WEBVTT - Ed Bicknell 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.920 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to a live edition of the Bible 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.560 Left Nest Podcast. If I know him, my guest today 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:18.799 has done it all. He's been a promoter, he's been 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.600 an agent, a legendary manager. Please welcome Ed Bignell. Ed Hi, 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.439 thank you, thanks for having me. Okay, just a couple 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.000 of days ago, Michael Godynsky pass. What can you tell 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.279 us about Godynsky in Australia. He was like a lot 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.280 of people have said he was a one off. I 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.000 mean he actually kind of. He really changed the Australian 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.120 music scene almost singlehandedly, and he was a great character. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.280 It was a really really funny guy. I made to 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.240 spend time with him was great. He was just just hilarious. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.720 He was a complete music enthusiast, which can't be said 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.440 of some promoters these days. And he got to live straight. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:06.000 And condolences to his family, to his to say, his wife, 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.720 and to everybody else in the Australian music business because 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.720 he uh, he was definitely a one off, but the 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.640 sadly beast for those who did meet him, he was 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:20.120 really definitely a unique They broke the mold after that, 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.240 and he always said, I said, what about spreading throughout 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.360 the world. He said, no, I like being the King 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.679 of Australia. I like being a big fish and a 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.040 small And for those who didn't know, he literally did 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.160 it all. You know he had not only started. You 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.600 started with a record company, Mushroom Records, at the age 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:40.280 of twenty and ultimately became frontier touring and so much more. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.399 But ed, you've done so much yourself. But let's look 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.759 at the landscape today. What is the few were an 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.200 agent and you're involved in uh growing w M. Endeavor 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.120 in the UK. What is the future of the agency 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.320 business in a marketplace where there's such consolidation amongst promoters. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:07.440 That's a tough one, Thanks very much, Bob. I think 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.320 the big agencies, and I'm thinking particularly of William Morrison. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.120 Oh sorry, Endeavor. Let me curate myself and see a A. 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.880 They're kind of too big to fail. They're the sort 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.160 of they're the big banks at the time of the crash, 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.400 and I think that they will keep going, but they 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:33.960 will probably strip some of their activities. Back when I 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.040 was at William Morris, which was William Morris. Back then 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.320 they had all these divisions corporate consulting as one I 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.080 remember and video games and all these kind of things, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.560 and nobody seemed to know what they did, and if 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.520 you if you ask the question, nobody could tell you. 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:57.200 And there's this, there's been this voracious appetite for gobbling 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:01.880 up everything. That's a bit like Live Nation actually as well. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.079 They have this, these tentacles. I always compare them to 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.120 that old Steve McQueen film The Blob, and the Blob 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:16.519 basically gobbled up everything in its path, and these agencies 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.120 are a bit like that. But at the same time, 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.520 this pandemic has caused people to split off. There was 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.120 a panel earlier today of the new agents and there 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.480 were four people on it who have basically left where 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:35.000 they were, including one gentlemen from CIA started their own businesses, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:41.720 and that's inevitable, that's always happened, I think. But the 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.840 the corporate agency, to me, it didn't work for me 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:50.760 personally because I found, I suppose, in simple terms, I 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:55.160 found being an employee after being an employer for thirty 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.360 years very difficult. I couldn't adapt to the corporate culture 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:05.160 as it was then, and I couldn't adapt to the 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.440 they I'm going to say this from the perspective of 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.520 somebody here in London. They could not leave it alone. 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:19.320 They were constantly micromanaging me in order to get to 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.960 wherever they thought they wanted to get. Um. That's not 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.159 a criticism of anybody, particularly although the management at the 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:31.039 time nearly all of whom left very quickly after Arian 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:35.200 Patrick came in. They were not I didn't think they 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:40.560 were particularly competent. Okay, let's be very specific. You mentioned 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.480 the consolidation of companies. Used to be the ten per centers, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.880 the movie agents and the live appearance agents. They were 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:54.360 the driving force of revenue for these agencies. Now it's sports. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.480 They're involved with these giant funds. One would think as 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.400 a music agent you feel like a zip on the 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.000 end of the rear end of the whole enterprise. Yeah, 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.480 well you do. And that was one of the problems. 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.560 And I think that if you if you come from 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.000 the generation I come from, and I think you come from, 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.920 and I'm not saying it doesn't happen with younger people 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.760 coming into the game. Now, what inspired me was music. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.120 That was it. It was just there was nothing more 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.280 than that. I was just completely and totally entranced by music, 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.080 and music have pretty much every genre it's it's that's 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.640 something that you don't here played in an agency offices, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:39.599 you don't talk about Um. That's not saying that agents 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.880 don't go out and see bands, you know, five five, 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.080 six nights a week, probably four or five different venues 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.280 a night. But but you're you're right. Certainly, when you're 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.960 in the in a management position in a company like that, 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.279 you're you're talking about the elements that you're talking about, 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.240 and what you're doing basically is clambering up through layer 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.040 after later until you get to the person who signs 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:07.640 the check. And under the William Morris management I worked with, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.080 the vain head of finance explained to me one day 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.600 that his soul, he considered his sole job, was to 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.400 stop Jim and Dave's mad schemes. This was Jim Wyatt 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.560 and Dave Workesch after so, which was very encouraging to 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.640 me because we were I had a great team here. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.280 We managed to break even in the first year. They 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.880 budgeted to lose money for seven years and it was 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:40.159 impossible to get anything done. The reaction time was ridiculously long. 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.400 We missed out on getting extra office space for that reason. 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.720 They just didn't act quickly. Enough, and after about two 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.440 and a half years there was a particular incident. I 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.479 was asked to sign a chit which gave us the 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.640 right to have semi skim milk as well as full 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.760 cram milk. This landed on my desk, and that happened 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.640 to be the catalyst, and I just thought, you know, 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.600 I didn't sign up for this, and and I left. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:18.440 And it was very shortly after that Endeavor merged with them, 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.200 and then within about a week took them over. And okay, 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.320 now you come from the era when the whole business 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.400 was built. This is one of the things that bothers me. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.160 They say, oh, music is the same as it ever was. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.880 It certainly is not now. I always analogize it to 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.280 the internet. There was all this excitement starting in the 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:43.600 mid nineties, certainly to about uh in the sixties we 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.480 were developing the business. If you take about Peter Graham, 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.200 Peter Graham flipped the touring business, said hey, the gig 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:50.800 is going to sell out anyway, I might as well 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.440 take the lion. Sure of the money. The question becomes 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.160 I always say, a great musician not only is a 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.640 bad business person, but they couldn't even at the seven 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.720 eleven because they couldn't show up on time. I say 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.480 the great same thing about the Titans and the history 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.200 of the music business. They literally couldn't work anywhere else. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.720 They could only work for themselves. Do you believe A 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.400 this is still true? And be what can you tell 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.360 us about the kind of personality that created and drove 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.360 this business? I'll take the second part of that first. Um. 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:33.920 Of course my experiences UK and we were always following America, 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.160 So the first thing really that happened here of any 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.719 significance would have been a N seven when UM a 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.400 little story for you, E M. I. Back in those 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.240 days they had four A and R guys who sat 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.520 on a committee, and back in those days, most of 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.360 the UK labels just had kind of one off deals 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.880 with American labels, so they had first refusal for an 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.280 instance on the records coming out of our C A 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.280 and I. In later the years of his life, I 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.880 became very very close friends with Sir George Martin, who 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.200 was a great He became almost like a second dad 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.200 to me. And he was on this committee with three 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.079 other A and OUR men, and a record arrived one 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.080 day and they played it and they thought there was 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.720 something wrong with it. They thought that the tape or 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.480 something had stretched. So they call up the American company 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.640 and said this record you've sent us, it's it's it 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.040 doesn't sound right. And the American then said, no, no, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.800 that's the record. It's turning into a huge hit here. 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:43.880 You should pick it up. Originally the vote was three 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:48.320 votes against one vote four, which was George. George then 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.720 set about, over a period of three or four weeks, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.319 brain busting the other three. Well, he only needed two 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.320 more votes. He brain busted, He got two of them 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.280 to agree, and they put it and that record was Heartbreak, 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:06.120 Hotel Wow, and it changed everything. So George Martin was 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.200 not just the beat was producer. He was also the 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.960 person who and that record would have come out anyway obviously, 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.400 but we only had the only labels I can remember 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.240 back then were Decca, Pie and E M I, and 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.920 one of them would have picked it up. And when 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.040 I came into the music business, first of all, it 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.240 wasn't called the music business. And secondly it wasn't a business. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.280 It was this completely chaotic thing which was full of 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:40.200 some fairly dubious characters who had spotted that there was 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.040 cash to be made and I emphasized the word cash 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.520 in bags. And this was pre Brian Epstein. I'm talking 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.600 about the period from about nineteen fifty seven to about 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:56.240 nineteen sixty three, and there were there were there were guys, 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.480 people with names like Larry Palms. He was nervous Mr Palms, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:04.000 Shillings and Pence because he and he had the first 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.840 boy bands as we now call them. All of his 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.960 acts were basically guys who looked great and it didn't 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.160 matter whether they could sing. We had a couple of 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.760 very early and pretty primitive television show six five Special 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.679 which went out at five past six on a Saturday, 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.360 and a show called Oh Boy, and it was Oh Boy, 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.559 which had an edge to it. It had a producer 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.400 called Jack Good who went on to do various of 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.400 the things, and people like Cliff Richard and the Shadows 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.600 Billy Fury out of a Faith got their start on 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.199 that show. And that was a black and white TV show. 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:47.080 And if you were thirteen years old, you made sure 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.120 you you were at home on a Saturday at six 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.920 o'clock to watch one of these two shows. The business 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.200 was full of characters. Of course. One of the things 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.080 about working in music you don't actually need any qualifications. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.480 You are what you are what you say you are. 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.640 So if you're a promoter, if you walk into it. 