. Do you want to come
Speaker 3: and live in London and you become like an assistant,
Speaker 3: hang out of the studios, get to see how we
Speaker 3: do things. Because I was greenish Glass, I was pretty nervous.
Speaker 3: I don't have to live like twice in my life
Speaker 3: before then anyway, you know, And so I got to
Speaker 3: live and I ended up living it. It's flat for
Speaker 3: the first weeks of it and everything, and I just
Speaker 3: used to go into the so I would he'd be
Speaker 3: driving his Porsche, because he had a Porsche as well
Speaker 3: at this point, so he must have been doing something right.
Speaker 3: He'd be driving this Porsch and he'd be on his
Speaker 3: massive eighties phone having his conversations, and I'm sat next
Speaker 3: to him, his nineteen year old kid, going, I have
Speaker 3: no idea about the languages using because it was all
Speaker 3: about record deals and A and R people, which I
Speaker 3: didn't even know what an A and R man was
Speaker 3: at that point. All this different stuff and I'm just
Speaker 3: trying to soak it up and learn, you know. So
Speaker 3: I ended up being at their building i'd say for
Speaker 3: nine months, maybe even a year, and I made tea, coffee,
Speaker 3: got the sandwiches like all the other kids did in
Speaker 3: the building, you know, all the tapeops as it used
Speaker 3: to be. And then Banana Arma came in the building
Speaker 3: and they made some great records for them, and it
Speaker 3: just kept going. So they made all this and then
Speaker 3: there was this sister's duo called melon Kin who they
Speaker 3: had a massive success with as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, first the Weekend, Yeah, there you go. He did
Speaker 1: that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, they did that.
Speaker 2: Live, but it still like is that team and it's
Speaker 2: still alive?
Speaker 3: Yeah the three yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: They don't work together anymore, but they're all still going
Speaker 3: yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay yeah.
Speaker 1: Dude, I have no clue that this was coming from London,
Speaker 1: Like in my head, like I thought this was all
Speaker 1: like New York stuff, like.
Speaker 3: Well, they would be they would be really happy to
Speaker 3: hear that, to be honest, because I think I think
Speaker 3: the thing with those guys what used to frustrate me
Speaker 3: at times later on this is is that they they
Speaker 3: got pigeonholed, but they almost did it themselves. They kind
Speaker 3: of created a sound and went that's what we do
Speaker 3: and that's it, right, And I think artists fitted into
Speaker 3: that sound more than then, but in the early beginnings
Speaker 3: of it, I don't think they did. If you listen
Speaker 3: to that same my Number one record, you listen to
Speaker 3: Spin Me Around, you listen to Melon Kin, they have
Speaker 3: very three, very different sounding records, different artists, different everything,
Speaker 3: and I think they wanted to emulate like a motown,
Speaker 3: But unfortunately for me, I think they didn't then go
Speaker 3: out and try and find Diana Ross, Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 3: They thought they were good enough to get anyone to
Speaker 3: sing their songs and still have that thing, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 1: So at what point are they ready to put you in?
Speaker 1: Like are you ready?
Speaker 3: One of the things that one of the issues was,
Speaker 3: well this is well, I'll just explain this for a second,
Speaker 3: because right, so they'd signed me to their production deal, right,
Speaker 3: their little production company, which sort of went on on
Speaker 3: the back burner. It kind of got shoved to the
Speaker 3: side because they were producing major hit records for artists
Speaker 3: and the you know, with big record deals, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. So Pete Waterman said, right, I need
Speaker 3: to sign Rick to a major record label because this
Speaker 3: is the way this is going to work. Really them
Speaker 3: doing it themselves. They did do eventually, but I think
Speaker 3: they just thought, we just need to get him signed
Speaker 3: to a major record label and give it a really
Speaker 3: big push and all the rest of it. I think
Speaker 3: they were seeing what was happening with some of those
Speaker 3: records and thinking, right now, at the end of the eighties,
Speaker 3: you need to be with a major label. That's the
Speaker 3: way to do that, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 3: so we went to see a guy called Peter Robinson
Speaker 3: who was the head of A and R at RCA
Speaker 3: in the UK. Lovely guy. I've just just met him
Speaker 3: again recently a few times, actually, lovely guy. And he said, well,
Speaker 3: this is all great to Pete Waterman, but I need
Speaker 3: to hear Rick sing in front of me. I need
Speaker 3: to see him sing songs here, sing these just sing
Speaker 3: some songs from me. I can't sign the guy just
Speaker 3: because you know he's going to be your next artist
Speaker 3: and you say he's great and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: What I wow, exactly, that doesn't happen now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so we're in the car, we're in the
Speaker 3: Porsche on the way back, and he's on the phone, right,
Speaker 3: and he said to Matt and Mike, which is stocking
Speaker 3: aching and they are the two musicians in the threesome. Really,
Speaker 3: Pete's more an R and ideas and all that said, right,
Speaker 3: you need to do like a little showcase with Rick
Speaker 3: singing for Pete Robinson at RCA. And they both went, Nope,
Speaker 3: that's not what we do. We're making records. So Pete said, right,
Speaker 3: you know those demos you've got rich and I've done
Speaker 3: these little demos in a four track studio back in
Speaker 3: the hometown where from I went up north, went home,
Speaker 3: got the vocals taken off, brought them down on a cassette,
Speaker 3: played the cassette for Pete Waterman, Peter Robinson from RTA,
Speaker 3: a couple of other people, one of my kind of
Speaker 3: managers at the time, and I sang on an s
Speaker 3: M fifty eight microphone, which to everybody listening, he doesn't
Speaker 3: know is the bog standard. That's what you're using it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: there you go, no reverb. And it just came out
Speaker 3: of the shitty speaker that I'd found in the basement
Speaker 3: because I was one of the tapops making tea and
Speaker 3: getting the biscuits right. So how you where your here was?
Speaker 3: And I sang in the reception to four of my
Speaker 3: songs that I'd done right. I played everything, demo and everything.
Speaker 3: So as soon as I've finished the songs, Peter Robinson
Speaker 3: from RCA says, who wrote these songs? And Pete Waterman
Speaker 3: at this point has got no intention of me ever
Speaker 3: writing a song, said, oh, he's a great songwriter as well,
Speaker 3: so because obviously he knew within a second that that
Speaker 3: that was the that was his way that he was
Speaker 3: going to get a major deal the artist that they
Speaker 3: signed and owned and you know whatever. So I ended up.
Speaker 3: I ended up from that point getting like I got
Speaker 3: four songs on the first album. I didn't get a
Speaker 3: single on the first album, but I got four songs,
Speaker 3: and I got like a few more on the next
Speaker 3: record and stuff like that. But I was sort of
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I was getting to do my demos.
Speaker 3: I think it already was, actually, but I was getting
Speaker 3: to do like, really was getting to do my demos
Speaker 3: on like an SSL board with an engineer who last
Speaker 3: week had been making a number one record with Dead
Speaker 3: or Alive or whatever. And I'm doing my demos like
Speaker 3: that because that's just the way it was, you know.