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.400 Back when I was in my early days as an agent, 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.400 a promoter was somebody who walked in and said I'm 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.360 a promoter, and within five minutes I'd be selling in 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:22.520 deep purple dates and praying that they would earn that 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.560 the the upfront ticket sales would be sufficient that they 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.720 could pay the deposit, because of course nobody had escrow 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.160 accounts back then. They just took the money and thought 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.679 of it as their own money. And I think that 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:41.360 the music really followed the early American rock and roll singers, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:46.840 the Evely Brothers, Elvis, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.720 that Chuck Berry. Of course, that era, and that kind 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.400 of metamorphosized into the Beatles era, and of course on 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.400 the first Beatles record, or the first album that was 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:05.360 released in the UK, there were a large number of covers, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.400 including a roll over Beethoven for instance, I can remember. 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.240 So it was a very from about through to probably 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:19.560 about sixty sixty seven. It was a pretty it was 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.520 a bit wild West. We didn't have things like you 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.800 had in America. Like Paola and that kind of thing, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.800 because we only had the BBC, and of course I can't. 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.840 I should absolutely include this Radio Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg, which 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:42.320 was broadcast from Luxembourg, was played pop music from about 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.560 seven o'clock in the evening to about midnight, and it 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.319 had a fading signal and in the house I lived 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.520 up in the north of England, the only place I 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.280 could get the full signal was halfway up the staircase, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.960 so I would spend hours sitting on the staircase listening 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:05.120 to Roy Orbison whoever it happened to be. The BBC 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:11.120 only played pop music on one show, which was directed, 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.280 which was for the American gies who were posted in Germany, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.400 and they would send in rickly was called Two Way 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.680 Family Favorites. They would send in requests and once in 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.040 a while Perry Como would be put aside and you'd here, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.720 don't be cruel, all shook up or whatever happened to be, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.320 and you would you would listen to this entire to 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.080 our program in the hope that they would play one 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.040 or two bona fide pop songs. And of course there 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:44.720 were no categories. It was just pop music. We didn't 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.240 have a rock and roll. There was no country, there 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.920 was no heavy metal, there was no folk, none of that. Okay, 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:56.760 maybe I'm interrupting, but let's go back to what circumstances 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.200 do you grow up in? Well. I was born Yorkshire, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.360 which is up in the north of England. I my 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.960 father was the principle of a grammar school. My mom 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:14.000 sort of my mom. I had a younger brother. We 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.720 lived in a town halfway between Leeds and York until 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.440 I was about eleven, and then we moved up to 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.400 where they actually they built a brand new school, which 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.480 was the largest in Yorkshire at the time, and we 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.240 moved up there and lived at the school. It wasn't 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.120 a private school, it was just a regular day school. 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:40.080 When I was thirteen years old, that Christmas, my parents 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.920 and I would love it if they were alive now 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:45.680 because I would love to be able to ask them 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.880 why they did this. They bought me Elvis's Gold Records, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.680 Volume one, which were the principle of a grammar school 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:59.840 in Yorkshire. In that was quite a stretch and I 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.000 can remember on Christmas morning going down putting it on 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.200 the old radio gram you know, when the record would 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.360 fall down with a crash and the first track on 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.240 that record on side one is hound Dog and two 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:18.040 minutes twenty six seconds later, my life had changed completely. Okay, 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.880 many many years later, but many years later I had 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.360 the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Scotty Moore and 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.800 d J. Fontana, who played guitar and drums on that respectively, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.000 which was a complete trip. Oh yeah, when you meet 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.520 your heroes from that era. Uh, but let's go back. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.320 One thing is as an American, I'm slightly younger than 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.280 you in that we grew up with television. I had 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:46.200 New York markets, so there were off six TV channels, etcetera. 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.520 But we get the impression that in the UK it 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.920 was economically disadvantage and this impacted the music scene. What 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.920 was it like growing up in that era. Well, you're correct, 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.560 because that was the post war era, so we as 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:06.760 the UK. I remember once asking my parents what was 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.520 the most significant thing in their lives, and without a 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:15.000 second hesitation, they both said, in unison, the war something. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.880 And I remember my dad saying our lives were put 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.840 on hold for seven years. So when we came out 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.000 of the war, for a certain age group, we still 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.600 had national service. You still had to go into the army. 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.359 The economy, of course, had been completely ruined by the 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:37.400 war effort we had. But my memory of that period 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.960 is that everything was dark, everything was wet. It was 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.760 always raining. It's raining now, but it's see different about then, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.280 and it was a very It was austerea. We didn't 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.040 have a lot of the modern things I think that 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.679 you've got in America. Before us, we didn't have central heating, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.639 didn't have had coal fires. You would take a bath 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.360 in a tin in a tin bath. You as the 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.920 son of a school teacher, you did that. You didn't 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:12.200 have senating. You took a bath in a tin bath. Yes, absolutely, Yeah, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.639 I still do yeah, no, but no, yes absolutely. I 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.920 mean he was he when he passed. I remember you 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.280 going through your parents his things. He had kept every 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.240 single pace lip he had ever received ever and when 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.639 he passed, when she was in the mid seventies, sorry, 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.480 in the wh he retired in the mid seventies. He 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.480 was making a hundred pounds a week. That was a 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.760 good salary back then. Well, okay, so are you the 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.560 older brother the younger brother? I knew that, okay, So 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.800 what was it like going to school? Were your father 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.960 ro the head mask well fly enough. It was okay. 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.800 I didn't get any stick from the other kids, but 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.560 there were a few teachers who thought that they would 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.040 kind of try it on a bit. I was. It 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:09.640 was interesting education period because when I look back on it, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.200 you know, I as I say, they bought me this record, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.720 and then we two Within two years, I had seen 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.679 an old black and white movie on on Sunday's The BBC, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.800 which was then just the BBC used to show old 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.600 black and white movies from the kind of swing era, 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.120 Buzzby Barkley kind of films. And they showed a movie 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.679 called George White Scandals, which featured the American jazz drummer 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.919 Jeane Crooper. And I'm watching Jane Crooper bash this white 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.119 drum kit and light went on and I, instead of 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.240 a bicycle, which would be the normal thing you'd want 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.080 at that age, I decided I wanted to play drums, 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.239 which got me to the point that I'm talking to you. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.760 And my dad we went into Leeds. We went to 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.200 a music store called Kitchens. And there's an interesting coincidence 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.520 here because at the exactly the same moment in time, 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.840 Martinoffler was going to the same shop. He turned left 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.159 into guitars. If you turned right you went to woodwinds, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.440 And as always happened in music shops, if you went 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.000 into the basement, there was the drum department. And I 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.000 went down into the basement and we bought a snare drum, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.120 a pair of sticks, a pair of brushes for six pounds. 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.720 And the guy who was the salesman said, we give lessons, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.480 which was surprising to me because of course I thought 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:41.280 you just hit them, which which you don't. And this 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.560 was an excuse for him to sell my dad the 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:49.119 body Rich drum Tutor, which is the drum tutter. All 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.600 drummers know this drum tutor, which Buddy Rich just put 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:54.440 his name to. He didn't write the thing. It was 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.119 written by a guy called Henry Adler, and for an 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.800 extra thirty shillings we got the book and I was 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.840 enrolled for drum lessons, which I took for four years. 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:09.120 Okay this when you bought the drums, you'd already heard 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:13.640 Elvis Presley. Yes, yes, okay, you remember the brand name 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:22.280 of that snare drum. It was a a pretty cheap 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.080 British in put in imitation of American drums, and it 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.440 was a company called Olympic, who were eventually bought by 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.639 Premier Drums. Okay, so you start off with a snare drum, 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.240 At what point do you get a complete kit? Wow? 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.919 Like I had to save up money pocket money and 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:44.560 basically got a bass drum next without a pedal, then 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:48.959 got a pedal, and then got a symbol, a ride symbol, 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.760 and then got high hats and probably took me eighteen months. 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.600 And immediately, of course I got together with some pals 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:05.080 at school who played guitar and bass and a singer. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.159 And of course back then you could be in a 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.280 band if you owned an amplifier. That was the qualification. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.320 You didn't have to play. So we formed a beat group, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.480 this is pre beatles, and we promptly learned every single 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.800 number by a group called Shadows, who were Cliff Richards 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.240 backing band. The equivalent in America would have been a 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.040 band like the Ventures. And we would play two and 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:32.439 a half minute instrumentals and we learned probably eighty of 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:38.920 them B sides, album tracks, and then we started about 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:46.399 five the British blues boom was getting underway with people 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:52.240 like Alexis Corner, very early rolling stones, pretty things, so 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.800 we started we started to shift towards that, and of course, 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.040 almost slightly before that, the Beatles are arrived, so we 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:03.720 so of course, when the Beatles arrived, we did what 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.359 every other band in Britain did. We dumped the entire 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:12.679 Shadows repertoire and started learning Beatles song. Okay, let's say 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:18.000 once you learn those, mute those songs, you got gigs? Correct? Yes, yes, 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.760 who booked those gigs? Parents? Okay, because usually the drummer 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.399 is the business guy, we'll find that interest there. So 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.760 many drummers would survived the bands and careers like you had. 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:32.840 So what kind of gigs did he get? We just 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:39.960 played in uh um youth clubs, played in played in 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:45.520 old people's hopes, played in St Patrick's night dances. There 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:47.560 was a hole in the town I lived in which 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.560 held about four people. We used to play there. We 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:56.000 would play in leeds Um and we played in an 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:01.080 area which was probably about fifty square miles and we 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.399 would probably play Fridays and Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. And 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:08.640 of course the parents also did the transport. We had 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:13.960 very very giving parents. My parents traded in the car 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:15.880 they had and got any state car so we could 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:18.720 put the seat down and put the drums in. And 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:23.040 what kind of money were you making? Two or three 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:27.600 pounds show? Okay, many people when they start having gigs 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.480 like that, never mind within a fifty mile area, they 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.320 start to experience, shall we call it, the perks of 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:37.600 the road, the sex, the drugs, the last we are 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:40.600 appearance along and nothing happened, or you know what was 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:44.160 tree inspiring? Well, first of all, Bob, we were thirteen fourteen, fifteen, 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:46.840 so and I can tell you in that part of 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:52.240 Britain at the time, people couldn't spell drugs alone access them. 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:54.040 There were there were no drugs. I mean we would 0:24:54.200 --> 0:24:57.000 when I got to college, we would smoke grass cuttings. 0:24:57.080 --> 0:25:01.200 We would smoke lawn cuttings, and and and and to 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:04.000 listen to the Moody Blues first album and think that 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:08.000 we were hip and relevant. Um, there was the sex, drugs, 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:10.199 and rock and roll came along a bit later, but 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:14.159 at that point, no, I mean you you'd finished at 0:25:14.200 --> 0:25:16.400 eleven thirty at night, and your mom and dad would 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:19.320 be outside with the with the car. You pat your 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:20.760 gear up and put it in and then you'd be 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:23.600 wished away and that was that. There was, but a 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:27.760 lot of people, certainly the lead sixties British musicians, they 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:30.600 were not that great verbally, and they said, well, I 0:25:30.640 --> 0:25:34.199 got into music to meet girls. Yeah, so were you 0:25:34.280 --> 0:25:39.760 meeting girls? I was meeting them, yes, but that was it. 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:43.280 I was meeting them. I mean I was, I was 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:50.480 motivated by by I just found the whole thing incredibly romantic, 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:56.800 just to be playing music. And yes, if yeah, but 0:25:56.880 --> 0:25:58.880 I mean I'm talking about I was fifteen years old, 0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:03.720 so I wasn't doing what your point you're into yet 0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:07.680 all people that we weren't any deeper than that. Now, 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:13.479 the Beatles really hit in sixty three, and what was 0:26:13.560 --> 0:26:16.280 that like being on the ground with the Beatles? Hire 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:20.159 certainly an American happened very quickly in January six. What 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.720 was it like? Okay, Well, their first single, of course 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.760 was Loved Me Do, and that came out I think 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:33.320 made sixty two probably, and it didn't make much of 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:36.560 an impact. And I remember as the group, we would 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:40.400 rehearse every week and we would start learning adding new songs, 0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:44.320 and we that record was so insignificant at the time 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:47.400 that we didn't even bother adding it to our kind 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:52.919 of set list. But this endless set list, but not 0:26:53.119 --> 0:26:57.560 long after must have been the early part of sixty 0:26:57.560 --> 0:27:00.200 three or round about spring Please Please Me came out, 0:27:01.280 --> 0:27:05.200 which George Martin incidentally told me was originally recorded at 0:27:05.240 --> 0:27:08.919 half the tempo, as like a Royal Orbison ballad. I 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:12.040 don't know whether you know this. So the way they 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:15.160 recorded it it was like bum bum bum bump, dad 0:27:16.000 --> 0:27:19.960 bump bump bump like that. And he said double the 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:23.800 tempo and put the chorus at the beginning. And when 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:26.360 they finished it, he said to them, you've just recorded 0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:29.239 your first number one. And I said to him, did 0:27:29.280 --> 0:27:31.040 you really think that? And he said no, no, I 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:36.199 was just just trying to keep them around. But I 0:27:36.240 --> 0:27:39.480 went to see the Beatles on a package tour. It 0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:44.280 was on June three at the Odeon Theater in Leeds. 0:27:45.600 --> 0:27:48.879 They were on a show with Roy Orbison, Jerry and 0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:52.080 the Postmaker's Silla Black and a couple of other acts. 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:56.720 Orbison had originally started the tour as the headliner, and 0:27:56.960 --> 0:27:59.359 a dozen shows in they flipped it so that he 0:27:59.440 --> 0:28:02.080 opened the and half chosen. Those days had an interval 0:28:03.080 --> 0:28:08.560 because you could not hear yourself think or and the 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:11.720 other thing I remember, which nobody ever talks about was 0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:17.960 the smell of girls urinating on velvet cinema seats with 0:28:18.040 --> 0:28:22.280 steam rising from the seats and you're looking as cancer 0:28:22.400 --> 0:28:25.040 that But honestly, that was what it was like. The 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:27.280 the artist that I saw in that period of time 0:28:27.320 --> 0:28:34.600 who got the biggest scream and undoubtedly this the largest 0:28:34.960 --> 0:28:41.720 volume of p was Del Shannon. He people went nuts 0:28:41.720 --> 0:28:46.320 for him. I say, why particularly, but the Beatle that 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:51.880 Beatles show? What I remember about that Beatles Show? And 0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:54.440 I still got the program I've got the programs from 0:28:54.480 --> 0:28:56.480 all these shows. I would take a bio and I 0:28:56.520 --> 0:28:59.520 would write down the set list, and of course they 0:28:59.600 --> 0:29:04.560 play twenty five minutes, and they did. I remember they 0:29:04.560 --> 0:29:07.360 started off when I saw her standing there, finished with 0:29:07.360 --> 0:29:10.800 twist and shout. They did a great version of you 0:29:10.840 --> 0:29:14.880 Really Got a hold on Me, that Miracles number, and 0:29:15.400 --> 0:29:19.720 they did Taste of Honey, which was quite unusual for 0:29:19.760 --> 0:29:22.880 the band of that time. But that was the period 0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:24.959 when they all had the same haircut, they were all 0:29:25.000 --> 0:29:27.760 wearing the same outfits. They had the round collars on 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:32.000 the jackets ties with pins through which we all immediately 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:38.160 rushed out to get outfits like that, and they um 0:29:40.120 --> 0:29:43.080 the screaming was what I remember. You could barely hear 0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:45.720 a note of music. Were you caught up in the 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:48.920 menia or were you like removed saying, well, that's the girls, 0:29:48.960 --> 0:29:52.680 that's not for the boys. Well I wasn't. I wasn't screaming, 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:58.600 that's for sure. You couldn't help. But we swept along 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:02.000 by it. I mean, I was fifteen years old. I 0:30:02.120 --> 0:30:05.320 just had my fifteenth birthday, and I think the music 0:30:05.400 --> 0:30:10.000 that you hear between the ages of about twelve and sixteen, 0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:15.720 certainly for me or for my generation, was what fashions 0:30:16.280 --> 0:30:20.280 your taste thereafter. I think that just kind of because 0:30:20.280 --> 0:30:26.000 you're of an age where it's so it really gets 0:30:26.040 --> 0:30:30.080 into your kind of soul, into your being. And I 0:30:30.200 --> 0:30:34.240 had been collecting Elvis records and the other artist, the 0:30:34.280 --> 0:30:36.040 rock and roll artist. I just I mentioned to you 0:30:36.040 --> 0:30:38.120 a few minutes ago. I happened to be a big 0:30:38.160 --> 0:30:41.000 fan of instrumentals, so I had a lot of Duane 0:30:41.080 --> 0:30:44.280 Eddie records people like that. But the fact that they 0:30:44.320 --> 0:30:52.640 were a British group, um completely, I think blew everybody away. 0:30:52.800 --> 0:30:54.560 It was it was the fact that they were home 0:30:54.640 --> 0:30:58.440 grown and that they were writing their own songs that 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:01.840 that was a real leap. I remember George Martin again 0:31:02.040 --> 0:31:06.640 saying to me that, of course when he first saw them, 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:09.920 he I said to him, you didn't. I interviewed him 0:31:09.920 --> 0:31:13.600 four times and I remember saying to him that, I said, 0:31:13.640 --> 0:31:15.920 you didn't sign them because you thought they were any good, 0:31:15.960 --> 0:31:18.880 did you? And he said, know, they were terrible. I 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:21.360 said you signed them because you liked them as people 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:24.320 and he said yes. And I said did you signed 0:31:24.320 --> 0:31:27.400 them because of Brian Epstein's enthusiasm And he said yes. 0:31:28.000 --> 0:31:30.480 And I said, did you signed them because the E 0:31:30.680 --> 0:31:33.840 m I record deal back then was so bad it 0:31:33.960 --> 0:31:38.400 represented no risk to the company. They got one old 0:31:38.400 --> 0:31:42.440 English penny royalty for the sale of an album in 0:31:42.480 --> 0:31:46.560 the UK, and they got half of one old English 0:31:46.640 --> 0:31:50.880 penny for the sale of an album outside of the UK. 0:31:51.040 --> 0:31:54.640 So and they had to use abbey Road em My studio. 0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:57.000 They had to do as an abbey Road producer of 0:31:57.120 --> 0:31:59.880 an EMI producer, which happened to be George who was 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:03.080 making comedy records at the time. He wasn't doing music. 0:32:03.960 --> 0:32:08.560 And they had to use an engine A m I 0:32:08.600 --> 0:32:14.440 engineers who wore white coats, had like surgical gloves. You 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:16.320 had to do an A side and a B side 0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:20.800 in three hours. The music was never ever ever played 0:32:20.840 --> 0:32:24.680 back to the act ever. And if you didn't do 0:32:24.720 --> 0:32:26.400 the I side in the Bay side in three hours, 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:28.800 it didn't matter. Whatever you've got recorded was what would 0:32:28.800 --> 0:32:35.960 come out. Don't no, so don't forget. Everything was very 0:32:35.960 --> 0:32:40.520 compressed in the US. The Stones came very quickly after 0:32:40.560 --> 0:32:42.800 the Beatles, and then it would be a big thing 0:32:42.840 --> 0:32:46.120 on the radio Saturday Night battle between the Rock the 0:32:46.200 --> 0:32:48.920 Stones in the Beatles. In your particular case, you said 0:32:48.920 --> 0:32:51.960 you were playing music with your band influenced by the 0:32:52.000 --> 0:32:56.160 British blues scene. Was there that bifurcation in the UK 0:32:56.320 --> 0:32:58.840 where you were one or the other? Were you one 0:32:58.920 --> 0:33:03.960 or the other your Beatles restored, Uh no, not really 0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:06.440 a little you see, they were all lumped together. They 0:33:06.480 --> 0:33:10.200 were pop groups. The Rolling Stones were not. We didn't 0:33:10.200 --> 0:33:13.160 know what blues music was. I mean, we were white, 0:33:13.160 --> 0:33:16.840 middle class kids. I've had this conversation with many musicians 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:19.480 who were in the bands of that era, bands like 0:33:19.520 --> 0:33:22.560 the Searchers, Manfred Man and the rest of them, and 0:33:24.040 --> 0:33:26.240 Jimmy Page and Robert and so on, and of course 0:33:26.440 --> 0:33:29.400 they look back on it now as being pretty ridiculous. 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:33.360 That white middle aged, sorry, white middle class kids from 0:33:33.360 --> 0:33:36.560 South London were trying to sound like John Lee Hooker. 0:33:36.880 --> 0:33:40.360 It was just completely ridiculous, but they were all and 0:33:40.400 --> 0:33:43.960 everybody was slowing the records down by hand to try 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:48.960 and grab what the lyrics were because American lyrics. I'll 0:33:48.960 --> 0:33:51.520 give you an example. Many years ago, I happened to 0:33:51.520 --> 0:33:55.200 be in Nashville with Martin Offer and we were having 0:33:55.240 --> 0:33:59.560 dinner with well On Jennings and the Evely brothers and 0:33:59.640 --> 0:34:03.480 Emmy Harris, and I remember saying, I've always wanted to 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:09.920 ask you guys to don Phil what what's a bird dog? 0:34:11.239 --> 0:34:13.840 And they burst out laughing and they said, well, you 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:15.759 know when you go hunting, do you have you have 0:34:15.800 --> 0:34:18.040 a dog? And I said, oh, you mean a retriever 0:34:18.920 --> 0:34:22.200 and they said, no, no, it's a bird dog. For 0:34:22.400 --> 0:34:27.560 years we had wondered what a bird dog was, and 0:34:27.600 --> 0:34:32.240 there were many many examples of that. And I remember 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:35.520 Whalon saying to market myself, he said, you you know 0:34:35.640 --> 0:34:40.439 more about us than we know about us. And I said, well, 0:34:40.520 --> 0:34:42.439 you have to understand that when we were growing up, 0:34:44.520 --> 0:34:50.879 everything American was magical. Our introduction to America was through 0:34:51.000 --> 0:34:56.400 the early Westerns, like raw hide Wagon Train. Then it 0:34:56.440 --> 0:35:00.800 moved on to the crime shows like Dragnet s Unset Strip, 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:06.600 and then through music, through rock and roll music. And 0:35:06.719 --> 0:35:10.360 I suppose there was a slight overlap with maybe the 0:35:10.400 --> 0:35:13.440 big band swing era just before that. So on the 0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:18.359 radio you would hear um maybe the Ellington band or 0:35:18.360 --> 0:35:23.600 the BASSI Band, probably quite late at night, and the 0:35:23.680 --> 0:35:29.600 whole I can't overstress the romance of it to us. 0:35:30.760 --> 0:35:35.680 And I remember saying to them, Mark can recite the 0:35:35.680 --> 0:35:39.120 the entire sleeve note from Elvis is Gold Records Volume one, 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:42.440 and Mark probably started reciting it and I won't, no, no, no, 0:35:42.480 --> 0:35:45.600 you don't. But we that we would read, we would 0:35:45.680 --> 0:35:48.799 memorize the sleeve notes. And the other thing that was 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:52.879 mystifying to us, because they were never credited, was who 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:57.759 played on these records. This became something of an adventure 0:35:57.840 --> 0:36:00.000 to try and find out. And it was only really 0:36:00.160 --> 0:36:04.640 when Phil Spector's Wall of Sound came along that you 0:36:04.760 --> 0:36:08.480 heard about people like Hal Blaine or Carol Kay or whoever. 0:36:08.600 --> 0:36:11.680 We didn't know who Scotty Moore and d J. Fontana 0:36:11.760 --> 0:36:14.640 were who or what, or that there was a horn 0:36:14.719 --> 0:36:18.960 section in Fat Domino's band. I remember when I met 0:36:19.080 --> 0:36:21.680 Roy Orbison years later I said to him one of 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:25.400 my memories about him was that he played a show 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:27.719 in Leeds in this venue I was talking about on 0:36:27.760 --> 0:36:31.359 a later tour, and he had four violinists. They were 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:38.520 playing white violins sitting on white cane chairs, unamplified. But 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:41.800 because you knew the records so well, when they were 0:36:41.800 --> 0:36:46.040 sawing away, you could imagine the sound even though you 0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:50.280 couldn't hear the sound well articulated. Now, when the Beatles 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:54.200 hit in the US, everybody picked up the guitar. People 0:36:54.239 --> 0:36:57.160 were forming bands left in the right. What was like 0:36:57.600 --> 0:36:59.839 in the UK? It was the same, It was the same. 0:37:01.440 --> 0:37:04.680 There was a there was a magazine in Liverpool called 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:10.759 Mersey Beat, which gave Rise and the other music. I'm 0:37:10.800 --> 0:37:13.200 going to call them trade papers, but they weren't really 0:37:13.239 --> 0:37:17.040 trade papers like billboards. There were two in particular. One 0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:19.680 was called the New Musical Express Enemy and the other 0:37:19.760 --> 0:37:23.000 was Melody Maker, And the Melody Maker was really a 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:30.800 jazz paper, and it kind of quite rapidly became Beatles. 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:34.240 Stones and another band that people forget who were huge 0:37:34.280 --> 0:37:36.359 here and I know huge in your country, the Dave 0:37:36.400 --> 0:37:39.560 Clark five. They were big, but for a shorter period 0:37:39.560 --> 0:37:44.360 of time period, right, um, Once again the drummer was 0:37:44.400 --> 0:37:47.600 the business guy. Well, yeah, an interesting story about Dave Clark. 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:50.799 Tell you a little story here. So Dave from the 0:37:51.040 --> 0:37:54.920 from another drummer nearly all the rather like in your 0:37:54.960 --> 0:37:59.400 country at the time, we had a very strong musician 0:37:59.640 --> 0:38:04.759 Miss Musicians union here at the time, and most pop records, 0:38:05.120 --> 0:38:08.520 which you and I would consider to be the hits 0:38:08.560 --> 0:38:11.000 of that whole period from about sixty three through to 0:38:11.080 --> 0:38:15.880 about sixty six, the bands didn't play on them. Studio 0:38:15.920 --> 0:38:18.960 players played on them, and Dave Clark didn't play on 0:38:19.000 --> 0:38:22.200 any of his own records. I didn't know that they 0:38:22.200 --> 0:38:28.200 were all done by a drummer, a drummer called Bobby Graham, 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:32.239 and Bobby Graham was one and it was a bit 0:38:32.280 --> 0:38:35.440 like the Wall of Sound guys, the Wrecking Crew. There 0:38:35.440 --> 0:38:38.120 were three guys who did all the drums. There were 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:41.839 two piano players, there were four bass players, six guitarists 0:38:41.840 --> 0:38:47.400 and song So Bobby Graham is doing a session for 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:50.160 bits and pieces to follow up to Glad all over. 0:38:50.600 --> 0:38:55.440 I can hear, and he's down in the studio and 0:38:55.520 --> 0:39:00.960 Dave Clark is up in the producers box and Bobby 0:39:01.040 --> 0:39:08.640 is playing buff buff into the song and Dave Clark 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:10.799 preciously into commen. He says, I need you to play 0:39:10.920 --> 0:39:15.120 that simpler. So he goes, no, no, no, no, You've 0:39:15.120 --> 0:39:19.040 got to play it simpler, and he goes, you can't 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:21.560 play it. He's just playing four in the bar exactly 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:28.480 as you say. And finally Bobby, in exasperation, hits the 0:39:28.480 --> 0:39:30.400 talkback and says, why have I got to play it 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:33.320 like this? And Dave Clark says, because I've got to 0:39:33.440 --> 0:39:40.080 mind to it and all those records were covered one 0:39:40.080 --> 0:39:42.480 of my dearest friends. He's getting on in use now. 0:39:42.719 --> 0:39:45.440 It's a drama called Clem Cotini, who played with the 0:39:45.480 --> 0:39:49.279 Tornadoes on Telstar, which was the first British record to 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:53.560 get to number one in the US. I think and um, 0:39:53.640 --> 0:39:58.479 he played on number one hits in the UK, all 0:39:58.520 --> 0:40:01.480 of the all the all of the key stuff, for instance, 0:40:01.680 --> 0:40:07.160 and he doesn't have a dime. Uh correct correct all 0:40:07.200 --> 0:40:12.080 these legends. Okay, so you're playing drums. The scene goes 0:40:12.160 --> 0:40:16.640 thermonuclear A. Most of the players from the English world 0:40:17.080 --> 0:40:20.960 don't go to university. Yet you go to university. Was 0:40:21.000 --> 0:40:23.120 there any thought, as you say in the UK of 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:27.960 turning bro and not going to university. I wanted to 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:33.239 do that, but uh, I kind of came to a 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:36.560 sort of this is my first deal, if you like, 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:40.880 a deal with my parents. But I would go to university. 