Speaker 3: And I used to do them at the weekend or
Speaker 3: through the night. And so I can't remember what we
Speaker 3: were talking about to girls because I was getting excited
Speaker 3: again remembering all that. But anyway, it was like a
Speaker 3: mad It was a mad one of those moments where
Speaker 3: it's like I'm just going to sing their songs and
Speaker 3: that's cool. We'll just see where it goes to. Okay,
Speaker 3: now my songs are involved, and they were naive songs.
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong. They really really were. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I was really lucky, I think, to
Speaker 3: be at the stockaching Waterman moment where it exploded and
Speaker 3: they became this huge thing. And even though it hung
Speaker 3: around for almost a year making tea and getting the
Speaker 3: sandwiches and tidying up the room, you know, me doing
Speaker 3: all that stuff, I also got to do a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. Like I used to go to the pub
Speaker 3: every night with the guys and I was allowed to
Speaker 3: sit on their table while they talked about, you know,
Speaker 3: how to produce this, and they talk about, well have
Speaker 3: you heard this new record that kicked on the way
Speaker 3: that that was this or this baseline is amazing or
Speaker 3: what I mean. And it was it was like a
Speaker 3: like doing an internship. But I just didn't realize I
Speaker 3: was doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, were you around for like one of the
Speaker 1: songwriting sessions when they're putting songs together or is it
Speaker 1: always just here sing this?
Speaker 3: I mean no, I mean they're never going to give
Speaker 3: you up. For instance, the first, you know, my first
Speaker 3: song and biggest one. Obviously they'd hired a guy called
Speaker 3: Ian kern Or. He was a he wasn't a programmer,
Speaker 3: but he became a programmer for them, and I mean
Speaker 3: programming the loose terms of He was an amazing keyboard
Speaker 3: player and he you know, put tracks together, following stuff
Speaker 3: and ideas and stuff. So Mike Stock came down to
Speaker 3: his room and I was literally making the coffee. I
Speaker 3: remember it. I had just made a fresh pot of coffee.
Speaker 3: Mike Stock comes down. They just put a fair like computer.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether you guys ever worked with a
Speaker 3: fairlight back in the day, yes, And I was like
Speaker 3: completely blown away by this. I was like, what what
Speaker 3: world are we living in? You know? And so Ian
Speaker 3: set to work, and Mike Stott came down. He put
Speaker 3: the chords in and he kind of sang in the melody,
Speaker 3: the rough melody, you know, and Ian was making some
Speaker 3: notes and all the rest of it. So I just
Speaker 3: kept seeing going the coffee and biscuits and sandwiches or
Speaker 3: whatever he wanted. And I sat there, having just heard
Speaker 3: my first single, and then kind of watched it get
Speaker 3: put together. And then obviously we went upstairs and took
Speaker 3: it into the big room and all the rest of it,
Speaker 3: and you know, and that song went through so many
Speaker 3: transitions because the bassline and the drums were very, very
Speaker 3: different than when they began, and I've got to give
Speaker 3: credit to the Stock and Wantant guys for that, but
Speaker 3: I've got to give more credit to Colonel Abrahams, to
Speaker 3: be honest, because they pinched the bassline from tracks exactly.
Speaker 3: And I think I was kind of one of the
Speaker 3: only artists who was actually part of their setup, if
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. A lot of the other
Speaker 3: artists came in and yeend some of them actually wrote
Speaker 3: with Stock Andky Mortmon or just came into the vocals
Speaker 3: or whatever it was. But I'd literally been round to
Speaker 3: the you know, the greasy spoon cafe to get their
Speaker 3: lunches for the last six months, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: and got the coffee and all the rest of it.
Speaker 3: And I even remember there was one session where a
Speaker 3: guy had come in to do a sax solo on
Speaker 3: a song. It was actually they were doing a cover
Speaker 3: of Ain't Proud to beg by the Temptations because people
Speaker 3: wanted me to sing some songs like that just to
Speaker 3: test my voice out and see whatever. So this guy
Speaker 3: came in to do a solo on it, and he said,
Speaker 3: he said, who's singing that? It's a great voice, that
Speaker 3: who's singing, and Matt Aikin, one of the producers, said,
Speaker 3: don't say too much because he's just walking in now
Speaker 3: with your coffee. It was like, it was so upside
Speaker 3: down that I'm making coffee for the guy who's doing
Speaker 3: the saxophone solo on my god dumb record. But it
Speaker 3: was also it was also pretty amazing because I kind
Speaker 3: of felt a bit more part of it, and I
Speaker 3: felt a bit more. I'm not saying that I earned
Speaker 3: the right to be there, but I think I at
Speaker 3: least I understood a bit more than perhaps sometimes when
Speaker 3: a young kid gets plucked from obscurity, just say right,
Speaker 3: sing this right, off you go. This is the suit
Speaker 3: you're gonna wear, Now, off you go. Do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? I just felt like I kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: You know that that was Marvin's start too. You know,
Speaker 1: he started out at Motown running errands.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Wow, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: Like running erons first, and then like he was like
Speaker 1: house drummer, and then you know, once he started closing
Speaker 1: up to Anna Gordy, then she realized that he had
Speaker 1: a velvety voice and was sort of like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: know you're obviously doing the wrong jobs. You it's time
Speaker 1: that you start singing.
Speaker 3: I don't even imagine that. He's also one of the
Speaker 3: most beautiful looking men that's ever walked the earth. And
Speaker 3: it's like with that the way he looked in that voice,
Speaker 3: like I seen that before.
Speaker 1: You know, that's how he nabbed Anna Gordy to to
Speaker 1: get to the front of the line. So you know,
Speaker 1: and you're well to hear you tell the story. It's
Speaker 1: like you know, you you were just around you run
Speaker 1: an errand you're going to sing the song whatever. At
Speaker 1: what point does it hit you that, like, yo, this
Speaker 1: is making it because it's not like you're one, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know that this song is now going to
Speaker 1: live forever in in you know, past pop culture. But
Speaker 1: it's also over shaddling the fact that you also had
Speaker 1: like eight other you know, top ten hits as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I also think that happens with artists sometimes.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously you can look at greats and I
Speaker 3: don't know how many greats got, and a lot of
Speaker 3: artists and I'll throw myself in that I've got one
Speaker 3: that everyone would remember them from, and then when they
Speaker 3: go on Spotify or what I mean to go, oh,
Speaker 3: I can't remember that one as well, and oh did
Speaker 3: he do that? Didn't know that?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: There's a bit of that going on. But so I
Speaker 3: don't feel any I'm not I don't, I don't know
Speaker 3: any hang ups about. I'm glad I've got that song
Speaker 3: because it sort of opens doors and windows for me
Speaker 3: all the time. So I'm okay with it, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's weird to hear that because most of the
Speaker 1: time I'll run into artists that hate their biggest you know,
Speaker 1: like Nirvana famously stopped playing Smells like teen Spirit the
Speaker 1: last year and a half day. Las Soul hates me
Speaker 1: myself and I I'm working with Mary J. Bligee right now,
Speaker 1: and Jesus h like, you know, the amount of number
Speaker 1: one songs he has were It's like, I don't do
Speaker 1: that no more. I don't do that, no more. I
Speaker 1: don't do that Like it's like good morning.