0:40:41.840 --> 0:40:44.799 I would hopefully get a degree and then I would 0:40:44.840 --> 0:40:48.359 go to London and try and be a professional musician. Now, 0:40:48.400 --> 0:40:51.960 of course I had ah an idea of my own 0:40:52.080 --> 0:40:56.360 talents that was considerably greater than they actually were, because 0:40:56.360 --> 0:40:59.720 I was eighteen years old. But a very very strange 0:40:59.760 --> 0:41:04.080 thing happened. I go up to university in Hull, in Yorkshire, 0:41:04.360 --> 0:41:07.359 in city very like Liverpool on just on the other 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:10.839 side of the country. And on the first night I 0:41:10.960 --> 0:41:14.320 was there, or the second night, they were having a 0:41:14.680 --> 0:41:18.200 dance in the students union, which is where girls would 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:21.279 dance around their handbags and boys would look at them 0:41:21.400 --> 0:41:25.719 and wonder if they could cut in. And I walk 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:29.080 into the front of the student union and something happened 0:41:29.080 --> 0:41:33.400 which brought me to this place. There's a Tanoi message 0:41:33.400 --> 0:41:36.720 going out if anybody in the building can play drums, 0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:40.400 would they please come to reception. And I was standing 0:41:40.920 --> 0:41:43.920 at reception and I can see the woman who's speaking 0:41:43.920 --> 0:41:47.040 into the microphone, so without thinking what this might be, 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:51.000 I said to her, I can And this guy shot out, 0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:54.319 who I later learned was a chap called Malcolm Haig, 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:59.480 and he said to me, are you any good? I said, well, yeah, 0:41:59.600 --> 0:42:02.200 quite good it he said, well, how good are you? 0:42:02.800 --> 0:42:06.759 I said, well quite good? He said, the drama with 0:42:06.800 --> 0:42:10.319 the band tonight can't play sick and we haven't got 0:42:10.360 --> 0:42:13.279 any records. We don't have a like a DJ thing. 0:42:14.320 --> 0:42:20.479 He said, so can you play with them? And I went, uh, well, yeah, 0:42:21.280 --> 0:42:23.560 I don't know what do they play. So anyway, he 0:42:23.600 --> 0:42:27.719 starts leading me off to the dressing room and it 0:42:27.840 --> 0:42:29.680 turned out, now you won't know this band, but it 0:42:29.719 --> 0:42:31.440 turned out they were a band called the Victor Brox 0:42:31.480 --> 0:42:34.839 Blues Train. Victor Brox later went onto a little bit 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:39.320 of success because he sings on the first cast recording 0:42:39.400 --> 0:42:42.719 of Jesus Christ Superstar, but at the time he was 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:47.320 the frontman of a six piece blues band playing blues covers. 0:42:49.280 --> 0:42:51.840 And there was a coincidence because the previous week this 0:42:51.960 --> 0:42:55.759 group had played in my hometown. I hadn't gone, but 0:42:55.840 --> 0:42:58.839 I'd seen the posters up everywhere. So I go into 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:00.759 the dressing room. I'm into used to them and there's 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:03.360 another student who said this message and he's got in 0:43:03.400 --> 0:43:07.120 there before me, and I think to myself, sad him, 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:09.279 I'm going to get rid of him. So I did 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:11.880 a bluff. And one of the things in management you 0:43:11.920 --> 0:43:15.480 have to learn how to do is bluff, bluff like 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:18.759 mad and I said to Victor Brox, I said, ah, 0:43:18.800 --> 0:43:21.520 I saw your band last week in Tadcaster. I know 0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:24.719 all of the songs you do. The other guy immediately 0:43:24.760 --> 0:43:28.000 turned around and left, and then I said to them 0:43:28.040 --> 0:43:30.279 how much are you going to pay me? And they 0:43:30.320 --> 0:43:32.400 won't pay you. I said, yeah, how much are you 0:43:32.440 --> 0:43:35.880 gonna pay me? And we settled on five pounds. They 0:43:35.920 --> 0:43:39.600 were getting forty pounds. When I've done the deal for 0:43:39.640 --> 0:43:41.719 the money, I said, listen, there's something you need to know. 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:44.360 I didn't see you last week. I just saw the posters, 0:43:45.120 --> 0:43:48.080 which they thought was hilarious. And I said, what do 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:52.840 you play? And they did knock on wood, hold on, 0:43:52.880 --> 0:43:56.400 I'm coming. You don't know like I know Motown Stacks 0:43:56.600 --> 0:44:00.200 James Brown, which I had played dozens of times. I 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:02.560 just said to the bass player, can you count me in? 0:44:03.520 --> 0:44:05.480 And just signal when you come into the end, because 0:44:05.560 --> 0:44:08.000 in rock music you only have to know the beginning 0:44:08.000 --> 0:44:10.000 in the end. What happens in the middle doesn't matter. 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:15.760 And I got through two minutes, said kept it simple, 0:44:15.880 --> 0:44:19.759 didn't screw it up. Big hugs at the end, get 0:44:19.760 --> 0:44:23.080 my five pounds and I go into the bar. I'm 0:44:23.080 --> 0:44:27.080 going a drink, and a tall blonde girl called Trudy 0:44:27.200 --> 0:44:31.640 comes up to me and says, I really enjoyed your playing, 0:44:32.760 --> 0:44:36.200 And I went, did you? And I bought her a 0:44:36.440 --> 0:44:40.400 larger in line or something, and she said, would you 0:44:40.440 --> 0:44:43.040 like to come back to my student house for coffee? 0:44:43.719 --> 0:44:47.200 Which was which was the sign? So I said, yeah, sure, 0:44:47.320 --> 0:44:50.160 love love to. So I'm coming out of the student 0:44:50.280 --> 0:44:53.840 union and a flash gun goes off in my face 0:44:55.000 --> 0:44:56.799 and a little guy cop pops out and he says, 0:44:56.840 --> 0:44:59.960 I'm the I'm the editor of the student newspaper, talked, 0:45:00.520 --> 0:45:02.520 we'd like to do a front page feature on you 0:45:02.640 --> 0:45:05.080 next week. What's your name? What course are you on? 0:45:05.120 --> 0:45:07.520 Where did you come from? Were you nervous? How did 0:45:07.520 --> 0:45:10.480 you know all those songs? So I do an interview 0:45:10.760 --> 0:45:15.120 with this guy. At the same time the chap who 0:45:15.160 --> 0:45:17.839 had come up to me when I got into the place, 0:45:17.880 --> 0:45:19.960 who turned out to be the social secretary as we 0:45:20.000 --> 0:45:22.879 call them here. It was leaving and he came over 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:26.640 to me and he said, I'm a I'm a pianist. 0:45:26.880 --> 0:45:30.720 Do you want to be in my group? And I said, yeah, sure. 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:33.680 I said who else is in your group? He said nobody, 0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:36.600 it's me and you will. But I know a flute 0:45:36.600 --> 0:45:41.920 player and he happened to be running the entertainments committee. 0:45:42.200 --> 0:45:44.719 He said, do you want to be on the entertainments committee? 0:45:44.960 --> 0:45:47.120 And I said that what does that do? I don't 0:45:47.160 --> 0:45:49.239 know what that is. He said, well, we run all 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:51.480 the entertainment. We run a dance every Saturday. We do 0:45:51.520 --> 0:45:54.040 a union ball once a year. I also run the 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:57.480 jazz club and the folk club. Okay, so on my 0:45:57.640 --> 0:46:01.240 first night, I've played a eg, have made five pounds 0:46:01.239 --> 0:46:03.360 of pulled a bird, I'm on the front cover of 0:46:03.400 --> 0:46:07.640 the student in newspaper paper, and I've joined the entertainments committee. 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:12.400 And at the end of my first year he stepped 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:15.640 down to do his finals exams and he said to me, 0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:19.400 you take over. And I said we're supposed to have 0:46:19.400 --> 0:46:24.200 an election and he went, as are you stupid? So 0:46:24.239 --> 0:46:32.640 I took over entertainment. Okay, let's go back to the beginner. 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:35.839 Where did you get the Hudspur asked for five paths. 0:46:36.239 --> 0:46:40.040 I've always had hutspur. That's That's why I'm on your show. 0:46:40.120 --> 0:46:43.480 But exactly that, where does that come from? Your parents? 0:46:43.480 --> 0:46:47.960 Where did you learn that? Actually? I was quite shy 0:46:48.120 --> 0:46:50.800 at that point. I mean, having gone through the school 0:46:50.840 --> 0:46:53.640 experience I had, which was, you know, living at the 0:46:53.680 --> 0:46:57.319 school that I went to and kind of putting up 0:46:57.360 --> 0:47:00.279 with a bit of ribbing from certain teachers, and that 0:47:00.800 --> 0:47:05.880 I don't know, I just I don't know just what 0:47:06.040 --> 0:47:08.520 makes you the man you are. But since you mentioned 0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:11.200 her name, we have to ask what happened with Trudy? 0:47:13.000 --> 0:47:15.640 Oh truly went the way of all ladies of the time. 0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:20.560 You know. She we we used to, we used to, 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:23.440 we used to have a dreadful cut coffee with you know, 0:47:23.480 --> 0:47:28.400 those chemicals sprinkled on the top, and she I dually. 0:47:28.560 --> 0:47:30.640 I mean, this was like being let into a sweet 0:47:30.680 --> 0:47:34.879 shop for me. I mean I had one girlfriend back 0:47:34.920 --> 0:47:37.600 in Yorkshire and here I am, and I'm suddenly in 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:40.840 a sweet shop. And when I took over the entertainments, 0:47:41.760 --> 0:47:46.840 I was just by default the best known person in 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:52.040 the university because I had the most glamorous gig if 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:55.480 you like. And I made one decision which stood me 0:47:55.520 --> 0:47:59.000 in very good stead then and I have kept right 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:02.480 up to now. I decided I would only put on 0:48:02.680 --> 0:48:07.080 bands that I liked, and somehow I would sell them 0:48:07.080 --> 0:48:11.840 to my audience. And I had including the teacher training 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:14.279 college down the road, in the technical college next door, 0:48:14.320 --> 0:48:16.640 I had twelve thou students to draw and who had 0:48:16.680 --> 0:48:19.880 a student union card. I had a hall which was 0:48:19.920 --> 0:48:22.960 the third largest in the UK, held a thousand people. 0:48:24.640 --> 0:48:29.040 So the first band I bought was the Moody Blues. Okay, well, 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:31.640 well let's slow down a little bit. You were a drummer. 0:48:32.280 --> 0:48:35.560 Now you got the gig in to use the line 0:48:35.600 --> 0:48:39.120 from Let It Be, you passed the audition? Yes, at 0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:45.600 what point do you bring your drums to university? Within 0:48:45.640 --> 0:48:49.000 two weeks of that? So, at what point do you 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:53.919 say I'm a businessman as opposed to a drummer. I've 0:48:53.920 --> 0:49:00.400 never said that. Um. That was later when I got 0:49:00.440 --> 0:49:03.160 down to London. Okay, so all this time that you're 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:06.640 ahead of the entertainment program, in the back of your mind, 0:49:06.960 --> 0:49:10.839 the dream is still alive. You're gonna be a drummer. Yeah, absolutely, 0:49:10.920 --> 0:49:13.919 And what happened. I never had any aspirations to get 0:49:13.920 --> 0:49:16.880 onto the business side. I didn't know what the business 0:49:16.920 --> 0:49:19.120 side was. I was, as I was saying earlier, there 0:49:19.120 --> 0:49:22.520 really wasn't a defined music business like we know it now. 0:49:23.239 --> 0:49:27.920 I had no clue what anybody did. I knew I 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:31.759 had heard of Colonel Parker, I'd heard of Epstein. I 0:49:31.800 --> 0:49:35.840 didn't know what they did, the mechanics of what they did. Okay. 0:49:35.840 --> 0:49:38.280 So while you were in university, were you also playing 0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:40.799 in the bands, whether it would be the pianist or 0:49:40.800 --> 0:49:46.719 somebody else, Yes, yes, and I and I also I 0:49:46.760 --> 0:49:50.200 got a jazz group together, playing kind of I'm going 0:49:50.280 --> 0:49:52.880 to call it modern jazz. It was really just rubbish, 0:49:52.920 --> 0:49:55.680 but that's what we did. Okay. So you booked the 0:49:55.680 --> 0:49:58.600 Moody Blues. How do you even do that? How do 0:49:58.640 --> 0:50:00.200 you know who the agent is? How do you know 0:50:00.280 --> 0:50:03.840 what's going to call? My predecessor as the social secretary, 0:50:03.920 --> 0:50:07.360 this guy Malcolm, when he said decided to step down 0:50:07.600 --> 0:50:11.560 and to do his finals, he said, oh look, here's that. 0:50:11.640 --> 0:50:13.600 He wrote them down. He wrote a list of the 0:50:13.640 --> 0:50:17.000 agencies that he dealt with. Now, the agency business in 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:19.399 London at the time was small. I mean they were 0:50:19.400 --> 0:50:25.359 probably six five six agencies, and there weren't that many 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:28.319 bands either. I mean we didn't have you know, there 0:50:28.360 --> 0:50:32.800 were maybe playing on the student circuit. There were probably 0:50:32.800 --> 0:50:35.920 a hundred hundred and fifty bands, and that they might 0:50:36.080 --> 0:50:40.480 range from a pound a night local group to the 0:50:40.520 --> 0:50:42.880 most I ever paid for an act was four hundred 0:50:42.920 --> 0:50:46.080 pounds for Jethro Toll and they had a top three 0:50:46.120 --> 0:50:50.640 single when I had them. Okay, would you come up 0:50:50.680 --> 0:50:52.759 with the band and then find the agent or would 0:50:52.760 --> 0:50:57.279 you call the agency when he had available both? And 0:50:57.360 --> 0:51:01.520 of course I was also fielding calls constantly the all 0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:03.720 of the agents in London, and they weren't really agents, 0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:06.319 that they were bookers. We were no, we didn't call 0:51:06.400 --> 0:51:10.600 them agents the bookers. Uh. And nobody did tours. Then 0:51:10.760 --> 0:51:15.359 everybody gaved and and you try to get bands, would 0:51:15.360 --> 0:51:17.920 try and get, you know, a student date on a 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:20.640 Friday and Saturday, because that would pay more. They could 0:51:20.680 --> 0:51:23.160 make maybe get anywhere between a hundred and twenty five 0:51:23.200 --> 0:51:25.879 to fifty pounds for a net for a name act, 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:31.240 a decent name, and um, those same bands might play 0:51:31.280 --> 0:51:34.879 on a Sunday night for fifty pounds somewhere, and and 0:51:35.120 --> 0:51:38.080 everybody was kind of on a wage sort of thing, 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:42.319 and typically a musician might make pounds a week back 0:51:42.400 --> 0:51:47.279 then I'm talking or sixty six through to sixty nine. 0:51:47.600 --> 0:51:53.759 How did you have time to do your school work? Well? Um, 0:51:53.800 --> 0:51:56.760 just worked hard. I mean I got a decent degree. 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:01.120 And what did you study? I did, Well, it was 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:03.680 a new course. It was called social studies and in 0:52:03.719 --> 0:52:06.040 fact the group I was part of was as I 0:52:06.160 --> 0:52:09.799 found out when I got there, um because I went 0:52:09.840 --> 0:52:15.319 for an interview and the professor who interviewed me, she 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:18.280 was so grateful I'd applied because this was a brand 0:52:18.280 --> 0:52:22.400 new course and we were the experiment, this group that 0:52:22.440 --> 0:52:25.560 I was part of, which was probably about thirty five 0:52:25.640 --> 0:52:29.080 students they were going to we were going to start 0:52:29.120 --> 0:52:35.520 this course, and I just and it included sociology, philosophy, economics, 0:52:36.400 --> 0:52:39.400 things like that at British Social history since since the 0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:44.640 Industrial Revolution eighteen and I just I got stuck into that. 0:52:45.520 --> 0:52:49.200 But my real thing was was doing doing the entertainments. 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:52.640 And then a couple of questions, how many gigs would 0:52:52.680 --> 0:52:55.960 you do a year? How many shows? Are you talking 0:52:55.960 --> 0:53:03.759 about me personally? And probably be about okay, And there 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:06.759 was a fund that you drew on or were you 0:53:06.840 --> 0:53:09.480 starting at dollar zero, I were starting with the ticket 0:53:09.520 --> 0:53:12.520 money that came in. Okay, so there are certain acts 0:53:12.560 --> 0:53:15.719 that are instant sellouts, but a lot of acts are not. 0:53:15.880 --> 0:53:22.879 How did you promote the shows? I learned some very 0:53:23.360 --> 0:53:27.120 good lessons very quickly, which stood me in very good 0:53:27.200 --> 0:53:30.080 stead for my later career. The first was that if 0:53:30.120 --> 0:53:33.560 you if you can't read a poster from the top 0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:38.040 of a double decker bus, it's not worth ship. So 0:53:38.080 --> 0:53:40.719 I just used to do a black background with day 0:53:40.760 --> 0:53:44.560 glow green, day glow, pink, day glow orange. It would 0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:46.759 say who it was, where it was, when it was, 0:53:46.840 --> 0:53:51.560 and how much I got. I got an entertainments committed together, 0:53:51.640 --> 0:53:55.480 and I delegated two different people. They would go and 0:53:55.520 --> 0:53:58.800 they would put a flyer under the door of every 0:53:58.880 --> 0:54:03.440 single room in every single hall of residents. I would 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:09.279 put flyers on every dining table for a week. I 0:54:09.360 --> 0:54:12.719 would try. I would have the music played over the 0:54:12.760 --> 0:54:18.080 student union p A. And also I had the biggest 0:54:18.080 --> 0:54:19.880 thing I had going for me was that this was 0:54:19.920 --> 0:54:25.120 a Saturday night and the students, the male and the 0:54:25.160 --> 0:54:28.279 female students. Basically, Saturday night was the night where you 0:54:28.560 --> 0:54:30.880 got together and you know that you ended up with 0:54:30.920 --> 0:54:33.200 a knee trembler by the end of the evening. And 0:54:33.239 --> 0:54:35.799 if you don't know what that is, Bob, I'll send 0:54:35.800 --> 0:54:40.359 you a text. So so but but but you know 0:54:40.600 --> 0:54:45.120 lust they are now was a big driving force, and 0:54:45.160 --> 0:54:50.000 certainly in a student environment. And but one, but just 0:54:50.239 --> 0:54:53.040 a little side story. When I bought the Moody Blues 0:54:54.920 --> 0:54:56.839 at that time they had had what they had had 0:54:56.960 --> 0:55:00.480 one number one hit in the UK with a Bessie 0:55:00.480 --> 0:55:06.600 Banks song called go Now. Danny Lane was the singer 0:55:06.840 --> 0:55:09.880 who later went onto Wings and they were essentially an 0:55:10.000 --> 0:55:13.359 R and B group from Birmingham. In between the time 0:55:13.440 --> 0:55:17.200 I bought them and the time they came, Denny and 0:55:17.239 --> 0:55:19.600 the bass player left the group and Justin Hayward and 0:55:19.680 --> 0:55:22.840 John Lodge, who are now very dear friends of mine, 0:55:23.680 --> 0:55:28.720 ironically had joined the band. They had played a show 0:55:28.840 --> 0:55:31.839 in a cabaret club in the north of England where 0:55:31.880 --> 0:55:35.239 they were basically doing go Now three times in the 0:55:35.280 --> 0:55:40.040 set and some covers, and they played this particular place 0:55:40.080 --> 0:55:42.880 up in Newcastle or somewhere. Justin told me this story 0:55:43.560 --> 0:55:46.000 and after the show they're in the dressing room and 0:55:46.040 --> 0:55:50.520 they were all wearing matching suits, shirts, ties, looking very 0:55:50.520 --> 0:55:54.200 smart and a guy and his wife came by and 0:55:54.280 --> 0:55:57.279 banged on the door, and they opened the door and 0:55:57.320 --> 0:56:00.279 the guy said, he said, it's really great of your 0:56:00.320 --> 0:56:02.560 lads to come all the way up here, but I 0:56:02.640 --> 0:56:06.320 got to tell you you were crap. You're absolutely shiped. 0:56:06.560 --> 0:56:09.200 You're the worst band I've ever seen in my life. 0:56:10.640 --> 0:56:14.279 Nice to meet you by and left and the movie 0:56:14.320 --> 0:56:16.160 Blue was got in their van to drive back to 0:56:16.200 --> 0:56:20.160 London in total silence. They didn't speak for about four hours, 0:56:20.800 --> 0:56:25.520 and as they getting close to London, one of them 0:56:25.560 --> 0:56:30.399 said that guy's right, and they all went yeah. They 0:56:30.520 --> 0:56:34.239 dumped everything they were doing justin and John Lodge got 0:56:34.239 --> 0:56:36.799 the biggest bag of weed they could lay their hands on. 0:56:37.480 --> 0:56:40.120 They went to Belgium and they wrote Nights in White 0:56:40.160 --> 0:56:43.200 Satin Tuesday Afternoon and all of the songs that were 0:56:43.239 --> 0:56:46.480 on the Days of Future Past record, which they recorded 0:56:46.840 --> 0:56:51.640 not with the orchestra that was dubbed on afterwards, because 0:56:51.760 --> 0:56:56.840 Decca had a new stereo system thing and they wanted 0:56:56.880 --> 0:57:01.040 that record to be the demonstration disc for this particular 0:57:01.120 --> 0:57:04.439 format that they were going to go with, so they 0:57:04.560 --> 0:57:07.359 hired Tony Clark to do all those arrangements and it 0:57:07.400 --> 0:57:09.920 was wasn't until the record was released that the Moody 0:57:09.920 --> 0:57:14.200 Blues heard them, because back then nobody's consulted the act. 0:57:15.800 --> 0:57:19.760 So anyway, I booked them. When they arrived, I go 0:57:19.880 --> 0:57:22.440 up to the dressing room and back then nobody had 0:57:22.440 --> 0:57:25.400 a rider. So you gave them some sausage rolls and 0:57:25.440 --> 0:57:30.560 to create a beer and they were grateful. And I 0:57:30.640 --> 0:57:33.120 had written on a piece of paper and felt tip 0:57:33.160 --> 0:57:39.120 pen Moody Blues eight thirty to nine fifty to ten thirty, 0:57:39.240 --> 0:57:43.400 because everybody did to forty five minutes. And John Lodge 0:57:43.960 --> 0:57:47.080 and I'm going to attempt to Birmingham Accent now came 0:57:47.120 --> 0:57:49.000 and stood behind me, and he's looking at this thing, 0:57:49.000 --> 0:57:51.880 and he says, we don't do to forty four minutes anymore. 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:55.920 We do a concert. And I said, what he should 0:57:55.920 --> 0:57:59.400 a concert? We do a concert. Now we do seventy 0:57:59.400 --> 0:58:04.120 four minute still left to sit down, and I said, 0:58:04.160 --> 0:58:06.320 we haven't got any chairs lift to sit on the floor. 0:58:06.360 --> 0:58:08.320 We don't do forty four minutes. We do we do 0:58:08.360 --> 0:58:14.120 a concertitute a concert, And to my astonishment, students sat 0:58:14.160 --> 0:58:20.360 down and they played a concert complete with melotron. They 0:58:20.360 --> 0:58:22.560 did the whole of that first album, and they did 0:58:22.560 --> 0:58:26.200 two songs off the next one, one of which had 0:58:26.240 --> 0:58:30.640 the amazing lyrics Timothy Leary is dead, No he's yeah, 0:58:30.760 --> 0:58:35.680 you know the legend of a mind. Yeah, And I 0:58:35.960 --> 0:58:38.080 a little light went on and I thought, well, if 0:58:38.120 --> 0:58:41.360 I put I had two refectories that I would put 0:58:41.600 --> 0:58:44.960 things on. I thought, well, if I put on something 0:58:45.040 --> 0:58:48.760 in the East refectory which they can dance to, I 0:58:48.800 --> 0:58:52.680 can put concert song here. And so the next band 0:58:52.720 --> 0:58:57.360 I bought was Pink Floyd four a hundred fifty pounds, 0:58:58.520 --> 0:59:01.800 and they came up and again I thought I was 0:59:01.840 --> 0:59:09.400 getting Sid. No, said David Gilmore walked in. They had 0:59:10.480 --> 0:59:13.280 they had got rid of? Said well, actually what happened 0:59:13.320 --> 0:59:15.200 was they were going to play gig in Oxford and 0:59:15.280 --> 0:59:17.800 they got to the and they had to pick him up. Last, 0:59:18.280 --> 0:59:20.640 they went to his mum's house where Sid was living. 0:59:21.560 --> 0:59:24.080 They pulled up outside his house and they sat in 0:59:24.120 --> 0:59:27.560 the car for twenty minutes in silence, and then Roger, 0:59:27.600 --> 0:59:33.480 who was driving, drove off without Sid, because David was 0:59:33.520 --> 0:59:36.640 already in the group covering for Sid. And that's how 0:59:37.200 --> 0:59:41.400 said Barrett left Pink Floyd. He simply wasn't picked up, 0:59:42.400 --> 0:59:47.120 and they m they came up to home and they 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:49.440 played the whole of the source of Full of Secrets record, 0:59:50.720 --> 0:59:53.560 and I was totally blown away. I thought they were 0:59:53.640 --> 0:59:57.600 amazing so on, and I'm on a roll at this point, 0:59:57.800 --> 1:00:00.640 so then I think, okay, I'll put the Who. So 1:00:00.720 --> 1:00:04.680 I bought the Who had the Who three times and 1:00:04.800 --> 1:00:08.560 that was staggering. The only band I've ever worked with 1:00:08.800 --> 1:00:14.720 where at the end nobody applauded and nobody left. People 1:00:14.760 --> 1:00:19.760 were stunned. They smashed everything, everything, The entire drum kit 1:00:19.840 --> 1:00:21.920 came off the front of the stage and landed in 1:00:21.920 --> 1:00:26.120 the audience. There were bombs going off. That's why, right. 1:00:26.160 --> 1:00:29.040 I interviewed Roger three years ago and I realized halfway 1:00:29.040 --> 1:00:31.200 through the interview he couldn't hear a word. I was saying, 1:00:32.240 --> 1:00:36.520 he's completely deafening. What he calls his end whist leah, 1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:39.120 because they back then is you know, all of the 1:00:39.160 --> 1:00:41.920 sound came off the back line. It was a piddling 1:00:42.000 --> 1:00:45.600 little p a and Roger had to over sing. He 1:00:45.680 --> 1:00:48.400 had to basically shout and scream to be heard. And 1:00:48.440 --> 1:00:52.000 I was standing on the stage right next to Pete's 1:00:52.000 --> 1:00:56.000 Marshall stacks, two of them, one of which had no 1:00:56.120 --> 1:00:58.560 speakers in it, so he could spear his guitar through 1:00:58.600 --> 1:01:01.600 because he possibly going to pay for speakers. And the 1:01:02.520 --> 1:01:05.040 noise was the sound. Well, I'll call it a noise 1:01:05.200 --> 1:01:07.480 because Roger said to me we were trying to recreate 1:01:07.520 --> 1:01:10.760 the sounds of war, and I said to you were 1:01:10.920 --> 1:01:15.720 entirely successful. They were fantastic, life, fantastic. You have this 1:01:15.840 --> 1:01:22.920 incredible run. But then you graduate with well when I graduated. 1:01:23.000 --> 1:01:25.560 Of course, by this time I got to know quite 1:01:25.560 --> 1:01:28.640 a lot of the booker's agents in London because they 1:01:28.640 --> 1:01:32.120 were constantly ringing me trying to sell me their crappy bands. 1:01:34.360 --> 1:01:38.240 I had a fantastic last week. We had a charity thing, 1:01:38.600 --> 1:01:43.400 charity week and I put on John Male's Blues Breakers 1:01:45.120 --> 1:01:50.800 Jethro Tull with led Zeppelin as the opening act, booked 1:01:50.840 --> 1:01:55.000 as the new Yardbirds. And I've still got the contract 1:01:55.040 --> 1:01:57.600 and it had been crossed out and it written in 1:01:57.760 --> 1:02:01.440 was led L E. A D. Polin which Peter had 1:02:01.440 --> 1:02:09.560 written in um we had The Kinks and Family Family 1:02:09.560 --> 1:02:11.959 were the best band I put on in the entire 1:02:12.000 --> 1:02:16.680 two years. They didn't make it in America. True incredible band, 1:02:17.000 --> 1:02:23.200 fantastic band. So July four, with a hundred pounds, my 1:02:23.200 --> 1:02:25.360 mom and dad I get on the train. I've got 1:02:25.400 --> 1:02:31.600 one telephone number. I come down to London. One of 1:02:31.600 --> 1:02:33.360 the groups I put on in the last week as 1:02:33.360 --> 1:02:36.760 a support band was a group called Gingerbread. Their bass 1:02:36.800 --> 1:02:40.640 player was John Wetton, the late John Wetton, who went 1:02:40.640 --> 1:02:45.200 on to join King Crimson and Asia founded Asia with 1:02:45.280 --> 1:02:50.920 Carl and I went down to London and within a 1:02:50.960 --> 1:02:53.360 week I've got a band together, of which John was 1:02:53.400 --> 1:02:57.200 the bass player and singer. And we found a rehearsal 1:02:57.520 --> 1:03:00.200 place in South London. Lets go a little bit were 1:03:00.240 --> 1:03:02.840 you're in the hall, how do you get your drums 1:03:02.880 --> 1:03:04.600 to London? Or how do you find a new kid 1:03:04.640 --> 1:03:09.280 in London? With difficulty? I got one of the bands 1:03:09.360 --> 1:03:12.000 that I booked to stick them at the back of 1:03:12.040 --> 1:03:15.280 the van and take them down to London. That's it, 1:03:15.480 --> 1:03:20.640 just improvise. And I slept on a floor for about 1:03:20.680 --> 1:03:25.200 eighteen months. Joined this group. And whose floor was it? 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:28.520 This was just some people I knew, I mean I 1:03:28.560 --> 1:03:32.240 knew this. This was the one telephone number I called up. 1:03:32.400 --> 1:03:34.480 They said, well, we don't have any rooms, but you 1:03:34.520 --> 1:03:36.840 can sleep on the floor. So I took a sleeping 1:03:36.880 --> 1:03:42.560 bag slept on the floor. Did they charge you for that. No, no, Bob, 1:03:42.600 --> 1:03:49.240 they didn't judge me for that, and I um That 1:03:49.520 --> 1:03:54.520 group within a few months metamorphosized into what became the 1:03:54.560 --> 1:03:59.400 Average White Band. Wow, we got this horle type of 1:03:59.400 --> 1:04:01.560 their bags of question begs how good a drummer was 1:04:01.680 --> 1:04:05.880 Robbie mcintogh great, it's really good. He replaced me. I 1:04:06.000 --> 1:04:12.920 was sacked along with John for not being Scottish. They 1:04:12.920 --> 1:04:16.680 wanted to have an all Scottish band. We were rehearsing, 1:04:16.720 --> 1:04:19.480 we hadn't. We played one show at the Marquee Club, 1:04:19.960 --> 1:04:26.680 which was pretty disastrous, to be honest, And in January 1:04:26.760 --> 1:04:31.840 of v I was summarily sacked, which was fine because 1:04:31.920 --> 1:04:34.600 I was sacked from what I was sacked from. Nothing. Really, 1:04:35.800 --> 1:04:39.000 they changed their name. They were called Mogul Thrash. Believe 1:04:39.040 --> 1:04:41.160 it or not. They changed their name to the Average 1:04:41.160 --> 1:04:45.880 White Band, got a deal with Yeah it was it 1:04:45.920 --> 1:04:49.040 yea Atlantic of course ya, And off they went. And 1:04:49.080 --> 1:04:56.240 then John left and he joined King Crimson, he joined Family. Actually, 1:04:56.800 --> 1:05:00.040 all those eighteen months, are you doing things in you 1:05:00.120 --> 1:05:02.880 think other than drumming with the future weight average weight? 1:05:05.360 --> 1:05:08.760 Not in the professional money earning sense. I mean, I 1:05:08.800 --> 1:05:12.880 was going to see bands constantly I was completely I 1:05:12.920 --> 1:05:15.640 was in London. I had not been to London before 1:05:17.000 --> 1:05:20.160 I was. I would go to the Marquee Club five 1:05:20.280 --> 1:05:23.439 nights a week. It didn't matter what night you went, 1:05:23.480 --> 1:05:25.600 there would be somebody good on What were you doing 1:05:25.600 --> 1:05:29.080 for money? I was living off this hundred pounds that 1:05:29.160 --> 1:05:31.960 my parents had given me, which was which was a 1:05:32.000 --> 1:05:35.840 substantial sum. Then, I mean when I when I know 1:05:35.880 --> 1:05:37.040 you're going to come to it in a second. But 1:05:37.080 --> 1:05:39.720 when I started in the agency business, I was making 1:05:39.760 --> 1:05:41.600 five pounds a week and you could live on five 1:05:41.600 --> 1:05:44.800 pounds a week quite comfortably. I mean, I don't mean 1:05:44.800 --> 1:05:55.040 going to restaurants or anything like that, but you could survive. Okay. 1:05:55.080 --> 1:05:58.600 So you get sacked in January of seven, you say, 1:05:58.720 --> 1:06:04.320 what's your next move? Total acts. Everything in my life 1:06:04.440 --> 1:06:09.040 or professional life, certainly has been luck. It's been absolutely 1:06:09.040 --> 1:06:13.240 the biggest factor. I get sacked from the average white 1:06:13.280 --> 1:06:15.720 band or mugul thrash as they were. The next morning, 1:06:15.840 --> 1:06:19.360 I'm walking down Oxford Street and I bump into one 1:06:19.400 --> 1:06:22.240 of the agents who used to call me when I 1:06:22.280 --> 1:06:25.320 was at university. Guy called John Sherry, sadly no longer 1:06:25.360 --> 1:06:28.360 with us, and he said, what are you doing? And 1:06:28.400 --> 1:06:31.200 I said, I've just been sacked from the average white 1:06:31.200 --> 1:06:35.360 band for not being Scottish, and he said words which 1:06:35.440 --> 1:06:37.760 ring down to me over the years. I can't pay 1:06:37.800 --> 1:06:41.760 you anything, but would you like to come and work 1:06:42.560 --> 1:06:45.520 in the office and I'll give you half of everything 1:06:45.560 --> 1:06:50.760 you earn. I had nothing else going, so I go 1:06:51.320 --> 1:06:54.160 the next morning to the office, which turned out to 1:06:54.200 --> 1:07:00.000 be one room with one desk and two telephones. Uh. 1:07:00.600 --> 1:07:02.480 And when I get there, he says to me, by 1:07:02.520 --> 1:07:05.240 the way, I forgot to tell you I don't have 1:07:05.280 --> 1:07:11.600 any acts. You don't have any acts, he said no. 1:07:13.280 --> 1:07:18.280 So I started booking colleges as the buyer if you like, 1:07:19.360 --> 1:07:21.880 of which Holy University where I went was one. I 1:07:21.920 --> 1:07:24.320 got picked up card off the university and several others, 1:07:25.240 --> 1:07:27.439 and they would be on split commission deals, which don't 1:07:27.480 --> 1:07:32.400 happen now. So typically a college would have a dance 1:07:32.400 --> 1:07:35.000 on a Saturday night. They had a budget of a 1:07:35.040 --> 1:07:39.480 hundred and fifty pounds. They wanted a stripper, a steel band, 1:07:40.080 --> 1:07:42.280 and a band they could dance to, and I would 1:07:42.360 --> 1:07:45.720 ring around the way way they would really want a stripper. 1:07:47.480 --> 1:07:51.439 That would not happen now, Yeah, you didn't. You didn't 1:07:51.480 --> 1:07:54.040 have those in the gigs in the UK US either okay, 1:07:54.480 --> 1:07:58.080 but back then I mean that was quite Yeah. We 1:07:58.160 --> 1:08:00.560 want a stripper and we want to deal band, and 1:08:00.640 --> 1:08:02.320 we want the band that can dance to So I 1:08:02.360 --> 1:08:05.360 would have a budget. I'd ring around all the agencies. 1:08:05.520 --> 1:08:09.520 What have you got available on the fifth of May 1:08:09.560 --> 1:08:13.640 five pounds? They would tell me they pick it either 1:08:13.720 --> 1:08:15.760 sell them on this act or they'd pick an act. 1:08:15.840 --> 1:08:17.439 And I would go back to the agent and then 1:08:17.520 --> 1:08:21.080 say they can only afford a hundred and you've done 1:08:21.080 --> 1:08:25.160 the deal, and I'd get five five pounds on that. 1:08:26.320 --> 1:08:32.400 So that went on for a bit and then in 1:08:32.680 --> 1:08:39.519 March of one of the two phones ran and this 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:42.479 was a bit like the fastest gunfighter in the West, 1:08:42.960 --> 1:08:46.080 who could get the phone fastest. I grabbed the phone 1:08:46.920 --> 1:08:49.479 and a voice came on and I won't do his accent, 1:08:49.760 --> 1:08:52.840 and he said, this is Miles as Copeland the Third 1:08:54.640 --> 1:09:01.639 And I went, holy shit, Miles ax Copeland the Third Wow. 1:09:02.400 --> 1:09:04.639 And he said, would anybody they ever interested in booking 1:09:04.680 --> 1:09:09.760 a band called Wishbone Ash. Now, the previous week I 1:09:09.800 --> 1:09:13.280 had read a letter on the back of the Melody 1:09:13.280 --> 1:09:16.559 Maker on the letters page extolling the virtues of this 1:09:16.600 --> 1:09:19.760 group Wishbone Ash, which I later found out Miles had 1:09:19.760 --> 1:09:25.040 written under a pseudonym, so based entirely on that, I 1:09:25.080 --> 1:09:29.320 said to him yes, and he was completely flummo. He 1:09:29.320 --> 1:09:32.559 had been ringing everybody for weeks and he'd got and 1:09:32.640 --> 1:09:37.400 I said yes. Long story short. I go up to 1:09:37.520 --> 1:09:40.000 a house and St John's Wood in North London, which 1:09:40.040 --> 1:09:42.639 was a very posh area of London where the Copeland 1:09:42.680 --> 1:09:45.760 family lived when his dad was in the CIA was 1:09:47.000 --> 1:09:49.960 or he'd retired from the CIA at that point, and 1:09:50.000 --> 1:09:51.559 I went down that I was going to go and 1:09:51.560 --> 1:09:54.519 see them play in this house. And I come down 1:09:54.520 --> 1:09:57.240 the drive and there are a group of about half 1:09:57.280 --> 1:10:00.840 a dozen Arabs in full ceremonial s going up the 1:10:00.840 --> 1:10:03.880 front stairs, and I thought I must be at the 1:10:03.880 --> 1:10:06.760 wrong house. So I walked back down the drive and 1:10:06.800 --> 1:10:13.760 I suddenly heard from coming out of the basement, and 1:10:13.800 --> 1:10:17.120 I realized what happened was that Myles's father was advising 1:10:17.439 --> 1:10:20.360 various oil companies on the political situation in the Middle 1:10:20.360 --> 1:10:26.160 East as his post ci CI a job, and down 1:10:26.240 --> 1:10:29.080 in the basement which Bone Ash were rehearsing. So I 1:10:29.160 --> 1:10:32.320 went down met the band. They played me the whole 1:10:32.360 --> 1:10:35.000 of their first album sitting in armchairs, which was the 1:10:35.080 --> 1:10:37.759 first I've never seen a band player a gig sitting 1:10:37.800 --> 1:10:41.519 in an armchair. And I asked Miles if I could 1:10:41.600 --> 1:10:44.720 use the phone to call John, and he led me 1:10:44.800 --> 1:10:47.960 to a pay phone. They had obviously read John Paul 1:10:48.000 --> 1:10:50.479 get his biography because they had installed a pay phone 1:10:50.560 --> 1:10:54.240 for guests, and I had to borrow tenpence off him 1:10:54.280 --> 1:10:56.600 to use the phone. And I called John up and 1:10:56.680 --> 1:10:58.920 I said we should take this band on. They're really good. 1:10:59.439 --> 1:11:03.320 And they were in London College that following Saturday and 1:11:03.439 --> 1:11:05.840 we went to see them. Miles was doing the lights. 1:11:06.880 --> 1:11:09.599 He didn't have any overhead lights. He had a run 1:11:09.720 --> 1:11:13.920 of foot footlights and he had a green boulbon orange 1:11:13.960 --> 1:11:16.439 bowl of red bulbon pint bulb and he had four 1:11:16.800 --> 1:11:18.920 things and he was just doing this on the side 1:11:18.960 --> 1:11:22.720 of the stage and we took them on and then 1:11:22.800 --> 1:11:25.559 short order Miles came into the business. We all went 1:11:25.640 --> 1:11:29.000 into business together. They kind of took off a bit. 1:11:29.479 --> 1:11:35.360 They signed to m c A. Within within eighteen months 1:11:35.439 --> 1:11:38.639 we had like the third or fourth biggest agency in London. 