Speaker 3: I think I think a lot of it, though I
Speaker 3: don't know. We're jumping times frame now, but a lot
Speaker 3: of it goes to the fact that when I kind
Speaker 3: of quit, I was about twenty seven to twenty eight,
Speaker 3: and I've quit for a lot of reasons. I'd had enough.
Speaker 3: I knew the writing was on the wall. To sustain
Speaker 3: any kind of pop career. It's almost impossible, to be honest,
Speaker 3: as we say, there are some greats you've done it,
Speaker 3: but it's so difficult, you know, because it just is.
Speaker 3: And you've got to give everything, everything you've got, time wise,
Speaker 3: effort wise, everything, all your energy everything to it. And
Speaker 3: I was a bit sick of it, and I just
Speaker 3: didn't want to do it anymore. Blah blah, all those reasons.
Speaker 3: I was super lucky I got to do it for
Speaker 3: the time I did, so I didn't sing never going
Speaker 3: to give You Up altogether forever or anything else for
Speaker 3: about fifteen years. The only time I have or maybe more, actually,
Speaker 3: the only time I ever did it was at friend's weddings.
Speaker 3: That's the only time I ever did it right. And
Speaker 3: now I do it at friends kids weddings, which is
Speaker 3: which is even greater to be honest, that really that
Speaker 3: gets me right there that they want me to do that,
Speaker 3: So that's cool. But I didn't sing those songs. I
Speaker 3: didn't sing never going to give You Up, you know,
Speaker 3: night after night or dirt. And I've sort of lived
Speaker 3: a very simple, very comfortable. Thank Evans, and I do
Speaker 3: thank Evans and I'm grateful for that, but a very
Speaker 3: obscure life, if you know what I mean in terms
Speaker 3: of like, you know, I haven't been famous for all
Speaker 3: those years. In terms of that, I mean, I know
Speaker 3: there's been a bit of fame comeback because of Rick
Speaker 3: Rowland and you know whatever. And so I approached singing
Speaker 3: never going to give you up, completely differently I think
Speaker 3: than perhaps artists who've done it for thirty three years.
Speaker 3: I when I came back to it. He's sort of
Speaker 3: happen in two ways. A promoter who is massive in
Speaker 3: the UK and is involved in managing me as well.
Speaker 3: I bumped into him at a showcase in a tiny
Speaker 3: little pub in London because friends of mine had written
Speaker 3: the tracks and everything, and he said, look, why don't
Speaker 3: you sing? Why don't you? And I said, now I'm done, really,
Speaker 3: you know, well why don't you just go out and
Speaker 3: do it again? I said, well, you know, i'm't done
Speaker 3: it for years And he said, well what if I
Speaker 3: anyway he got in touch with it. What if I
Speaker 3: put a little tour together? You can sing anything you want.
Speaker 3: And just been in front of a feonder people, nothing big.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to sing your old songs if
Speaker 3: you don't want, just walk out there and sing and
Speaker 3: see if you want to do it again. I'm like,
Speaker 3: who is this guy? What you know? And it turns
Speaker 3: out this guy is an amazing guy and he promotes
Speaker 3: like things from like Coldplayer Dell right the way down
Speaker 3: to brand new bands right. He just loves it, lives it,
Speaker 3: breathes it. So I'm like, what a crazy offer that if?
Speaker 3: It's just unbelievable. And around the same time, I also
Speaker 3: had an offer to go to Japan, and I'd always
Speaker 3: turned down all the offers to sing all my old songs,
Speaker 3: and I just thought so anyway, So I did this
Speaker 3: little tour and I sang Frank Sinatra, Backer rap anything
Speaker 3: I wanted to that I remember as a kid, my
Speaker 3: mum and dad used to play and my dad had
Speaker 3: a really great voice actually, and he used to sing.
Speaker 3: He used to sing the wrong words, but he used
Speaker 3: to sing Franks and around the house all the time.
Speaker 3: So I went and did that with a little, you know,
Speaker 3: little brass section, a very small brass section. Three guys,
Speaker 3: two or three guys I think actually, and just you know,
Speaker 3: just a really stand up based all the rest of it,
Speaker 3: tiny little venues we played. Ronnie Scott still was to
Speaker 3: come and do it there because we were doing that
Speaker 3: kind of thing, went up and down the country, and
Speaker 3: I absolutely loved it, and something in my mind went
Speaker 3: like a light bulb just went Okay, so you can
Speaker 3: go out and sing. But it doesn't have to be
Speaker 3: your bo and end all, it's not every part of
Speaker 3: your life. You can do it when you want to
Speaker 3: do it. And I accepted this offer to go to Japan,
Speaker 3: mainly because our daughter, who was fifteen at the time,
Speaker 3: and my wife really wanted to go. So we went
Speaker 3: and we went on a really lovely trip and I
Speaker 3: sang those songs never Going to Give You Up Together Forever,
Speaker 3: and a bunch of others, and again the same light
Speaker 3: bulb went on of lif So you go out, you
Speaker 3: sing them, you walk off stage, you put a different
Speaker 3: jacket on, and you go out for dinner. And that's it, right.
Speaker 3: It's not like you go out there there's three hundred
Speaker 3: screaming fans, there's people taking a picture. You've got to
Speaker 3: do interviews all day the next day, and by the way,
Speaker 3: you'll be on a plane at four o'clock going to
Speaker 3: another territory to do it all again the next You
Speaker 3: know what I mean. It's you can pick and choose.
Speaker 3: You can have a life in music that isn't. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying I can ever attain the success they out
Speaker 3: in the ages about possibly do that, but I can
Speaker 3: enjoy it a lot more. And that's kind of what
Speaker 3: I do and what I've done ever since.
Speaker 1: Can I ask? Okay? So one I wanted to know
Speaker 1: what was the straw that broke the camel's back as
Speaker 1: far as you walking away? And how did you manage
Speaker 1: to make a living? If you remind me asking for
Speaker 1: those fifteen years?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, first one. Then I think a lot of
Speaker 3: things were just coming together. I'd had some We had
Speaker 3: some really we like everybody has got a story about
Speaker 3: a record they made that never did anything or just
Speaker 3: didn't see the light of day, didn't get released, whatever.
Speaker 3: So I had a couple of things like that. We
Speaker 3: did a record, an album away from Stuff thinking, my
Speaker 3: first one, and the first single from it it was
Speaker 3: called Try for Help, and I was so lucky with
Speaker 3: that record, but I also knew, well, I might not
Speaker 3: get to make many more. I thought I'd love to
Speaker 3: get a couple of my favorite drummers on it. So
Speaker 3: we did some stuff with Jeff Picaell came and played drums.