1:11:40.000 --> 1:11:45.280 I've just just work just working at it. What happened 1:11:45.280 --> 1:11:49.040 are your drumming career? Well, to make up my money, 1:11:50.080 --> 1:11:53.799 I joined a fantastic soul band. They were called Patrick 1:11:53.960 --> 1:11:56.679 Dane and the front line we had a four piece 1:11:57.320 --> 1:12:03.160 brass section, great layers, and we played four or five 1:12:03.320 --> 1:12:09.639 nights a week. We played American basses, colleges, around London clubs, everything, 1:12:10.320 --> 1:12:15.040 and we would get all of the London clubs then 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:18.040 paid twenty pounds. That was the maximum you could get 1:12:18.120 --> 1:12:23.200 in any one of the famous This was just post 1:12:23.280 --> 1:12:27.719 the Swinging sixties, so called the Swinging sixties didn't actually 1:12:27.720 --> 1:12:30.960 get started in London until about nineteen sixty five sixty six, 1:12:31.040 --> 1:12:33.320 and it kind of rolled over to about nineteen seventy 1:12:33.400 --> 1:12:37.320 three four. We would play those anywhere between a Monday 1:12:37.360 --> 1:12:39.599 and a Thursday, and on a Friday and Saturday. If 1:12:39.640 --> 1:12:41.920 we played an American bass, we would get a hundred 1:12:41.920 --> 1:12:45.000 and fifty pounds. If we played a college we would 1:12:45.000 --> 1:12:47.960 get probably about the same. And when we played the 1:12:47.960 --> 1:12:51.519 American bassis, because we had to play for dining as 1:12:51.600 --> 1:12:57.160 well as dancing, we've learned the whole catalog of Duke 1:12:57.200 --> 1:13:00.880 Allington and big band stuff, which that's what they what 1:13:01.040 --> 1:13:04.880 they wanted, and we always got rebooked always, so you 1:13:04.920 --> 1:13:10.479 have this flurishing agency. How did you become a manager? Well, 1:13:10.680 --> 1:13:18.759 I I traveled through several agencies um in the next 1:13:19.680 --> 1:13:24.200 let's see five years, sorry, five or six years, and 1:13:24.600 --> 1:13:29.400 I ended up at Names, which was Brian Epstein's old company, 1:13:29.439 --> 1:13:32.280 although he'd long gone, and I was working with Steve 1:13:32.360 --> 1:13:36.360 Barnett recently retired retired president with Capitol Records. We haven't 1:13:36.360 --> 1:13:38.880 seen him many years. And if you're watching this, hello 1:13:39.000 --> 1:13:43.360 Steve and m We And that was when I kind 1:13:43.400 --> 1:13:45.800 of hit I'm going to loosely call it the big 1:13:45.920 --> 1:13:52.799 time because we had big acts. We had deep Purple Black, Sabbath, Nazareth, Alex, Harvey, 1:13:52.880 --> 1:14:01.920 band Elton. I did the first British stroke European tours 1:14:02.040 --> 1:14:11.280 with Steely dan Um and then I had oh sorry, 1:14:11.640 --> 1:14:14.600 just before that, the person who kind of had was 1:14:14.720 --> 1:14:17.200 my I would call him my mentor. We all need 1:14:17.280 --> 1:14:20.760 a mentor in life was Barry Marshall, who now runs 1:14:20.840 --> 1:14:23.479 Martial Arts. And when I went to work with Barry 1:14:23.560 --> 1:14:28.360 and his wife Jenny, and they're probably one of the 1:14:28.400 --> 1:14:30.880 most successful and certainly one of the best promoters in 1:14:32.120 --> 1:14:37.360 UK and Europe. Um We. He was managing a Welsh 1:14:37.400 --> 1:14:40.200 group called Man who were a bit like a British 1:14:40.400 --> 1:14:43.240 kind of grateful dead in the sense that they played 1:14:43.320 --> 1:14:49.160 numbers that lasted for several days and I think, I 1:14:49.280 --> 1:14:51.320 think I've been there a week and I put twenty 1:14:51.400 --> 1:14:55.479 eight gigs in in a month for this group. Man um. 1:14:56.479 --> 1:15:00.360 I just had a sense of how to do it. 1:15:01.240 --> 1:15:04.480 If I went about something, I think, if you're enthusiastic 1:15:04.560 --> 1:15:07.960 about something, you can communicate that to people. And we 1:15:08.080 --> 1:15:11.400 were doing we we were doing. It was the first 1:15:11.400 --> 1:15:14.960 place I've been where we were doing American acts, and 1:15:15.880 --> 1:15:19.320 we did people like Jimmy ruffin lou Christie if you 1:15:19.400 --> 1:15:25.040 remember him, of course, Lightning Strikes, Trightening Strikes. And I 1:15:25.200 --> 1:15:29.360 got a real feel for working with black American artists, 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:33.960 which was quite a I mean, I remember he sent 1:15:34.080 --> 1:15:36.240 me off to Europe. I think this was about the 1:15:36.320 --> 1:15:39.880 nineteen seventy three or four with the con Tina Turner review, 1:15:41.160 --> 1:15:46.120 which was my first encounter with Ike Turner, which was okay, 1:15:46.160 --> 1:15:49.080 actually no problem, and I got I've known Tina since then. 1:15:51.120 --> 1:15:55.280 And then I moved to names and as I say, 1:15:55.760 --> 1:15:58.519 we were looking after what were big acts at the time. 1:15:59.240 --> 1:16:01.360 But again coming back to something I said earlier, they 1:16:01.360 --> 1:16:06.960 didn't tour they gigged. Everybody gigged. Nobody had a beginning 1:16:06.960 --> 1:16:09.160 in the middle of an end. It was just continual, 1:16:09.720 --> 1:16:12.519 and they didn't go into the studio for a period 1:16:12.560 --> 1:16:15.360 of time. They went in for a few hours at 1:16:15.400 --> 1:16:19.000 a time and cobbled together records and it was all 1:16:19.080 --> 1:16:24.400 pretty kind of it's kind of primitive, but it was. 1:16:24.640 --> 1:16:29.920 It was huge fun, definitely fantastic fun. And then how 1:16:29.960 --> 1:16:35.040 does that turn into the management. Well, I had no 1:16:35.160 --> 1:16:38.439 aspirations to do management, but I of course I was 1:16:38.560 --> 1:16:42.400 dealing with at this point quite a lot of managers. 1:16:42.960 --> 1:16:46.040 And I have to say that back then managers were 1:16:46.080 --> 1:16:52.080 not quite as skilled as they've become. Um. In fact, 1:16:52.200 --> 1:16:54.600 some of them were. I mean I can remember with 1:16:54.760 --> 1:16:59.400 Deep Purple, h this was the Mark two with Richie 1:16:59.520 --> 1:17:05.160 and In Squabbling and Roger and in Pace and John 1:17:05.240 --> 1:17:09.360 Lord bless him. I remember their manager coming into the 1:17:09.439 --> 1:17:11.599 office and saying to Steve and I write, Deep Purple, 1:17:11.640 --> 1:17:15.479 who have got a new album coming out next week. Now, 1:17:15.560 --> 1:17:17.800 this was the first time that we've been informed that 1:17:17.960 --> 1:17:21.160 they had made a record. They want to go on tour. 1:17:21.760 --> 1:17:24.160 So we got our notepads and we're ready to go. 1:17:24.439 --> 1:17:26.439 And I said to him when do you want to start? 1:17:27.040 --> 1:17:31.679 And he says next week and I said next week, Yeah, 1:17:31.840 --> 1:17:34.920 next week. That's how it was. How it was, and 1:17:35.720 --> 1:17:41.840 um what happened was that through a convoluted set of circumstances, 1:17:42.280 --> 1:17:45.040 I had got to know a guy called Ken Kushnick, 1:17:45.640 --> 1:17:53.120 who was the general manager at Sire Records in seventy six. 1:17:53.320 --> 1:17:58.479 I think it was the Sex Pistols clash and the 1:17:58.600 --> 1:18:02.840 British punk's scene got underway. I might have my chronology 1:18:02.920 --> 1:18:11.559 slightly wrong, uh, And Ken called me up and asked 1:18:11.600 --> 1:18:13.799 me if I would put a tour together for the Ramones, 1:18:15.080 --> 1:18:21.360 who I had never heard of, but given the way 1:18:21.479 --> 1:18:24.519 things were, I just said yes. And then he said 1:18:24.560 --> 1:18:28.200 to me there's another act on with them, and I'm thinking, well, 1:18:28.240 --> 1:18:30.559 it's going to be hard enough to get the Ramones attorney. 1:18:30.640 --> 1:18:33.280 I said, who's that? He said, they're called the Talking Heads, 1:18:35.400 --> 1:18:38.519 and I said, wow, what's weird name. Anyway, he sent 1:18:38.680 --> 1:18:41.759 me a single It's called Love Ghost Building on Fire 1:18:42.560 --> 1:18:45.120 and it only had a photograph of three of them 1:18:45.160 --> 1:18:47.920 on the front. Jerry Harrison wasn't in the group at 1:18:48.000 --> 1:18:51.759 that point, and I remember putting it on the record 1:18:51.800 --> 1:18:54.600 player at Names and I thought it was great. I 1:18:54.720 --> 1:18:59.360 loved it, so I I agreed to set up a 1:18:59.439 --> 1:19:03.400 tour for the two those two acts, which I did, 1:19:03.760 --> 1:19:06.320 and it was a hard sell. Was six weeks mostly 1:19:06.360 --> 1:19:10.320 around the UK, few dates in Europe. Just before that 1:19:10.479 --> 1:19:15.479 tour happened, the Sex Pistols went on British TV and 1:19:15.960 --> 1:19:22.360 disgraced themselves by swearing on a six thirty live slot, 1:19:24.080 --> 1:19:30.160 and this caused tabloid fury, but it turned the punk 1:19:30.520 --> 1:19:34.200 new age thing from being like a really underground thing 1:19:34.760 --> 1:19:38.920 into being very kind of prominent. Now that all of 1:19:38.960 --> 1:19:42.439 the Pistol shows pretty much got canceled because every town hall, 1:19:42.520 --> 1:19:46.400 every council said we're not having them, their filthy revolution 1:19:46.560 --> 1:19:50.479 and all this, but it meant that. It meant that 1:19:50.560 --> 1:19:55.120 the Romans talking heads to Her suddenly sold out everywhere, 1:19:56.160 --> 1:20:00.679 so they came over. I remember we started in Geneva 1:20:01.800 --> 1:20:07.200 and I immediately bonded with the talking heads as people, 1:20:08.080 --> 1:20:12.920 and they asked me to leave the ends and manage them. 1:20:14.560 --> 1:20:20.240 And I didn't have enough courage to be honest. I couldn't. 1:20:21.320 --> 1:20:28.640 I just think I knew enough. What happened then was 1:20:28.760 --> 1:20:33.080 another piece of luck. I happened to be out at 1:20:33.760 --> 1:20:39.559 Heathrow airport picking up a friend, a girlfriend who worked 1:20:39.600 --> 1:20:43.960 at United Artists Records, and she was and she had 1:20:44.000 --> 1:20:46.639 just been on a promo johnt to Holland with Jerry 1:20:46.720 --> 1:20:52.479 Rafferty and Baker Street was becoming a big hit. So 1:20:52.680 --> 1:20:55.439 I got got a lift and I got in the 1:20:55.560 --> 1:20:57.800 front of the car with the driver, and she and 1:20:57.880 --> 1:21:00.200 Rafferty got in the back of the car and I 1:21:00.320 --> 1:21:03.560 was just rattling awhile like I am to you and 1:21:03.640 --> 1:21:06.240 we're coming into London, and Rafferty tapped me on the shoulder. 1:21:06.240 --> 1:21:08.840 I've never met him before and he said, ed, would 1:21:08.880 --> 1:21:13.519 you be my manager? And I just turned around and 1:21:13.600 --> 1:21:15.479 I said, you don't know me. He said no, but 1:21:15.600 --> 1:21:22.599 I like you, so okay, So I became Jerry Raffort's manager. Okay, 1:21:22.600 --> 1:21:25.320 that's a question. Did he have a previous manager? What 1:21:25.400 --> 1:21:27.720 had happened? Well, yes, he had had when he was 1:21:27.800 --> 1:21:32.320 in Steeler's Wheel that had led to law suits at 1:21:32.360 --> 1:21:34.439 all the rest of it, and the Baker Street song 1:21:35.280 --> 1:21:37.960 happened to be the street where his lawyer's office was, 1:21:38.800 --> 1:21:42.439 and he was constantly coming down from Scotland. And if 1:21:42.479 --> 1:21:44.560 you listen to the lyric, and you know that that 1:21:45.360 --> 1:21:49.320 song is about his trips to London, sitting in lawyers 1:21:49.439 --> 1:21:52.160 meetings for hours on end while they tried to dissolve 1:21:52.320 --> 1:21:55.120 because what happened was the management company had gone bankrupt. 1:21:55.840 --> 1:21:58.120 That had to be a liquidation process, and this all 1:21:58.200 --> 1:22:01.519 took two years and he couldn't he could word live, 1:22:01.600 --> 1:22:07.400 but he steamers Will broke up and he wrote the 1:22:07.479 --> 1:22:11.800 songs which became the City to City record, one of 1:22:11.880 --> 1:22:18.320 which was Baker Street. So but but his concept of 1:22:18.439 --> 1:22:22.240 what he meant by his manager was rather different to 1:22:22.320 --> 1:22:25.599 what I thought it was. I never bet. I made 1:22:25.680 --> 1:22:29.160 no money of him at all, except from some touring 1:22:29.240 --> 1:22:33.080 that he did, and I didn't participate in the records 1:22:33.720 --> 1:22:37.040 or song publishing. And I didn't have enough knowledge or 1:22:37.200 --> 1:22:41.240 courage to even ask. And here anyway, he had a 1:22:41.280 --> 1:22:44.880 lawyer who was famous. His lawyer was so slow that 1:22:45.000 --> 1:22:47.519 he would do management agreements with people that might last 1:22:47.600 --> 1:22:50.040 five years and they would have run out by the 1:22:50.120 --> 1:22:53.679 time he'd finished the paperwork. So it was academic anyway. 1:22:54.320 --> 1:22:56.200 But the thing about Jerry was he opened a lot 1:22:56.200 --> 1:22:58.120 of doors for me, and I ended up working with 1:22:58.280 --> 1:23:01.400 him for about five or six years. But sadly he 1:23:01.920 --> 1:23:04.280 was an alcoholic and it killed him in the end, 1:23:04.920 --> 1:23:09.320 and we had a very bumpy time because he canceled 1:23:09.360 --> 1:23:12.479 five American tours on me, one of which was on sale, 1:23:14.120 --> 1:23:17.560 that kind of thing. So but it was all a 1:23:17.680 --> 1:23:20.479 learning exercise. All of this. I was learning as you 1:23:20.640 --> 1:23:23.320 as you go along. You could even out of every 1:23:23.439 --> 1:23:26.840 negative situation, you can come out of it. You'll have 1:23:26.960 --> 1:23:30.240 learned something. You were also booking bands while you were 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:39.040 managing jury. I was still at ends Um And what 1:23:39.280 --> 1:23:44.120 happened was that I was working with him and I 1:23:44.280 --> 1:23:48.720 had a Talking Heads tour coming up in January, which 1:23:48.800 --> 1:23:52.680 was the first time they were going to headline on 1:23:52.840 --> 1:23:56.320 their own in the UK, some Bits and Pieces of Europe, 1:23:56.920 --> 1:24:01.840 and I needed an opening act. And it was December ninth, 1:24:03.920 --> 1:24:06.200 and it was a Friday afternoon. I remember my phone 1:24:06.280 --> 1:24:10.600 rang and a guy that I had met at Phonogram 1:24:11.680 --> 1:24:17.200 because PolyGram or Phonogram originally were distributed side records until 1:24:17.240 --> 1:24:20.840 they until Seymour switched to Warner Brothers. So I got 1:24:20.920 --> 1:24:24.519 to know the people at Phonogram and I bailed bailed 1:24:24.560 --> 1:24:26.559 them out on a couple of things, saved them quite 1:24:26.560 --> 1:24:28.680 a bit of money because Seymour was quite good at 1:24:29.920 --> 1:24:35.760 extracting money from and this guy came on. His name 1:24:35.800 --> 1:24:38.720 was John Stains, and he said to me, I've just 1:24:38.840 --> 1:24:42.880 signed a band called Dire Straits. And I immediately said, 1:24:43.080 --> 1:24:48.240 what a terrible name, and he said, be serious. I said, 1:24:48.240 --> 1:24:53.639 I am being serious. It's a terrible name. He said, 1:24:53.680 --> 1:24:57.320 would you be their agent? I said, well, I'm only 1:24:57.400 --> 1:25:00.439 handling American acts, I said, but in the back of 1:25:00.479 --> 1:25:02.679 my mind I needed an opening act for this Talking 1:25:02.720 --> 1:25:04.640 Heads tour and it was coming up quite soon, and 1:25:04.720 --> 1:25:06.760 I was in a bit of a panic, and I 1:25:06.800 --> 1:25:08.840 said to him, what are they like? And he said, well, 1:25:08.880 --> 1:25:11.360 I've got a tape here. Why don't you come over 1:25:11.400 --> 1:25:13.799 and listen to it. Now their officers were very close 1:25:14.080 --> 1:25:17.639 to where NAMES was, so I packed up for the day, 1:25:17.840 --> 1:25:21.120 walked over and he played me the demo tape that 1:25:21.280 --> 1:25:24.040 had originally got them the record deal, the one that 1:25:24.120 --> 1:25:27.479 a DJ called Charlie Gillett had played on British on 1:25:27.600 --> 1:25:30.880 his British Radio London radio show. And on that record 1:25:30.920 --> 1:25:33.160 on that tape were Sultans have Swing down to the 1:25:33.240 --> 1:25:37.080 Waterline while west End and a song called Sacred Loving. 1:25:37.240 --> 1:25:40.640 But thankfully they didn't record and I can remember. It's 1:25:40.640 --> 1:25:42.960 funny what you remember later on, because I can't remember 1:25:44.120 --> 1:25:47.600 listening to Sultans of Swing and saying to him this, 1:25:47.800 --> 1:25:52.880 this guitar player is pretty good. And then he's playing 1:25:52.880 --> 1:25:56.639 me Wild West End and I said, wow, these lyrics, 1:25:56.720 --> 1:26:00.240 this is really good lyrically. He said that's the guitar 1:26:00.360 --> 1:26:02.759 player and I said, Doug, tell me he's the singer 1:26:02.840 --> 1:26:05.240 as well, and he went, yeat and he gave me 1:26:05.320 --> 1:26:07.960 the lineup of the group and the mark younger brother 1:26:08.080 --> 1:26:10.320 David was in the group. John Ellsley and picked with 1:26:10.439 --> 1:26:14.240 us and they were playing a gig the following Tuesday 1:26:14.280 --> 1:26:16.719 at ding Walls, which is a little club in North London, 1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:20.600 and he said typical record company said I'll take you 1:26:20.680 --> 1:26:23.680 out for a slap up meal and we'll go and 1:26:23.760 --> 1:26:26.320 see them. So the following Tuesday I find myself in 1:26:26.360 --> 1:26:30.599 a kibab house in North London watching gobbits of fat 1:26:30.800 --> 1:26:34.519 fall off this spinning piece of meat. And we went 1:26:34.640 --> 1:26:38.479 over the road to ding Walls and we walked in 1:26:39.600 --> 1:26:41.720 and there were two things I noticed straight away. First 1:26:41.720 --> 1:26:45.240 of all, they weren't very loud, so I could stand 1:26:45.320 --> 1:26:49.760 quite close to the stage. Secondly, and most importantly, Mark 1:26:49.880 --> 1:26:53.920 was playing a red Fender Stratocastic guitar, which was the 1:26:54.000 --> 1:26:57.759 guitar that Hank Marvin the guitarist and the Shadows had played. 1:26:58.640 --> 1:27:02.920 Now I've told this story to Jeff Beck and um 1:27:03.360 --> 1:27:05.240 They've Gilmore and all the rest of them, and they 1:27:05.280 --> 1:27:08.000 all instantly get it. Because the red strap was an 1:27:08.200 --> 1:27:13.160 iconic instrument for us in Britain. The first stratic caster 1:27:13.320 --> 1:27:15.680 any of us had seen was on the cover of 1:27:15.920 --> 1:27:20.040 the Chirping Crickets album and Buddy Holly is holding a 1:27:20.160 --> 1:27:23.920 strap which looked to us like something from outer space. 1:27:26.280 --> 1:27:30.320 So Mark's playing this red strato caster. And I turned 1:27:30.360 --> 1:27:33.640 to this an our guy after the second song and 1:27:33.760 --> 1:27:35.600 I said to him, he's got a red strat just 1:27:35.760 --> 1:27:39.160 like Hank Marvin's. Who's managing this band? And he said 1:27:39.240 --> 1:27:44.000 nobody on on the basis of the red strat, I said, 1:27:44.400 --> 1:27:46.920 I'd like to manage them. And it changed my life. 1:27:47.760 --> 1:27:50.320 But there was a there's a kind of you know 1:27:51.240 --> 1:27:56.599 pattern there. There was a sort of just a sequence 1:27:56.680 --> 1:28:02.760 of events that led to that moment. Okay, now we 1:28:02.920 --> 1:28:05.880 know that they were on Warner in the US and 1:28:06.040 --> 1:28:10.600 Phonogram the rest of the world, certainly from the US viewpoint. 1:28:11.040 --> 1:28:14.640 First album comes out, Sultan's a Swing uh, and then 1:28:14.720 --> 1:28:17.680 the second album is not as quite as successful that 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:20.120 all of a sudden, making movies that starts to blow 1:28:20.240 --> 1:28:24.439 up from the inside. What is going on? Well, the 1:28:24.520 --> 1:28:30.839 first record, like many many many bands throughout history, Market 1:28:31.120 --> 1:28:38.000 spent considerable amount of time writing those songs. He I 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:40.599 can't remember what year it was, seventy five or seventy six, 1:28:40.640 --> 1:28:42.960 but he bent to America and he'd got on a 1:28:43.040 --> 1:28:46.640 Greyhound bus try trip across the South, and as he 1:28:46.680 --> 1:28:48.679 said to me later, he fell in love with every 1:28:48.720 --> 1:28:53.479 waitress that he saw. And he wrote a lot of 1:28:53.560 --> 1:28:55.880 those songs either in the U s or when he 1:28:56.000 --> 1:28:58.519 got back to the UK, and a lot of them, 1:28:59.000 --> 1:29:01.719 as as has always been the case with his writing, 1:29:01.800 --> 1:29:04.760 were sort of semi biographical. So for instance, songs of swing, 1:29:05.280 --> 1:29:06.920 they were that that was the name of a band 1:29:07.040 --> 1:29:09.599 playing in a little pub just down the road from 1:29:09.640 --> 1:29:14.559 this dreadful apartment that he and John was sharing, David 1:29:14.680 --> 1:29:18.320 was sharing, uh, And he went down to see them 1:29:18.479 --> 1:29:20.280 and they were like a little swing band, like the 1:29:20.640 --> 1:29:24.479 Panama Francis Saltons and swing the American band. And there 1:29:24.560 --> 1:29:26.800 was nobody in the place, but he was impressed with 1:29:26.840 --> 1:29:28.960 their enthusiasm and went back to the flat and he 1:29:29.040 --> 1:29:34.360 wrote the song. So he had these songs. And what 1:29:34.560 --> 1:29:36.919 happened was that after I had seen them at Dingwalls, 1:29:37.000 --> 1:29:40.760 I put them on this Talking Heads tour, which, like 1:29:41.000 --> 1:29:44.000 most of my tours, was like twenty seven gigs without 1:29:44.040 --> 1:29:47.160 a day off, because I don't believe in days off. 1:29:47.320 --> 1:29:51.600 They're just days days off one of those and I 1:29:51.760 --> 1:29:54.120 went on a lot of these dates, A because I 1:29:54.240 --> 1:29:57.360 was looking after both bands, and B because I wanted 1:29:57.400 --> 1:30:00.600 to get to know my kind of new charges. So 1:30:00.800 --> 1:30:05.240 I became very familiar with those songs. And right in 1:30:05.320 --> 1:30:09.600 the middle of that tour, Um John Stains the Air 1:30:09.640 --> 1:30:11.639 and R guy I'm talking about I was talking about, 1:30:12.720 --> 1:30:15.240 came up with a couple of possible producers, one of 1:30:15.320 --> 1:30:19.200 which was Muff Winward and Steve's elder brother. Elder brother, 1:30:19.600 --> 1:30:24.080 and Muff was working at Ireland Records at the time. 1:30:24.600 --> 1:30:28.200 He was about to leave. He had a two week 1:30:28.320 --> 1:30:30.680 window and then he was starting as head of an 1:30:30.880 --> 1:30:34.680 R at CBS as they were, so he came to 1:30:34.760 --> 1:30:37.000 see them at a show in a place called Aylesbury 1:30:37.160 --> 1:30:43.439 north of London, agreed to produce them and fitted them 1:30:43.479 --> 1:30:49.640 into that gap. There's a lot of kind of synchronicity 1:30:49.800 --> 1:30:54.040 going on here. So he he did that record in 1:30:54.160 --> 1:30:59.320 ten days. And what he basically did was he recorded 1:30:59.360 --> 1:31:07.560 their lives just bashpreash, bash breash brash. We got. Of 1:31:07.600 --> 1:31:11.960 course the album cover took way longer and was and 1:31:12.120 --> 1:31:15.360 was and was. The was the was the source of many, 1:31:15.520 --> 1:31:18.760 many many arguments and fights and stuff, particularly between the 1:31:18.840 --> 1:31:21.840 two brothers. And I realized actually at that point that 1:31:22.040 --> 1:31:25.920 rather like the Kicks and the Gallaghers and others, the 1:31:26.160 --> 1:31:29.160 sibling thing was going to be a bit of a headache, 1:31:29.200 --> 1:31:32.200 which it turned out to be. But so they made 1:31:32.320 --> 1:31:37.840 that record, and I and they finished it, and I 1:31:37.960 --> 1:31:40.240 had them. I just kept them working because that was 1:31:40.560 --> 1:31:42.760 how