Speaker 3: We didn't actually use those sessions in the end because
Speaker 3: it turned into something else. Vinni Calliuti came and played
Speaker 3: drums on that song. Yeah, yeah, and I'm sat there
Speaker 3: in the room going, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: And I got to play their drum kits as well.
Speaker 3: By the way, and obviously we had some great musicians.
Speaker 3: Andre Crouch. It is choir that sang that sang on
Speaker 3: the record, and obviously I'm sure to this day, but
Speaker 3: I think around any of that time through the nineties
Speaker 3: and onwards, if you wanted a choir, there were a
Speaker 3: couple of choirs to ask, and he was probably at
Speaker 3: the top of it, and so some of those experiences
Speaker 3: were amazing. But anyway, so that record came out, we
Speaker 3: had the top ten in America with that song, and
Speaker 3: the top ten in the UK and lots of different countries.
Speaker 3: So I thought, this is crazy. I've left stocking in waterman,
Speaker 3: I've made a record with Vinnie Calliouti on it and
Speaker 3: a choir, and yet we still had a top ten
Speaker 3: and I had long hair as well. I just grew
Speaker 3: my hair for a bit of it, laughing, and I thought,
Speaker 3: that's it. We've turned that page. I can go and
Speaker 3: make records. Cut a long story short. Up to that point,
Speaker 3: I think I had like and this sounds like sour grapes,
Speaker 3: it's not. I was just shocked by it. I just
Speaker 3: didn't understand what was going on. The next couple of
Speaker 3: singles released didn't really do anything. We didn't get them
Speaker 3: anywhere near the charts, and the weird thing was they
Speaker 3: were more like pop songs than the first one. And
Speaker 3: it transpires that basically the head of RCA in the
Speaker 3: UK was moved out, a new person came along, kind
Speaker 3: of got rid of everybody and started again, and that
Speaker 3: was in that transition of in the middle of that record.
Speaker 3: So to be honest, we still I'm not saying this,
Speaker 3: I'm not believe me, I'm not bragging. I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to give you the facts. Right, We still sold over
Speaker 3: a million albums with one single. It just didn't go boom,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean. And we didn't and
Speaker 3: we didn't get any more singles at all in any
Speaker 3: chart anyway, it just didn't happen. And so it made
Speaker 3: me realize, and a few people who know what they're
Speaker 3: talking about it said, look, that just happens everyone. And again,
Speaker 3: you can be in the middle of a record and
Speaker 3: if your record company just disintegrates, it doesn't matter. Goodly
Speaker 3: record is and even though you've had a hit with it,
Speaker 3: and if the album's can of out then it's doing
Speaker 3: well and it's could even be Top ten in a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, it's just gonna die of death because
Speaker 3: there's nothing making it happen. And what it sort of
Speaker 3: made me realize was that unless your record company really
Speaker 3: wants this to happen, unless they're really on board, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, you've got no chance. Really, And
Speaker 3: I've never experienced that before. And obviously I was still
Speaker 3: a kid, really, I was young, you know. So anyway,
Speaker 3: so that record kind of ended, so we start to
Speaker 3: make how we gonna Are we gonna make another one?
Speaker 3: Are we not? Or we? What have you? So I'd
Speaker 3: written a song for a song. I can say this
Speaker 3: because it's years after how so it's cool. So Madonna
Speaker 3: was going to be in a movie called Body of
Speaker 3: Evidence with Willem Defoe.
Speaker 1: Two weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Why are you joking? That's nuts?
Speaker 1: I wanted to watch. I had COVID two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to wow. I wanted to watch all
Speaker 1: the horrible films I heard about. So I watched Basic
Speaker 1: Instinct two.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know there was.
Speaker 3: Instinct, yes, but not basically instinct to right. So anyway,
Speaker 3: so somebody who is A and R in the project
Speaker 3: or what have you sort of said, well, look, so
Speaker 3: the guy I wrote Cry for Help with a guy
Speaker 3: called Rob Fisher. He and I wrote a couple of songs.
Speaker 3: This song was called Hopelessly that we wrote. We sent
Speaker 3: it in to possibly be in the movie. We got
Speaker 3: this thing back saying, look, we absolutely love it. We're
Speaker 3: going to come to the UK. We want to be
Speaker 3: involved in how you record it. We don't not produce it,
Speaker 3: but we've got to be there, but we need it
Speaker 3: done right away because we're really close and we've just
Speaker 3: got to get this thing done. So we went great.
Speaker 3: I was meg excited that, but there's something that back
Speaker 3: on my mind's going why isn't Madonna singing this song?
Speaker 3: Why isn't she singing her own song? Why isn't she
Speaker 3: what's going on here? But they said no, she doesn't
Speaker 3: want to sing any of the songs. They don't want
Speaker 3: any They just she wants to act and that's it.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, great, that'll do for me. Madonna's gonna
Speaker 3: be part of you know, this massive thing, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to get a song in it, and let's go.
Speaker 3: So we do the song. Everyone said, we love it,
Speaker 3: it's great, it's perfect, We send it off. It's all great.
Speaker 3: So my record label, which is still our CABMG at
Speaker 3: the time, said right, we needed to make an album
Speaker 3: because this film's coming out in a few months, and
Speaker 3: so have you got any songs? So well, I've got
Speaker 3: a lot of songs because I've been writing. I've been
Speaker 3: you know it, said right, just getting this. So I
Speaker 3: went back in the studio with the guy who had
Speaker 3: made the last album, with a guy called Gary Stevenson
Speaker 3: who's still a good friend today, and we just got
Speaker 3: stuck into making an album. So we did. So a
Speaker 3: Body of Evidence is coming out and they've decided they're
Speaker 3: not going to have any songs in Body of Evidence.
Speaker 3: They're not going to do this with a lead song
Speaker 3: because it doesn't really that's going to confuse people and whatever. Right,
Speaker 3: maybe we did have a song in the end. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe they did have a song in the end. I
Speaker 3: can't remember, but but they certainly didn't have ours. I
Speaker 3: don't think they had any I think they just had
Speaker 3: the theme music. They didn't want to confuse Madonna's career
Speaker 3: with like this music, So what is it anyway? What ever?
Speaker 3: And maybe that's just the way I'm remembering it. So
Speaker 3: at this point, when I go into the record label,
Speaker 3: I've made an album. At this point, most people when
Speaker 3: I walk in the building, I'm kind of looking at
Speaker 3: the window, hoping not to make eye contact because now
Speaker 3: they don't know what to do. Now they don't know
Speaker 3: what to do. It's like, is this record any good?
Speaker 3: Is it the right record? Should we be doing this?
Speaker 3: I'd like to keep my career. So I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: look out the window when he walks in the building.
Speaker 3: And at this point, I'm like, you know what, I
Speaker 3: think I'm just gonna walk away. I think I'm just
Speaker 3: going to say, look, I'm gonna while no one's watching,
Speaker 3: and they obviously weren't, I'm just gonna walk I'm going
Speaker 3: to walk out the side door. And I spoke to
Speaker 3: a manager who spoke to my lawyer. I was doing
Speaker 3: promotion for that record that I had this song Hopelessly,
Speaker 3: which was going to be there whatever, and I think
Speaker 3: we were getting a bit of roots, getting a bit
Speaker 3: of headway in in America, actually funny enough, And I
Speaker 3: was I was going to the airport. I was going
Speaker 3: to Heathrow to get on a plane to go to
Speaker 3: New York to be on a TV show for get
Speaker 3: which One to sing this song hopelessly, And it was
Speaker 3: sort of getting played a little bit, but it wasn't
Speaker 3: getting the full do you know what I mean? And
Speaker 3: something in me said, I've got a daughter at home
Speaker 3: who is like, you know, one year older, thinks she
Speaker 3: was something like that. I've just done loads of promotion
Speaker 3: in Europe and it all felt pointless. I don't know
Speaker 3: whether you guys have been there, but it just felt
Speaker 3: absolutely it felt like, you know, it almost felt embarrassing,
Speaker 3: like sort of like we should just not be doing this. Really,
Speaker 3: they don't want to do it. I'm not sure I
Speaker 3: want to do it anymore. So I'm going to Heathrow.
Speaker 3: And I turned around to my manager, who is still
Speaker 3: one of my closest people in my life, and you know,
Speaker 3: he's a bit of a surrogate father. And I said,
Speaker 3: I think I'm done, and he's like, what do you mean.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I just don't want to go and I
Speaker 3: don't want to go and I don't want.
Speaker 1: To do this.
Speaker 3: And I knew what it meant, because I knew that
Speaker 3: that's it. You know, you don't you don't not go
Speaker 3: to New York to go and do a TV show
Speaker 3: and the record company go, oh, that's fine. I said,
Speaker 3: I think I'm done. So he said, fine, let's call
Speaker 3: let's call the lawyer and we'll just see fool. Let
Speaker 3: you walk away and forget about it, and we'll shake
Speaker 3: hands and we'll do that. And so we turned the
Speaker 3: car around and I went home and I cried a bit,
Speaker 3: you know, I did, obviously I knew what it meant.
Speaker 3: And I just went home and we had a bit
Speaker 3: of a hug, and he drove home and he called
Speaker 3: my lawyer and he called BMG, and to be fair
Speaker 3: to them, they said, yeah, we're okay with it. If
Speaker 3: he wants to quit, we don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 3: And that was it.
Speaker 4: That's a rarity to one that's as good as it
Speaker 4: gets in the business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because most people will try to force their will.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But I think also i'd had a very explosive
Speaker 3: pop career, you know, one of those kind of like
Speaker 3: boom sort of like I'd never really I don't think
Speaker 3: i'd really come to terms with a lot of it.
Speaker 3: I don't think i'd not grown up. I'd done from
Speaker 3: being nineteen to sign in a little production deal twenty
Speaker 3: one massive single that you know, on a really big album.
Speaker 3: It was a huge album and around the world and
Speaker 3: everything in nuts and and I never really, I never
Speaker 3: really I think got to sort of get totally comfortable.
Speaker 3: I don't think I think I was always chasing my
Speaker 3: tail and always kind of like I almost felt like
Speaker 3: I was always running after a bus. That was just
Speaker 3: always like leaving the depo before I got you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. And so I didn't I didn't grow
Speaker 3: up as a human. I've become a dad, but I
Speaker 3: don't really felt I didn't feel like a grown up,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So, and anyway, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: sorry very long answers. So that to the next part
Speaker 3: of the equation, is this that first album did really
Speaker 3: really well I wrote four songs on my own on it.
Speaker 3: The next album did pretty well. It did about half
Speaker 3: what the second one did, and I wrote five or
Speaker 3: six of them. So and even even the cry for
Speaker 3: help song it was on my album called Free. You know,
Speaker 3: we did a million something with that record. I wrote
Speaker 3: a lot of those tunes and co produced it and
Speaker 3: blah blah. So in other words, I made quite a
Speaker 3: lot of money because we sold a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: that first album sold over eight million, I think, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So we sold a lot of
Speaker 3: records back then, because if you had a hit couple
Speaker 3: of songs pop song, that very often meant he sold
Speaker 3: a lot of records. And so I just kind of
Speaker 3: was comfortable with that. But I've never I've never owned
Speaker 3: a fleet of ferraris. I've never driven a roll's voice
Speaker 3: into a swimming pool.
Speaker 1: You weren't balling out of control.
Speaker 3: No, I've been, I think again. I owed that back
Speaker 3: to my upbringing in the sense I'm from a very
Speaker 3: working class area. My dad had a little business, so
Speaker 3: I always knew there was a tax man. I didn't
Speaker 3: understand what it meant as a kid, but I knew
Speaker 3: he was coming, and I knew he wanted some money
Speaker 3: from my dad, do you know what I mean? Right,
Speaker 3: So my dad would be sat at home doing his
Speaker 3: paperwork and be going, right, well, that's for the taxman.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what what. I kind of thought a tax
Speaker 3: him was going to come with a bag almost. I mean,
Speaker 3: as a kid, I thought I thought he was going
Speaker 3: to knock on the door and give me the money,
Speaker 3: you know, But I always knew that was there. And
Speaker 3: so I think every bit of money that I earned.
Speaker 3: I think also because I was so busy for like,
Speaker 3: certainly the first three four years, well I only did
Speaker 3: it for four or five years. The first three years
Speaker 3: of it, I was so busy. I didn't buy anything,
Speaker 3: I think, in buy a house until quite a few
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Because I was always traveling.
Speaker 3: I was always yeah. So and also I think that
Speaker 3: whole kind of like MTV cribs, look at my house lifestyle.
Speaker 3: Unless you were one of the absolute greats helping John
Speaker 3: the who the what have you?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 3: You know, whoever, you didn't, you didn't live like that.
Speaker 3: I think people just gone on with it and then
Speaker 3: realized they made some money some years later, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 1: You tell that to my friends.
Speaker 2: Speaking of it.
Speaker 1: What was it like.