they were making money. The record deal was not 1:31:42.800 --> 1:31:48.200 a particularly good deal. The royalty rate was pretty poor, 1:31:48.439 --> 1:31:50.920 but it was for the time, I suppose it was okay. 1:31:51.520 --> 1:31:57.600 And they so I and I put them on I 1:31:57.640 --> 1:32:00.200 got them a residency at the Marquee Club and I 1:32:00.560 --> 1:32:02.800 put them on a kind of club college tour for 1:32:02.880 --> 1:32:06.559 the whole of June of that year, and the record 1:32:06.680 --> 1:32:10.160 came out in May. Sultan's came out in May, dribbled 1:32:10.200 --> 1:32:13.080 into the bottom of the UK chart and fell straight out. 1:32:14.960 --> 1:32:20.360 The album did okay, we didn't have the American deal 1:32:20.479 --> 1:32:23.320 at the time. There was an unusual thing in their 1:32:23.400 --> 1:32:27.639 recording agreement that the PolyGram one the phonogram one, which 1:32:27.720 --> 1:32:32.400 said that if R s O passed on them the 1:32:32.640 --> 1:32:38.320 rights to place the record, the deal in America would 1:32:38.360 --> 1:32:41.400 refer to the group which went Me and I had 1:32:41.479 --> 1:32:43.840 never done a record deal in my life. I had 1:32:43.960 --> 1:32:47.000 never read a recording agreement. I had never been in 1:32:47.040 --> 1:32:50.720 a recording studio. I didn't know anything about any of that. 1:32:52.720 --> 1:32:54.960 R s O passed because they were in the middle 1:32:55.000 --> 1:33:01.160 of Saturday night fever at al and uh So the 1:33:01.280 --> 1:33:06.280 band did a club college tour in June, and then 1:33:07.680 --> 1:33:12.280 uh Mark and I came over to the States. We 1:33:12.479 --> 1:33:19.799 went to Los Angeles and I we had some interest 1:33:19.920 --> 1:33:24.559 from Colombia, but we wanted to be on Warner Brothers 1:33:24.640 --> 1:33:28.280 because we were musical snobs and they had Van Morrison 1:33:29.160 --> 1:33:32.760 and just Ricky Lee Jones was just about to come 1:33:32.800 --> 1:33:36.519 out and things like that. And I went up to 1:33:36.960 --> 1:33:39.960 uh I managed to get somebody got me, got me 1:33:40.000 --> 1:33:44.880 an intro to Mo Austin, and I'm like, I don't 1:33:44.880 --> 1:33:47.160 know what the I really didn't know. I'm not know 1:33:47.360 --> 1:33:49.360 what I was doing and I went up to Warner 1:33:49.400 --> 1:33:53.719 Brothers and I got I was ushered into Moe's office, 1:33:54.200 --> 1:33:57.840 which was the most intimidating physical space I've ever been in. 1:33:58.720 --> 1:34:01.679 I mean, he's it's part from anything else that was enormous, 1:34:02.000 --> 1:34:05.040 and his desk was so far away that you had 1:34:05.080 --> 1:34:08.920 to sort of it took you five minutes to get 1:34:08.960 --> 1:34:12.800 from the door to his desk. And anyway, he he 1:34:12.880 --> 1:34:15.880 said something great to me. Actually, I always I love 1:34:15.960 --> 1:34:19.160 MO and he's still with us, thankfully. He said to me, 1:34:19.280 --> 1:34:22.519 I don't know anything about music, go and see the 1:34:22.560 --> 1:34:25.559 A and R Department, which of course was not true 1:34:25.720 --> 1:34:32.240 at all, but he did come from the Sinatra reprise background, 1:34:33.880 --> 1:34:37.679 and he sent me down to see the sadly late ROBERTA. Peterson. 1:34:39.240 --> 1:34:42.960 When I went into Roberta's office, she had more pot 1:34:43.040 --> 1:34:45.040 plants in there than I've never seen in my life. 1:34:45.720 --> 1:34:48.800 And and this is a little girl with the kind 1:34:48.840 --> 1:34:53.639 of required l a tan and blonde hair sitting amongst 1:34:53.720 --> 1:34:57.120 all of these palms and pot plants. And I remember 1:34:57.200 --> 1:35:02.519 giving other record and she put it on and like 1:35:02.640 --> 1:35:04.320 a lot of A and R people cranked it was 1:35:04.400 --> 1:35:07.960 spinal tap up. It went to eleven and I'm sitting 1:35:08.000 --> 1:35:12.080 there and this thing's thundering out. And she told me 1:35:12.240 --> 1:35:14.960 later she was so excited by it that she tried 1:35:15.040 --> 1:35:17.880 to pretend she tried to be cool, but I could 1:35:17.920 --> 1:35:21.040 see her at her foot tapping madly underneath the desk. 1:35:22.240 --> 1:35:25.519 And when it when she played both sides, she said 1:35:25.600 --> 1:35:30.639 to me, where are you staying? And I was sadly 1:35:30.720 --> 1:35:33.120 we were staying at the high at the Riot House. 1:35:33.760 --> 1:35:37.080 And I remember she was vastly amused by that, and 1:35:37.200 --> 1:35:39.280 she asked if she could keep that copy because she'd 1:35:39.280 --> 1:35:40.640 like to play it to some of the people in 1:35:40.720 --> 1:35:46.360 the department. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, 1:35:46.640 --> 1:35:49.519 why not. Wow. So I go back to the hotel, 1:35:50.640 --> 1:35:55.400 and by this time there were a couple of other 1:35:55.479 --> 1:36:00.320 companies who started chasing me. The American PolyGram Opera Asian 1:36:01.680 --> 1:36:04.880 had realized what a do do they've made by putting 1:36:04.960 --> 1:36:07.760 this clause in and they and actually that was the 1:36:07.800 --> 1:36:10.479 first time I was ever offered a bribe. I was 1:36:10.560 --> 1:36:16.720 offered a bribe in a sauna in somewhere in Los 1:36:16.760 --> 1:36:20.640 Angeles by some guy from PolyGram in New York. He 1:36:20.720 --> 1:36:23.000 offered me a hundred thousand dollars to get the band 1:36:23.080 --> 1:36:27.080 to forget about that clause in the contract, and I 1:36:27.160 --> 1:36:30.519 thought he was offering us an advance. I kept saying 1:36:30.560 --> 1:36:32.120 to him, you mean for the band, and he said, no, 1:36:32.240 --> 1:36:35.240 it's for you. They kept winking at me, and we're 1:36:35.280 --> 1:36:37.799 in a sauna and I was sitting on the slatted 1:36:38.000 --> 1:36:40.200 and he was on top of me, and we were 1:36:40.200 --> 1:36:42.120 getting further and further back, so we were he was 1:36:42.240 --> 1:36:44.840 lying on top of me, and I managed to wriggle 1:36:44.840 --> 1:36:47.080 out from under him make a dash for the door. 1:36:49.240 --> 1:36:55.519 Never heard from them again. Unfortunately, Warner's decided to sign us. 1:36:55.560 --> 1:36:57.519 And what I didn't know there was another lady who 1:36:57.600 --> 1:37:00.479 was also sadly passed on, called Karen Burg, who was 1:37:00.600 --> 1:37:04.320 in the in our department in New York, who worked 1:37:04.360 --> 1:37:10.240 alongside Jerry Wexler, and she had been to England and 1:37:10.320 --> 1:37:13.840 she'd seen them at a little club gig and was 1:37:13.920 --> 1:37:17.439 also pursuing them, and being a big company, they hadn't 1:37:17.479 --> 1:37:22.759 actually spoken to each other, so they didn't realize. Roberta 1:37:22.800 --> 1:37:26.439 didn't realize that Karen was already onto it. But anyway, 1:37:26.479 --> 1:37:30.800 we ended up doing the deal with them, and it 1:37:30.920 --> 1:37:33.120 turned out to be a very happy and a very 1:37:33.920 --> 1:37:40.360 fruitful relationship. Okay, how does the essence of dire Streets 1:37:40.439 --> 1:37:49.680 end up working with Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan, okay, we 1:37:49.800 --> 1:37:52.600 do the first American tour in February March April of 1:37:52.680 --> 1:37:57.799 seventy nine. The albums at number two. The Doobie Brothers 1:37:58.360 --> 1:38:04.639 kept us soft number one with Michael McDonald. Sultan's gets 1:38:04.720 --> 1:38:08.360 the number two, I think it was. And I had 1:38:08.439 --> 1:38:10.800 decided one of the things I was trying to do 1:38:11.040 --> 1:38:14.080 with them live or any act I've worked with, was 1:38:14.240 --> 1:38:18.760 create an event one and we were being offered I 1:38:18.760 --> 1:38:20.599 remember Ron Del's and had got hold of my home 1:38:20.680 --> 1:38:24.160 phone number and offered as Madison Square Garden and I 1:38:24.240 --> 1:38:28.680 turned it down flat. And there were two reasons. I 1:38:28.800 --> 1:38:31.639 knew the band were not ready to play a place 1:38:31.760 --> 1:38:35.160 that big. They hadn't played anywhere bigger than three thousand 1:38:35.360 --> 1:38:41.240 capacity at that point. And I also knew that as 1:38:41.320 --> 1:38:45.560 the line up existed at the time with David K. 1:38:45.560 --> 1:38:52.080 Nofler in it, it wasn't what they didn't really perform. 1:38:52.880 --> 1:38:56.000 If you understand, they would kind of a bit rooted 1:38:56.040 --> 1:39:00.719 to the spot mark would throw off mount sense of sweat, 1:39:00.800 --> 1:39:04.760 which is where the head band came from. But uh so, 1:39:04.920 --> 1:39:09.080 I what I did was I stuck with a club, 1:39:09.840 --> 1:39:12.559 small theater. So we played, for instance, The Bottom Line 1:39:13.120 --> 1:39:15.920 in New York for four nights, and we played The 1:39:16.040 --> 1:39:19.120 Roxy in l A. At the end. When we were 1:39:19.160 --> 1:39:23.160 at the Roxy, we'd already moved on to selecting a 1:39:23.280 --> 1:39:26.360 producer for album number two and who should step forward 1:39:27.560 --> 1:39:30.600 because he could certainly recognize a dollar bill when it 1:39:30.680 --> 1:39:35.360 appeared in front of him. But Jerry Wexler, and Jerry 1:39:38.280 --> 1:39:44.280 who was going to m sorry, he'd already done the 1:39:44.360 --> 1:39:46.719 second record. That's right, we did the second record before 1:39:46.760 --> 1:39:51.120 we came to America. He brought Dylan to one of 1:39:51.200 --> 1:39:56.200 the shows, and of course Marks huge puge Dylan fan. 1:39:57.400 --> 1:40:00.360 So they met and there was an interesting little aside 1:40:00.439 --> 1:40:02.439 to this. While they were up we were in that 1:40:02.479 --> 1:40:05.640 place on the rocks upstairs, and I was chatting to 1:40:05.760 --> 1:40:08.720 Dylan's mate and I kind of said to him, I 1:40:08.760 --> 1:40:10.360 said to him, well, what band are you in? And 1:40:10.439 --> 1:40:11.920 he said, oh, I'm not in a band. I'm with 1:40:12.000 --> 1:40:17.320 the Children of God. And I went, oh, really, I've 1:40:17.360 --> 1:40:21.600 not heard of him. So this made no didn't. This 1:40:21.720 --> 1:40:24.439 came into play a little while later. So anyway, we 1:40:24.560 --> 1:40:30.760 finished that tour and Jerry had got Mark and our 1:40:30.800 --> 1:40:34.639 original drama pick with us to go down to Muscle 1:40:34.680 --> 1:40:39.600 Shoals to make Slow Train Coming. Now, just before that, 1:40:40.240 --> 1:40:43.360 Mark was rehearsing out in Santa Monica at Dylan's place 1:40:43.400 --> 1:40:45.840 and he called me up in London and he said, ed, 1:40:45.920 --> 1:40:49.360 He said, all these songs are about God, and I 1:40:49.520 --> 1:40:54.519 suddenly remembered the guy at the rock scene. And of 1:40:54.640 --> 1:41:00.799 course Bob had become born again, which which Jerry, being Jewish, 1:41:00.920 --> 1:41:06.240 couldn't get his head round at all. Jerry would constantly spit. 1:41:06.640 --> 1:41:10.640 That was his thing, was spitting. So I didn't go 1:41:10.880 --> 1:41:13.639 down there. I was too busy with the next phase 1:41:13.720 --> 1:41:15.519 of what was going on. But they went down to 1:41:15.640 --> 1:41:21.040 Muscle Shoals and I flew over to New York. I 1:41:21.200 --> 1:41:23.639 called Mark up and I said, oh, I'll be down tomorrow. 1:41:23.720 --> 1:41:26.360 He said, don't bother coming. I said why not. He said, 1:41:26.360 --> 1:41:29.519 we're finished and I said, but you've only been there 1:41:29.600 --> 1:41:34.000 five days. He said, Bob only plays a song twice. 1:41:35.640 --> 1:41:38.800 So I kicked my heels for a few days and 1:41:39.200 --> 1:41:43.120 went back to England and he followed fairly quickly after that, 1:41:43.760 --> 1:41:47.320 and that became the Slow Train Coming record, and that 1:41:47.680 --> 1:41:54.240 was you know, Bob's kind of born again announcement if 1:41:54.280 --> 1:41:57.960 you like, but a great record irrelevant of the guy. Yeah, yeah, 1:41:58.320 --> 1:42:01.720 So how do you get rid of of the other? Why? 1:42:03.720 --> 1:42:09.760 You got some good questions? And the thing that the 1:42:09.960 --> 1:42:17.000 situation between the two brothers was difficult from the get go. 1:42:19.720 --> 1:42:25.880 It became increasingly difficult as the band got bigger, um 1:42:27.080 --> 1:42:32.200 because Mark was emerging as a dictator. And I don't 1:42:32.280 --> 1:42:35.920 say that in a negative way. I think all bands 1:42:36.080 --> 1:42:40.320 needed dictator. Basically, the democracies and bands just don't work. 1:42:41.520 --> 1:42:47.880 And David, who of course well as David said, I 1:42:48.000 --> 1:42:50.400 remember in an interview afterwards, he said, it was pretty 1:42:50.520 --> 1:42:53.280 tough having my brother constantly telling me what to do. 1:42:54.280 --> 1:42:59.240 And the problem also was that Mark was Mark and 1:42:59.400 --> 1:43:03.320 Pick with it us were equally matched in their talent 1:43:03.439 --> 1:43:05.880 on their instruments. Pick was probably the best drummer we 1:43:05.960 --> 1:43:11.760 ever had and they and John was very solid as 1:43:11.760 --> 1:43:14.679 a bass player. And John did all of the band's 1:43:14.760 --> 1:43:19.559 business with me, and he stopped them breaking up certainly 1:43:19.760 --> 1:43:22.479 in the earlier years because he was always very sort 1:43:22.520 --> 1:43:26.920 of sensible, as that's his personality. We got to doing 1:43:27.000 --> 1:43:29.479 the making movies record in New York at the Power 1:43:29.560 --> 1:43:37.160 Station with Jimmy Iven and Shelley Akas and there was 1:43:37.280 --> 1:43:40.360 a they were recording Romeo and Juliette and there was 1:43:40.520 --> 1:43:45.080 just a huge row, I mean like a total nuclear 1:43:45.640 --> 1:43:53.559 mega row. And it ended up with David leaving the group. 1:43:54.120 --> 1:43:58.160 He wasn't fired, it just wasn't working. So he came 1:43:58.240 --> 1:44:03.759 back to England and Mark finished up the guitar parts 1:44:03.800 --> 1:44:05.960 and said mcguinnis who was on that with the Paul 1:44:06.000 --> 1:44:10.160 Schaefer band on Letterman Show. He did a bit of 1:44:10.240 --> 1:44:14.400 guitar work on it as well. It just ran out 1:44:14.439 --> 1:44:17.880 of steam. If if he not left, the group would 1:44:17.880 --> 1:44:21.400 have disintegrated, and he was cool with what he missed 1:44:21.400 --> 1:44:26.080 out on. I can't answer that question. I mean, I 1:44:26.200 --> 1:44:28.519 haven't really had much to do with him. It was 1:44:28.600 --> 1:44:32.920 a situation where I couldn't. I couldn't carry on working 1:44:33.000 --> 1:44:36.560 with him. The first of all, I didn't consider he 1:44:36.680 --> 1:44:40.720 was talented enough, and secondly, the sibling thing meant it 1:44:40.840 --> 1:44:44.040 just in part it was just impossible. But I don't know, 1:44:44.200 --> 1:44:46.600 I don't know whether he regrets it. I said he 1:44:47.240 --> 1:44:52.160 received one quarter of the royalties on the first three albums, 1:44:52.280 --> 1:44:56.000 first two albums, so he did okay financially okay. Ultimately 1:44:56.120 --> 1:45:00.840 the band is going up. Meanwhile MTV becomes role Lide phenomena. 1:45:02.000 --> 1:45:06.879 The band cuts money for nothing before the record is released. 1:45:07.600 --> 1:45:10.280 Do you know you have this monster? And how do 1:45:10.360 --> 1:45:13.600 you end up making the video? And also how do 1:45:13.680 --> 1:45:21.320 you get stinged on the intro? Right? Okay, um, The 1:45:21.400 --> 1:45:23.320 answer to the first part of that question is that 1:45:23.479 --> 1:45:27.759 you never know anybody who says they can spot ahead. 1:45:28.000 --> 1:45:30.360 To me, it's they've got their heads up their backsides. 1:45:31.760 --> 1:45:34.120 Nobody knows what is going to be successful. They only 1:45:34.200 --> 1:45:38.160 know what has been successful. So people do sequels, and 1:45:38.320 --> 1:45:42.000 they do copies and so on. What happened with that 1:45:42.120 --> 1:45:48.320 one was that after the Love of Gold record, which 1:45:48.439 --> 1:45:53.120 was huge everywhere except the US because it only had 1:45:53.200 --> 1:45:56.000 five tracks on it. And I must tell you there's 1:45:56.000 --> 1:45:58.240 a song on they called Telegraph Road, which I think 1:45:58.320 --> 1:46:02.360 runs from about fifteen minutes one of yeah it is 1:46:02.479 --> 1:46:04.720 and Warn Brill has actually did a two and a 1:46:04.800 --> 1:46:08.720 half minute edit that said to me, can we put 1:46:08.800 --> 1:46:12.040 this out? And I remember saying to Carl Scott bless him. 1:46:12.320 --> 1:46:16.000 I said, it's Carl that be silly. So we didn't 1:46:16.000 --> 1:46:18.519 have a hit single of that. Private Investigations was a 1:46:18.640 --> 1:46:20.920 huge hit all over the rest of the world, I 1:46:21.040 --> 1:46:24.559 must say, to my considerable surprise since that's seven minutes long. 1:46:25.479 --> 1:46:30.280 And what happened was we did another great long tour. 1:46:30.400 --> 1:46:35.200 All these records, all these albums were accompanied by huge tours, yes, 1:46:35.280 --> 1:46:37.719 but there was a point where you literally were playing 1:46:37.760 --> 1:46:41.320 stadiums and you were literally the biggest touring act in 1:46:41.400 --> 1:46:46.000 the world. And just a just coming to that in 1:46:46.120 --> 1:46:52.600 your your chronology. What happened was that Mark started to 1:46:52.720 --> 1:46:54.840 do a couple of other things. I mean, we did 1:46:54.920 --> 1:47:01.000 the soundtracks for Local Hero and cal around about the 1:47:01.080 --> 1:47:06.479 time of Love Over with gold Um with producer David Putnam, 1:47:06.560 --> 1:47:10.880 who was an absolute delight to work with, and Um. 1:47:12.240 --> 1:47:14.160 Somewhere in all of that we had a live album 1:47:14.200 --> 1:47:22.439 out called Alchemy, and he was started producing other people Um, 1:47:23.600 --> 1:47:26.000 and we got to a point. I remember he and 1:47:26.080 --> 1:47:29.240 I we were in a car. We've been at film 1:47:29.280 --> 1:47:31.800 Man's and Era's studio. We were driving back up to 1:47:31.880 --> 1:47:35.360 London and he said, I've got some songs together. This 1:47:35.479 --> 1:47:39.280 would have been in late eighty four. He said, can 1:47:39.400 --> 1:47:42.760 you get the band back together? And those turned out 1:47:42.840 --> 1:47:46.360 to be the songs that became the Brothers in Arms record. 1:47:47.479 --> 1:47:50.680 And I remember going down to a rehearsal and I 1:47:50.800 --> 1:47:55.560 heard money for Nothing for the first time. What what 1:47:55.680 --> 1:47:57.559 struck me about it was I've done the first ever 1:47:57.680 --> 1:48:04.840 European tour with zz Top and I remember thinking that 1:48:05.080 --> 1:48:09.559 he probably had I don't know this, but I kind 1:48:09.560 --> 1:48:12.640 of detected a bit of Billy Gibbons guitar sound on 1:48:12.800 --> 1:48:16.240 that particular song. Did I think it was going to 1:48:16.320 --> 1:48:20.240 be a big hit? I thought it might be do well, 1:48:20.520 --> 1:48:23.800 but I had no I did had no idea it 1:48:23.920 --> 1:48:26.040 was going to do that. Records done about that album 1:48:26.080 --> 1:48:31.360 has done about thirty six million physical sales. So UM, 1:48:33.760 --> 1:48:38.599 we've we we decided to go to Monsterrat to Georgea's studio. 1:48:40.000 --> 1:48:45.280 UM made it mainly for the Sun and I remember 1:48:45.360 --> 1:48:52.400 going over there and we didn't know even though Sting 1:48:52.520 --> 1:48:56.360 was on the island now Mark and Stein. We've all 1:48:56.439 --> 1:48:59.000 known each other for many many years when the Straight 1:48:59.120 --> 1:49:01.519 started out the place he started out, and of course 1:49:01.560 --> 1:49:06.920 I've known Miles Fat Miles is fact checking fact checking 1:49:07.000 --> 1:49:08.840 his book with me and a couple of months ago 1:49:08.880 --> 1:49:12.880 because you've got a book coming out soon, and uh, 1:49:13.960 --> 1:49:17.320 we we didn't know Sting was on the island, and 1:49:17.439 --> 1:49:20.280 one day he just the best chef on the Island 1:49:20.400 --> 1:49:24.479 was the guy at the studio, Michael George. One day, 1:49:24.560 --> 1:49:37.920 Sting showed up and um with Trudy and because he 1:49:38.000 --> 1:49:41.479 wanted he wanted something decent to eat and we're having 1:49:41.560 --> 1:49:43.719 dinner and Mark said to him and he said, I've 1:49:43.760 --> 1:49:47.400 written this really stupid song about MTV. Do you fancy 1:49:47.479 --> 1:49:50.280 singing on it? So they went downstairs and they came 1:49:50.360 --> 1:49:54.519 up with the idea of putting I Want my MTV 1:49:54.760 --> 1:49:56.760 on the front to the tune of Don't Stand So 1:49:57.400 --> 1:50:05.400 Close to Me, and that became the record. And um, 1:50:09.840 --> 1:50:12.160 I remember there was a there was a big headache 1:50:12.160 --> 1:50:15.080 about that song because of the lyrics see the little 1:50:15.120 --> 1:50:19.000 faggot with the earring and the makeup. Warner Brothers some 1:50:19.520 --> 1:50:22.439 not everybody, and I have to say not not more Austin. 