Speaker 2: Working with him?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that guy is amazing in so many
Speaker 3: different ways. He got in touch. He cut a long
Speaker 3: story short. The first time any sort of connection was
Speaker 3: never going to give you up. Got this award at
Speaker 3: the BPI Awards, a Single of the Year, and because
Speaker 3: it was live back then, it was at the Albert
Speaker 3: Hale and fun enough just mentioned that who Who were
Speaker 3: closing the show and they were playing live at the
Speaker 3: album Hole. So the award for single is pretty much
Speaker 3: one of the last awards. So i was stood on
Speaker 3: this podium waiting to get the award with the audience
Speaker 3: looking at me but not the TV audience, and I've
Speaker 3: got this camera on me and to me, I'm thinking
Speaker 3: the cameras on. So I'm just stood there waiting for
Speaker 3: someone to stand up and go and the signal of
Speaker 3: the Year goes to Rick Hastley for right there. So
Speaker 3: I'm just stood there and the albuholes lo looking at me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, but it didn't happen. No one came
Speaker 3: on the podium and no one gave me the award,
Speaker 3: and it just somebody just went. Ladies and gentlemen who
Speaker 3: and they just steamed into like, so I just stood there,
Speaker 3: going what is going on? And I'm literally still in
Speaker 3: this round podium, just in the middle somewhere, and I'm
Speaker 3: going like do and the camera's still looking and I'm going,
Speaker 3: what do I do? Don't walk do I shuffle away?
Speaker 3: Do I walk away? Do I look at the hoom?
Speaker 3: And E don't know what to do? And I just
Speaker 3: kind of like just sideways, just just kind of walked
Speaker 3: out of the picture. Anyway, I wasn't even upset because
Speaker 3: I was too in the sort of nonsense of it
Speaker 3: all to be upset. I was like, I don't know
Speaker 3: what's going on someone's life to do. So I woke up.
Speaker 3: But believe me, backstage it all kicked off. My god,
Speaker 3: there was some like who has you know? There really was,
Speaker 3: and my manager was really angry. I mean he was
Speaker 3: like fuming, do you know what I mean? And the
Speaker 3: stockcakeing watman guys were going ape shit, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? It was really it was a big deal
Speaker 3: because they'd actually written and produced the song that had
Speaker 3: done you know what I mean, the business that year
Speaker 3: and blah blah. So anyway, a couple of days later,
Speaker 3: a crate of. I think it was Crystal Champagne arrived
Speaker 3: at my manager's office from help John to me saying
Speaker 3: that I'm really really sorry, what an awful thing to happen.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely terrible. All the best, keep on making music,
Speaker 3: don't let it get you down. Do it a really
Speaker 3: nice letter, and I was just thinking, like, this is
Speaker 3: just how amazing is that, you know what I mean
Speaker 3: to sort of, But obviously as time has gone on,
Speaker 3: I've obviously understood he's had his moments in life. I'm
Speaker 3: sure where he's been let down and he's been do
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? And I think he's always
Speaker 3: he's always done that thing, reaching out to younger artists,
Speaker 3: sort of saying, look, if you ever want any advice,
Speaker 3: if you ever want to you know. So he invited
Speaker 3: myself out, and my wife and I went to dinner
Speaker 3: with him and a few friends, and he was just
Speaker 3: chatting about stuff really and just being a nice dude,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and just kind of saying, look,
Speaker 3: if you ever want to talk, if you ever get
Speaker 3: you know. And I also think, because obviously he especially
Speaker 3: in the latter you know, years, I think he's also
Speaker 3: been very helpful to people who've been going to major problems,
Speaker 3: you know, with drugs and drinking all the rest of
Speaker 3: it and all kinds of things, you know. I think
Speaker 3: that's what his life is about really now, is about
Speaker 3: more giving back than it's taken, if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. But anyway, that's another world to gain too.
Speaker 3: So but on that dinner that night, he said, look,
Speaker 3: if you ever want me to come and play, you know,
Speaker 3: if you want to come and play on a record
Speaker 3: of just just get in touch, you know. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: and I'm listening to him say the words, but I'm
Speaker 3: not really computing it. Sure Enough, sure enough he did.
Speaker 3: He came and played, and he just rolled up. He
Speaker 3: just rocked up and just played piano and a couple
Speaker 3: of songs on that record that I did when I left.
Speaker 3: I think he's just always been great. He I made
Speaker 3: a record a few years ago when I turned fifty.
Speaker 3: I made a record in my garage at home, just
Speaker 3: sort of just to kind of say to myself what
Speaker 3: I could do. I didn't even have a record deal
Speaker 3: at the time. And he we went to see him
Speaker 3: in Vegas. And I'm saying this because I want to.
Speaker 3: I want to. I'm proud of myself, but I also
Speaker 3: want to say how great he is in it. In
Speaker 3: that same sentence, we went to see him just because
Speaker 3: we've seen him a bunch of times and I wanted
Speaker 3: to see the show that he does in Vegas that
Speaker 3: he was doing the Red He's just sat there and
Speaker 3: he knows him in the audience kind of thing, and
Speaker 3: he sat there and he just says to the audience, is,
Speaker 3: by the way, nas, jentleman, there's a young man in
Speaker 3: the audience tonight. Not when I was younger. There's a
Speaker 3: guy in the audience tonight. He said, if you're going
Speaker 3: to buy a record, if you're going to buy a
Speaker 3: record in the next few weeks or next months by
Speaker 3: rick as record by Rick Aster's record is full fifty.
Speaker 3: It's an absolutely fantastic And I'm like, what is going on?
Speaker 3: You know, It's like wow. And he's always he's always
Speaker 3: done things like that. I mean, for loads of artists
Speaker 3: to think, and you know, he's always he's still keen
Speaker 3: on working with the artists and doing due and all
Speaker 3: the rest of it. And so I just think he's
Speaker 3: one of those people that I know some people around him.
Speaker 3: I'm really good friends with David Johnson is MD and
Speaker 3: his guitar player for for all the years that he's
Speaker 3: been going. Really so I've been to loads of his
Speaker 3: gigs and you know, been around some of the stories
Speaker 3: and some backgrounds on the Lion King, some of those
Speaker 3: songs and stuff like because I was just there and
Speaker 3: he just so much that get in there to sing,
Speaker 3: you know, and stuff, and I just think he's one
Speaker 3: of those people who's still in love with music. He's
Speaker 3: still back in the days of CDs and what have you.
Speaker 3: He would go into stores. I'm sure you've heard this story.
Speaker 3: It's legend, go in there and come out with two
Speaker 3: great big bags of CDs because he's still wanted to
Speaker 3: be like, what's going on? I should know what's going on,
Speaker 3: and I want to hear that thing, you know what
Speaker 3: is it?
Speaker 1: So now he's the real deal. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first, the very first people to UH when I
Speaker 1: when I won the BEFT and I ask her. He
Speaker 1: was one of the first people to cod caught me
Speaker 1: and congratulate me. And he's like that, wait before we
Speaker 1: read up. I always wanted to know, are you shocked
Speaker 1: at the level of adoration that you're getting for like
Speaker 1: these uh cover songs that you do in in your
Speaker 1: show now And speaking of Network, did you resist the
Speaker 1: temptation to do a Zeppelin song at Network when you
Speaker 1: did it or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it wasn't that kind of a nebworth to realest.
Speaker 3: I think it was just because it was big enough
Speaker 3: to get cars in there with gardens, private gardens or
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call them. Whatever, right, Uh no,
Speaker 3: it's funny. I've never really gotten the lead out, to
Speaker 3: be honest, I'm not. I've got friends who are so
Speaker 3: into Zeppelin's it's freaky and obviously John Bonham that's another story, right,
Speaker 3: because just great. But I think it's never really I'm
Speaker 3: not saying I'm not a fan, and I'm not I
Speaker 3: don't appreciate Zeppelin, but it's I'm if I ever go well,
Speaker 3: and I do love a lot of rock music. I
Speaker 3: still play drums in a midlife crisis, punk rock covers
Speaker 3: band and what have you. And we go from like
Speaker 3: uh more ac DC to be honest and then yeah,
Speaker 3: right okay and more sort of punky rock sort of things.
Speaker 3: I just the thing is how I started is how
Speaker 3: most people start. You start by covering other people's songs
Speaker 3: and there's a real joy in doing it. There's a real.
Speaker 1: Well, you look like you're having the time of your
Speaker 1: life when you're doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I love it And every time. For instance,
Speaker 3: we toured in the UK in October, not into November,
Speaker 3: and we'd postpone that to her a couple of times,
Speaker 3: and so I went into rehearsals and they know what's coming,
Speaker 3: my band and crew and everything. They know I'm going
Speaker 3: to walk in on the last day because I don't
Speaker 3: like to give people much warning and say, right, we're
Speaker 3: doing uh, we're gonna do Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles,
Speaker 3: and everyone's like, right, fire, what key? How are we?
Speaker 3: And I just got to play it. But the other
Speaker 3: reason I kind of like to do that is because
Speaker 3: if we can't all just shuffle into it and just
Speaker 3: play it and make it work, we shouldn't be doing
Speaker 3: it unless it just sort of happens instantly. So we
Speaker 3: we've done loads of cover and I just I love
Speaker 3: doing it. I still absolutely love it, and I think,
Speaker 3: to be honest, there's an element about doing other people's
Speaker 3: songs that there's a there's a tension relief because it's
Speaker 3: like you're just doing a cover. Do you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? It's not it's not like you're trying to
Speaker 3: represent for the audience something they've paid to come and watch.
Speaker 3: They've sort of gone right. I bought that first album
Speaker 3: thirty odd years ago. I wanted to do never going
Speaker 3: to give you up. I wanted to sound like the record.
Speaker 3: I wanted to you know what I mean. I feel
Speaker 3: like old them that, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 3: that's not in a negative I want to give them that.
Speaker 3: But I think when you do covers, you can just
Speaker 3: sort of say it don't really matter. I don't mean
Speaker 3: that with any disrespect to the artists at all. I
Speaker 3: just mean it's just having fun, you know. I think
Speaker 3: all artists like covering other people's songs. It's just, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just it's just fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my last question is who explained to you what
Speaker 1: Rick Rolling was?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: I have one of my closest friends, a guy called Fampton,
Speaker 3: and he is and his brother, actually Daniel was mixed
Speaker 3: and engineered last couple of albums for me and stuff.
Speaker 3: But Andrew is a producer and a writer and lots
Speaker 3: of other things. He I was on holiday in Italy
Speaker 3: and he literally RiPP wrote me in an email. So
Speaker 3: this is years ago, obviously, and I'm like, so I
Speaker 3: just emailed him back and went, okay, whatever, whatever send
Speaker 3: And then so he did it again, and I'm like
Speaker 3: I replied an answer to him saying, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, We've known each other years, right, like,
Speaker 3: what are you actually doing?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: You know? Because I didn't grasp what it was at all.
Speaker 3: And it's also this is the early days of YouTube.
Speaker 3: It's the early days of someone getting an email with
Speaker 3: a video link in it that I mean, I know,
Speaker 3: that's like just so makes me like a granddad, but
Speaker 3: I mean it was early that that was quite a
Speaker 3: novel thing, right. So in the end, we're we're on
Speaker 3: our holiday in Italy. We're on the Mouthy Coast. I
Speaker 3: remember it where I was and everything in the hotel
Speaker 3: and everything. So I get on the phone to him,
Speaker 3: right Andrew, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: What are you doing? Kind of thing? And he's laughing
Speaker 3: and he's like, so you don't know what a rip
Speaker 3: roll is. I'm like, no, I don't even know, don't
Speaker 3: know the term, the language, the nothing. So he kind
Speaker 3: of explained it to me, and even then I still
Speaker 3: sort of thought, nah, this is just him joking, This
Speaker 3: is just him doing this and a couple other friends
Speaker 3: that he's going to get to email me and do whatever,
Speaker 3: and had no idea that it was actually this little
Speaker 3: bubble on the Internet that people were, you know. So,
Speaker 3: to be honest, I give credit to my daughter for
Speaker 3: mostly putting me right about it. I'd been nominated for
Speaker 3: an MTV award in whenever, it was fifteen years ago,
Speaker 3: something to do with best Live Act or Best Act
Speaker 3: or best something, which all they were doing they were
Speaker 3: jumping on the rip roll thing and they were having
Speaker 3: a bit of fun. They were having a bit of fun,
Speaker 3: possibly at my expense, and that's whatever. But it was
Speaker 3: going to be in Liverpool, and I knew that Sir
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney was going to be getting a Lifetime Achievement
Speaker 3: or from Bono in Liverpool, right right, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: am I going to go to that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I am not right. I wasn't even really gonna go anyway,
Speaker 3: but I thought, I'm definitely not going there. If it
Speaker 3: would have been in Leipzig or Hamburg or Brussels, I
Speaker 3: might have gone to that, right, I ain't going to
Speaker 3: Liverpool with Sir Paul McCartney and Bonda. That ain't happening, right,
Speaker 3: And my daughter said, she said, look, there's no way
Speaker 3: you're going to that. That's just like some And I said, no,
Speaker 3: you're right, you know, and she was like fifteen sixteen
Speaker 3: whatever she was. He said, you do realize it's got
Speaker 3: nothing to do with you. And I went and I
Speaker 3: was actually, I was stunned. Actually, I'm right. What do
Speaker 3: you mean, It's got nothing to it? Actually says Rick Roll.
Speaker 3: I'm the Rick in the Rick role. It's the video.
Speaker 3: I'm in the video. He said, yeah, it's got nothing
Speaker 3: to do with you. And it was like really wise
Speaker 3: words from a young a young woman, young girl, because
Speaker 3: she was absolutely right. It's it's got everything to do
Speaker 3: with me and nothing to do with me same time.
Speaker 3: And it's probably the best bit of advice I ever
Speaker 3: had about it, all of it, and that is to say,
Speaker 3: it's over there and it's doing whatever it is, and
Speaker 3: it's a thing, and it's one of you, and it
Speaker 3: can be fun and you can even enjoy the fun
Speaker 3: and get involved in it sometimes, but it isn't. It's
Speaker 3: a thing and it's a whatever. Just it's there. Whatever
Speaker 3: it is. And that's because she was of the generation
Speaker 3: to understand the Internet way more than I was. So,
Speaker 3: you know, even though I had explained by one of
Speaker 3: my best friends who is my age, her explanation of
Speaker 3: it in a real way was kind of a lot
Speaker 3: more useful to me.
Speaker 1: If you know what I mean, what's your most famous
Speaker 1: Rick rold turned down that you've done? Like, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that?
Speaker 3: Uh well, I get I get really commercial ones for
Speaker 3: money basically with products and things and all the rest
Speaker 3: of it, and I don't. I'll do ones that I
Speaker 3: think are okay and I think they're fine, and they're not,
Speaker 3: you know, in any way. And also because if they
Speaker 3: have a bit of a sense of humor about it,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean, I've just done, I say,
Speaker 3: just a few months ago, did one for a video
Speaker 3: game for God into the Galaxy. And I loved that movie,
Speaker 3: the first movie when it came out, I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 3: And the way they use music, I think is such
Speaker 3: a blessing because kids know those songs, even the ones
Speaker 3: from the seventies, eighties, whatever, They know those songs. Like
Speaker 3: we were talking at the very beginning, all three of
Speaker 3: us talking at the beginning about how we listened to music,
Speaker 3: how we've come across and stuff. So I thought that
Speaker 3: was a really cool thing to do when the guys
Speaker 3: who made the video game are really great. So I'm
Speaker 3: more than happy to be invited to do that. But
Speaker 3: there's just times when I just look at it and
Speaker 3: I go now, I just don't feel that it's just.
Speaker 3: And I also think it's a really difficult thing to navigate.
Speaker 3: I think, how far to just do something for money.
Speaker 3: But don't get me wrong, my wife and I my
Speaker 3: wife manages me, and we have a criteria of things
Speaker 3: that need answering. The first one it usually comes up
Speaker 3: is where is it? Because if somebody says it's in
Speaker 3: Santiago and Chile, then we're almost on the plane, right
Speaker 3: And I don't love flying, but we're almost on the
Speaker 3: plane because we have great promoters down there, We've got
Speaker 3: some great wine down there. We love it down there.
Speaker 3: And if someone says to you, you know someone like that,
Speaker 3: or you know anywhere in South America, that's like what
Speaker 3: you know. Japan has been to quite a few times
Speaker 3: one way or other different places. There's lots of places
Speaker 3: in the world. Coming back to America and getting to
Speaker 3: go to towns and cities in such a way like
Speaker 3: this with the guys and everything. It's been such a
Speaker 3: trait really not something I can do on my own
Speaker 3: in any way, shape or form, so you know. But
Speaker 3: but the truth of it is, it's like where is it.
Speaker 3: It's also kind of yes, there's money involved, usually as
Speaker 3: cost there is, But what we also look at is
Speaker 3: we sometimes say, well, you know what, we'll do that
Speaker 3: because that basically means we can do this. Well, We're
Speaker 3: not going to make any money, but I just really
Speaker 3: want to do it. By the time we've flown the
Speaker 3: band and the crew there, it's probably going to cost
Speaker 3: me money, but I really want to do it. I
Speaker 3: really want to do it, and that pays for it.
Speaker 3: And I'm not afraid or embarrassed to talk about that,
Speaker 3: because at the end of the day, music is a
Speaker 3: business and it has to kind of balance out at
Speaker 3: some point, and you pick and choose and you do
Speaker 3: the ones you know. So so I think I've just
Speaker 3: always used my head in terms of thinking about the
Speaker 3: rip roll thing and never going to give you up
Speaker 3: the same look, I don't want to bleed it dry
Speaker 3: because I don't but sometimes there's opportunities that come along
Speaker 3: and sometimes they just happen. Sometimes they just happen in
Speaker 3: front of me, and it's like I'm getting on the
Speaker 3: stage and I'm singing that song right now because it's
Speaker 3: it's just been it's just happening on this It's tricky,
Speaker 3: and like you said, there's a lot of artists who
Speaker 3: want to run a million miles from their biggest, oldest song,
Speaker 3: and I kind of go the other way. I sort
Speaker 3: of embrace it, and it's it's it's like an old
Speaker 3: jacket and it's kept me warm for thirty odd years,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? So I just I
Speaker 3: have that kind of like comfortable love for it.
Speaker 1: I think, well that that's inspirational because I'm a human
Speaker 1: being that is still slowly, you know, highly uncomfortable when
Speaker 1: nice gestures happen or people show you love or that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Like I would have proudly been the
Speaker 1: opposite and run away from it. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: really inspiring to see someone in a healthy way just
Speaker 1: embrace and embrace their their work and really enjoy it
Speaker 1: and not be serious, but not take themselves that seriously
Speaker 1: because you know, I've run across many an artist that
Speaker 1: does nothing but try to sabotage a good thing, and.
Speaker 3: I understand it. I do understand it, Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: I do. And like I say that, me having that
Speaker 3: fifteen years or more not doing it is what I
Speaker 3: think allows me to be comfortable about it now because
Speaker 3: I'm not it anymore and I'm not wrapped up in it.
Speaker 3: And don't get me wrong, I want to represent it
Speaker 3: when I sing it live, you know, when I'm out
Speaker 3: with new kids doing this, or whether I'm doing my
Speaker 3: own shows, wherever it is. I want to go out
Speaker 3: and sing that song the best I possibly can. And
Speaker 3: I want anybody who remembers it and has some love
Speaker 3: for it to have that emotion with me and vice versa,
Speaker 3: and share it a bit and say, yeah, I was there,
Speaker 3: I bought the T shirt. I remember, you know, because
Speaker 3: that because I go to whether it's Sir Paul McCartney
Speaker 3: in fort Worth the other week, or whether it's somebody
Speaker 3: who's nowhere near his level of you know, greatness or whatever,
Speaker 3: whether it's somebody just starting out or what have you.
Speaker 3: If I've got a connection with them because I, you know,
Speaker 3: loved that record, then i want to feel that in
Speaker 3: the room. And if I feel their up and doing it,
Speaker 3: just painting my numbers up there going looking at the
Speaker 3: Watchgod or be off the stage at ten minutes. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'd rather walk out. I don't want to know, do
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? It's we've still got to
Speaker 3: respect it. I think, however old the song is, and
Speaker 3: even if it's become an internet meme, you still have
Speaker 3: to respect what the true emotion of it when when
Speaker 3: somebody heard it the first time.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for, you know, taking the time out
Speaker 1: with us and and and sharing your journey and your story.
Speaker 1: And you know, whether whether on the radio or ted
Speaker 1: Lasso or the internet, you know this song is going
Speaker 1: to be here forever man, and I appreciate you for
Speaker 1: sharing this with us. And this is uh Rick Astley
Speaker 1: on Quest Love Supreme. Won't be out of Fontigelow Sugar,
Speaker 1: Steve Unpaid, Bill and myself and laya thank you guys,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you on the next go round of
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme. All right, y'all. Quest Love Supreme is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.