1:50:22.840 --> 1:50:25.080 There were some people in Warner Brothers who wanted to 1:50:25.280 --> 1:50:29.800 edit that there was a reference to American Express, which 1:50:30.840 --> 1:50:33.519 people were, you know, this is going to be so 1:50:33.600 --> 1:50:38.679 and so forth, but that everybody went with it. Although 1:50:38.720 --> 1:50:42.200 funny enough that the first single off that record, which 1:50:42.320 --> 1:50:48.519 people have forgotten, was Walk of Life, and that didn't 1:50:48.560 --> 1:50:51.160 do anything until it came out on the back of 1:50:51.280 --> 1:50:53.040 Money for Nothing, and then it became a big hit. 1:50:53.320 --> 1:50:59.040 It actually outsold money for nothing, So that was that's 1:50:59.080 --> 1:51:01.479 basically the story that it wasn't okay then that the 1:51:01.640 --> 1:51:04.960 video was classic too with the animation. How did you 1:51:05.040 --> 1:51:07.680 come up with a video? Well, that was done by 1:51:07.760 --> 1:51:13.920 Steve Barron and he had done Michael Jackson's beat It, 1:51:14.200 --> 1:51:20.400 the one with the lights under his feet, and he 1:51:20.920 --> 1:51:24.439 basically came up with that idea. We tried. We did 1:51:24.560 --> 1:51:27.880 have a moment where we were trying to find somebody 1:51:27.920 --> 1:51:30.760 who would appear in that as a kind of redneck 1:51:31.479 --> 1:51:37.400 sort of person, and I approached Buddy Rich and Rodney 1:51:37.520 --> 1:51:41.880 Dangerfield and they both passed on it. There you go, 1:51:43.240 --> 1:51:45.040 So we ended up. So we ended and this that 1:51:45.040 --> 1:51:51.519 that that digital thing had just just literally just kind 1:51:51.520 --> 1:51:54.479 of arrived. So we were shown, we were shown an 1:51:54.520 --> 1:51:58.240 example of that, and we were already on tour on 1:51:58.400 --> 1:52:01.600 the we were already started to turn that record that 1:52:01.720 --> 1:52:04.840 all of the live footage that the band are in 1:52:04.960 --> 1:52:10.400 on in that clip was shot in in Budapest in Hungary, Okay. 1:52:10.479 --> 1:52:15.400 As we referenced earlier, record comes out far beyond anybody's 1:52:15.520 --> 1:52:20.360 conception worldwide. Smash. What does it feel like? And how 1:52:20.479 --> 1:52:24.519 you then decide to play stadiums and what's it like 1:52:24.640 --> 1:52:33.920 being the biggest act in the world. Um ye, I 1:52:34.520 --> 1:52:38.400 that's an almost unanswerable question. When you're on the roller coaster, 1:52:40.240 --> 1:52:45.920 you're just hanging on. I mean, you don't realize what 1:52:46.840 --> 1:52:48.960 what you just said until you can look at it 1:52:50.040 --> 1:52:57.320 with hindsight. I knew we didn't actually play stadiums. We 1:52:57.680 --> 1:53:03.759 played some outdoors, but we didn't. I preferred doing multiple arenas. 1:53:03.880 --> 1:53:06.880 I think it's fairer on the audience. Did you play 1:53:07.200 --> 1:53:11.759 stadium in in Israel? Though? Oh well that was the part. Yes, Sorry, 1:53:12.040 --> 1:53:15.080 we're just mixing up your fragile Yeah, we played. We 1:53:15.160 --> 1:53:17.840 played to a quarter of the entire population of Israel 1:53:17.920 --> 1:53:22.560 over three shows. One was in a Roman amphitheater in 1:53:22.920 --> 1:53:25.760 the middle of Jerusalem that was the closest to a 1:53:26.000 --> 1:53:29.240 riot I've ever been involved in. And the other two 1:53:29.280 --> 1:53:31.560 were in the Park, which would be the equivalent of 1:53:31.840 --> 1:53:35.240 Central Park in New York, and we played that. We 1:53:35.400 --> 1:53:39.320 filled that for two days and we played big outdoor shows. 1:53:39.360 --> 1:53:44.599 In Australia, we did play. We played to eighty nine thousand, 1:53:44.680 --> 1:53:47.880 six d and thirty two people in Auckland, which is 1:53:48.000 --> 1:53:51.760 the largest gathering of people ever in the history of 1:53:51.800 --> 1:53:55.519 the Islands of New Zealand, things like that. I could 1:53:55.600 --> 1:53:59.000 rattle off silly statistics for age, okay, But interestingly, in 1:53:59.200 --> 1:54:01.880 that era mid eaties, the biggest being in the world. 1:54:02.320 --> 1:54:05.040 How much production did you curry and what we was 1:54:05.080 --> 1:54:07.120 at a factor or was it still just the music? 1:54:08.280 --> 1:54:10.200 It was the music really. I mean we had a 1:54:10.920 --> 1:54:15.320 We had a great, great lighting man, Chas Harrington. Now 1:54:15.479 --> 1:54:20.160 Chaz had started out as the engineer at the Demo 1:54:20.360 --> 1:54:23.400 studio where they did the first demos. And one day 1:54:23.479 --> 1:54:26.040 he was fiddling, he was doing monitors for us, and 1:54:26.120 --> 1:54:28.240 he was fiddling with the lighting board and we didn't 1:54:28.240 --> 1:54:30.600 have a lighting man. This is very early on, and 1:54:30.720 --> 1:54:32.200 I said to him, do you want to do the lights? 1:54:32.520 --> 1:54:36.920 And he became one of the world's leading lighting designers. Um, 1:54:37.640 --> 1:54:40.840 we had the same crew we kept. We've always been 1:54:40.920 --> 1:54:44.280 very low. We used the same trucking company lights, sound, 1:54:44.600 --> 1:54:47.560 all the rest of it, and I kept Obviously the 1:54:47.640 --> 1:54:50.920 crew had to grow, but the core of it sound 1:54:51.040 --> 1:54:55.120 front of the house, UM Robert Collins who now does 1:54:55.640 --> 1:55:00.840 whose sound? People like the monitor guy. They all the 1:55:00.960 --> 1:55:06.320 core people. And by this point the band had metamorphosized 1:55:06.320 --> 1:55:09.960 into a situation where we had really Mark and John 1:55:10.760 --> 1:55:13.760 and the others were I'm going to call them side men, 1:55:14.680 --> 1:55:17.080 but they were rather more than side men, and we 1:55:17.240 --> 1:55:20.040 compensated them on a basis that was more than side men. 1:55:21.160 --> 1:55:25.560 So they were a very That lineup on that Brothers 1:55:25.600 --> 1:55:29.120 and Arms tour, in my view, is the best lineup 1:55:29.160 --> 1:55:32.440 we ever had, and they consistently did two hundred and 1:55:33.280 --> 1:55:40.800 shows in twelve months. It's amazing people are still alive. 1:55:41.640 --> 1:55:46.640 But interesting, interestingly enough, Mark said to me once he 1:55:47.600 --> 1:55:49.040 came in the office and he was looking at the 1:55:49.160 --> 1:55:51.920 date sheet that I put together, and he pointed at 1:55:51.960 --> 1:55:55.960 this day off. He should what's that for? I said, 1:55:56.000 --> 1:55:59.680 that's for the crew. The band went and played a 1:56:00.040 --> 1:56:05.839 think reception in a hotel on that day. Wow, okay, 1:56:06.320 --> 1:56:10.600 what did you do with the money? There are issues 1:56:10.680 --> 1:56:14.480 of tax, there's issue spending. Where did you put it? 1:56:14.720 --> 1:56:17.400 What do you do with it? Are you talking about 1:56:17.440 --> 1:56:26.720 me personally or to the degree you overtaking? Wow? Well, 1:56:26.800 --> 1:56:30.720 the first thing is none of them actually no artists 1:56:30.760 --> 1:56:33.160 have been involved with but certainly none of dire Straits 1:56:34.080 --> 1:56:38.280 has acquired. Nobody's got a private plane, nobody's got a yacht. 1:56:39.440 --> 1:56:44.200 Mark has a collection of classic cars we have. Everybody 1:56:44.960 --> 1:56:51.320 ended up with nice homes, but I wouldn't say particularly exotic. U. 1:56:54.320 --> 1:56:56.520 We yeah, we paid, we paid a lot of tax. 1:56:56.640 --> 1:57:00.080 We decided to stay resident in the UK. Nobody he 1:57:00.160 --> 1:57:04.880 went overseas or did any of that kind of stuff. Um. 1:57:08.520 --> 1:57:12.040 It's interesting because you're saying that in the context of now, 1:57:12.120 --> 1:57:14.560 because you've got to remember that everything was less than 1:57:14.720 --> 1:57:21.640 Ticket prices were less, merchandising was less, record royalties were 1:57:22.240 --> 1:57:26.800 actually record realties were better the Newtube. I mean, if 1:57:26.840 --> 1:57:29.640 the bogey men back then with the record companies. Now 1:57:29.920 --> 1:57:32.800 it's the internet providers on question. And you know, when 1:57:32.840 --> 1:57:34.640 I do the thing with Irving tomorrow, I know this 1:57:34.800 --> 1:57:38.080 is going to come up. Um. And I think that 1:57:40.280 --> 1:57:46.680 the the money changes you, but what it really changes 1:57:46.880 --> 1:57:53.480 is people's attitude towards you. Um, it's a long time 1:57:53.640 --> 1:57:56.200 since I didn't pick up the bill in a restaurant, 1:57:58.320 --> 1:58:00.360 so you have that. But you know, I mean, it's 1:58:00.440 --> 1:58:07.080 churlish to complain about being successful. It did. It does 1:58:07.200 --> 1:58:12.800 have an impact on your on your psyche definitely, apart 1:58:12.800 --> 1:58:19.240 from anything else. You can't quite grasp it if you could. 1:58:19.240 --> 1:58:21.440 I mean, you you've got me to explain my background 1:58:22.040 --> 1:58:24.560 earlier on if you come from a background like that 1:58:24.760 --> 1:58:28.200 Mark Mark. Mark's dad was an architect, his mom was 1:58:28.280 --> 1:58:34.400 a school teacher. John's parents were in were farmers. Um, 1:58:35.680 --> 1:58:42.080 we weren't. It's frightening. There is an element to it 1:58:42.200 --> 1:58:45.520 that is frightening, and you kind of stash it away 1:58:46.320 --> 1:58:48.880 pension funds. You would shove it all into pension fund 1:58:49.400 --> 1:58:51.640 because they because they were they were very good tax 1:58:51.720 --> 1:58:55.440 wise in this country, and because there's always this fear 1:58:56.840 --> 1:59:00.960 all these all creative people are essentially insecure, and some 1:59:01.160 --> 1:59:05.400 of them desperately so so you stash it away kind 1:59:05.400 --> 1:59:08.240 of under the bed almost because you think it's going 1:59:08.280 --> 1:59:14.680 to stop tomorrow. So I would say, and we all 1:59:14.760 --> 1:59:20.480 had very good business advice. I did not use lawyers. 1:59:20.880 --> 1:59:23.840 I did all the record deals, all the publishing deals, 1:59:24.200 --> 1:59:26.640 and all of the tours outside of the US. I 1:59:26.760 --> 1:59:30.280 did myself well. Obviously you were an expert in touring, 1:59:31.200 --> 1:59:35.120 but especially even in that day, record deals were very 1:59:35.240 --> 1:59:39.720 comprehensive in retrospect. Was but I just but my thing 1:59:39.960 --> 1:59:43.440 was I had I had huge leverage, so I just 1:59:43.640 --> 1:59:47.720 used to invent things. I just used to stick closes 1:59:47.800 --> 1:59:50.320 in that were I used to tie record companies up 1:59:50.360 --> 1:59:55.080 in knots. For instance. Give an example in the UK 1:59:56.080 --> 2:00:01.280 m then not now, television advert sizing for records was 2:00:01.320 --> 2:00:04.880 a big thing, but it was expensive, so the record 2:00:04.920 --> 2:00:08.880 companies would want to recoup of the TV costs. So 2:00:09.040 --> 2:00:12.040 I put them in as I put in clauses in 2:00:12.120 --> 2:00:14.840 the deal that were so complicated they didn't know what 2:00:15.000 --> 2:00:17.840 they were doing. And right now I can't say how 2:00:18.000 --> 2:00:23.360 much straits technically, Oh what was polychrome now universal? But 2:00:25.200 --> 2:00:29.640 it's saved hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds. 2:00:30.280 --> 2:00:35.280 We never paid towards TV campaigns, were never paid towards videos. Okay, 2:00:35.440 --> 2:00:38.960 did at what point? Or did? You renegotiated streets record 2:00:39.000 --> 2:00:44.160 deal on every single album, And I renegotiated it backwards 2:00:44.200 --> 2:00:48.160 as well as forwards, So the first album ended up 2:00:48.200 --> 2:00:54.240 on the same royalty as the next one. Wow. But Bob, 2:00:54.400 --> 2:00:57.400 this sounds I mean, it sounds grandiose. But I had 2:00:57.520 --> 2:01:01.080 leverage if I had no you only get leverage through 2:01:01.120 --> 2:01:04.640 commercial success if you're one of the things I also 2:01:04.760 --> 2:01:09.080 realized was that the staff in record companies, not so 2:01:09.200 --> 2:01:13.080 much at Warner Brothers, but certainly in the phonogram companies 2:01:13.080 --> 2:01:16.880 and PolyGram. I got through seventeen managing directors in twenty 2:01:16.960 --> 2:01:20.520 five years in the UK company. Nobody knew what the 2:01:20.600 --> 2:01:25.880 previous lot had done. They lost all of our paperwork fantastic. 2:01:26.640 --> 2:01:30.760 So they would ring up and they would say, we 2:01:30.840 --> 2:01:33.400 can't find your contracts and I say, oh, hours is 2:01:33.440 --> 2:01:35.640 in storage, it's in a it's in a box under 2:01:35.680 --> 2:01:38.680 the Thames. I can't get it, which is total bullshit. 2:01:39.960 --> 2:01:42.520 We did. We went for long periods with no contract. 2:01:42.640 --> 2:01:46.360 We just had deal memos and I and I stole 2:01:47.360 --> 2:01:49.920 somebody out of the royalties department at Phonogram to be 2:01:50.040 --> 2:01:55.680 my in house accountant, so he knew exactly what that 2:01:55.840 --> 2:01:57.840 was going to be. My next question, to what degree 2:01:57.880 --> 2:02:04.760 did your audit frequently and you always found money? Nobody's 2:02:04.800 --> 2:02:09.360 ever audited a record company and not found money. Okay, Ever, 2:02:09.920 --> 2:02:12.640 in terms of Sunset deals, are you still getting paid 2:02:12.800 --> 2:02:16.720 personally from these records? Now? I sold those rights like 2:02:16.960 --> 2:02:20.720 rather like Irving's buying up publishing and Mecuri artist is 2:02:20.760 --> 2:02:25.080 buying up anything that's warm. I sold those rights about 2:02:25.280 --> 2:02:28.160 three or four years ago. But I was getting commission 2:02:28.240 --> 2:02:32.080 in perpetuity on records and I had a very long 2:02:32.200 --> 2:02:36.600 post term on publishing and again I got that after 2:02:36.840 --> 2:02:41.040 managing them for about eighteen years. Why did you decide 2:02:41.080 --> 2:02:51.920 to sell some personal reasons, m h and because I 2:02:52.080 --> 2:02:58.360 could see that the catalog was I mean, it's still 2:02:58.440 --> 2:03:02.440 doing well, but it's been a long time since Brothers 2:03:02.480 --> 2:03:04.760 in Arms. I liked to be honest with you, I 2:03:04.920 --> 2:03:08.200 was kind of I was still I was a bit 2:03:08.240 --> 2:03:10.680 fed up having to administer it and so and so forth. 2:03:11.160 --> 2:03:13.960 And I managed to get an extremely good deal. I mean, 2:03:14.080 --> 2:03:17.160 if can you tell us sold into a company called 2:03:17.240 --> 2:03:20.480 Royal to Exchange in Denver, and I got a very 2:03:20.600 --> 2:03:25.600 very high multiple. Okay, so you have this band, it's 2:03:25.680 --> 2:03:28.960 the biggest band in the world. Yet the band is 2:03:29.120 --> 2:03:33.960 barely together. You know, most managers are doing everything to 2:03:34.080 --> 2:03:36.760 keep the band together. So one thing in your mind 2:03:36.800 --> 2:03:39.080 and own this is shaky what was going on in 2:03:39.160 --> 2:03:47.120 your mind at that point. But when we got two 2:03:47.440 --> 2:03:51.480 Brothers in Arms and the work that we did on 2:03:51.600 --> 2:03:54.000 the back of that, which basically lasted for a year, 2:03:59.240 --> 2:04:04.400 that level of success that you're talking about, I would 2:04:04.440 --> 2:04:06.720 take issue with the biggest band in the world because 2:04:06.760 --> 2:04:08.800 that's a bit like being the no No. I think 2:04:08.880 --> 2:04:11.440 if you look, I remember the tour grossest, literally the 2:04:11.560 --> 2:04:15.440 largest in the world. We can, but I can't quantify 2:04:15.560 --> 2:04:18.960 all these other things perception when it comes to hard dollars. 2:04:20.600 --> 2:04:23.160 That's a bit like being the fastest gunfighter in the West. 2:04:23.320 --> 2:04:25.040 You know one day somebody's going to come around the 2:04:25.120 --> 2:04:28.840 corner and shoot you. Yes, but you have a band 2:04:29.000 --> 2:04:36.040 with no sex symbol from not saying you know trendy music. 2:04:36.960 --> 2:04:39.200 So and you're as we stated earlier, it's not like 2:04:39.280 --> 2:04:41.960 you're selling the show. You're selling the music. That's why 2:04:42.000 --> 2:04:43.960 it was so noteworthy. I'm not blow and spoke up 2:04:43.960 --> 2:04:46.600 your ass. For those of us were outside, it was 2:04:46.600 --> 2:04:50.360 pretty astounding. It was pretty starting. For those of us 2:04:50.400 --> 2:04:52.920 on the inside. I didn't think of it like that, 2:04:53.600 --> 2:04:56.480 and honestly, a lot of people will when I'm watching 2:04:56.560 --> 2:05:01.040 this will be surprised. I literally ever thought about the 2:05:01.120 --> 2:05:05.160 money coming in. I constantly thought about the money going out, 2:05:06.600 --> 2:05:10.400 because when you're running a thing like that, the overhead starts. 2:05:10.480 --> 2:05:12.400 I mean, I've got white hair. I started off with 2:05:12.480 --> 2:05:18.000 him with black hair. Um, you've had two people on 2:05:18.080 --> 2:05:23.080 the road I had. I can't, I can't. I can't 2:05:23.120 --> 2:05:25.800 remember the number of trucks, planes and all the rest 2:05:25.840 --> 2:05:30.440 of it. They What happened was that when we got 2:05:30.560 --> 2:05:35.840 to the end of that, which was eighty six April May, 2:05:36.440 --> 2:05:41.320 no sooner as we finished. The mark was he was 2:05:41.400 --> 2:05:44.560 like a greyhound out of the box. Straightaway is producing 2:05:45.240 --> 2:05:48.840 Tina Turner, then he's doing something else, then he's doing 2:05:48.880 --> 2:05:52.360 another film. It never stopped. He had an incredible work ethic. 2:05:52.840 --> 2:05:55.280 I mean absolutely, it was hard to keep up with him. 2:05:55.520 --> 2:05:57.920 And I had expanded my management company and I was 2:05:57.960 --> 2:06:02.480 looking after Brian Ferry. Jerry Rafferty had gone by this time, 2:06:02.600 --> 2:06:06.600 long long gone. We had a great Irish singer songwriter 2:06:07.560 --> 2:06:12.680 called Paul Brady, and I was managing Scott Walker, from 2:06:12.760 --> 2:06:16.880 whom I made three fifty pounds commission in seven years. 2:06:17.600 --> 2:06:19.760 And Scott's no longer with us. But if he walked 2:06:19.760 --> 2:06:22.160 into this room now and asked me to do it again, 2:06:22.320 --> 2:06:24.600 I do it like a shot. You let's stop with 2:06:24.680 --> 2:06:27.760 Brian Ferry for a second. You know, he's a very 2:06:27.840 --> 2:06:32.480 debonair guy artistically at ten successful in America. But we're 2:06:32.560 --> 2:06:36.240 constantly reading these stories how he's one of the richest 2:06:36.360 --> 2:06:40.680 musicians in the UK. Rubbish. How did you know? That? 2:06:40.880 --> 2:06:48.240 Is complete rubbish? I would say he's that's complete rubbish. 2:06:51.000 --> 2:06:52.960 Well then let me ask you, since you were the manager, 2:06:53.200 --> 2:06:58.480 how successful was he in the UK? He wasn't as 2:06:58.600 --> 2:07:02.560 successful a both within Roxy Music and on his own. 2:07:03.160 --> 2:07:07.160 But if you're talking about physical record sales, for instance, 2:07:07.280 --> 2:07:10.680 on the record I worked on, that record would have 2:07:10.760 --> 2:07:17.280 done maybe a hundred hundred it up on this end, No, 2:07:17.920 --> 2:07:20.640 it's that's complete rubbish. I don't know who's writing that crap, 2:07:20.840 --> 2:07:24.360 and that's no disrespect to Brian. I did a deal 2:07:24.440 --> 2:07:26.600 for him, or I have finished off a deal in fact, 2:07:27.040 --> 2:07:31.480 his previous management we're doing with virgin Um, which was 2:07:31.600 --> 2:07:36.360 an extremely but he that they didn't presume they I think, 2:07:36.480 --> 2:07:38.480 I hope I could be corrected on this. I think 2:07:38.520 --> 2:07:41.600 they dropped him eventually. I mean he and I we 2:07:41.760 --> 2:07:46.400 it didn't work. It just didn't gell because because he'd 2:07:46.440 --> 2:07:49.680 been whether management company before me, who had a totally 2:07:49.760 --> 2:07:53.440 different style to me. I don't do personals, I don't 2:07:53.480 --> 2:07:56.680 do mortgages, I don't get people's cars repaired, I don't 2:07:56.760 --> 2:08:03.440 get book their granny's on holiday. And I don't do divorces. Okay, 2:08:03.480 --> 2:08:06.839 but talking about what you do do they're very hands 2:08:06.880 --> 2:08:10.040 on creative managers like the two guys A C. Prime. Yeah, 2:08:10.080 --> 2:08:12.920 there are there are I know, I know Peter very well. Yeah, 2:08:13.000 --> 2:08:15.080 And then there are other people say, you go to 2:08:15.200 --> 2:08:17.920 the studio, I'll make the record, but when it comes out, 2:08:18.000 --> 2:08:20.480 I'll do I'll sell whatever. But the creative thing is 2:08:20.600 --> 2:08:23.600 totally yours. You make decision even what's going to be 2:08:24.040 --> 2:08:26.440 on the record. Where do you sit in there? Continuing? 2:08:26.640 --> 2:08:29.360 I think because I had been a musician, or at 2:08:29.400 --> 2:08:32.280 least I've been a drummer, because that's not necessarily the 2:08:32.360 --> 2:08:38.320 same thing, um, and because the guy's industrates in particularly 2:08:38.640 --> 2:08:40.480 when I talk about death strates, I really mean Martin 2:08:40.520 --> 2:08:42.560 Offer and John Ellslie, and I really mean Mark. I 2:08:42.600 --> 2:08:45.760 suppose we are roughly at the same age. We're from 2:08:45.800 --> 2:08:48.480 the same background, we grew up in very similar parts 2:08:48.520 --> 2:08:51.640 of the UK, and most significantly, we grew up listening 2:08:51.680 --> 2:08:53.760 to the same stuff, all the stuff I was talking 2:08:53.800 --> 2:08:57.280 about at the beginning. So when Mark and I went 2:08:57.400 --> 2:09:00.520 started going to Nashville a lot and chet Atkins Blessing 2:09:00.920 --> 2:09:04.880 opened the door for us to meet everybody. We were 2:09:04.960 --> 2:09:08.280 like school kids. I mean, meeting the Everly Brothers for 2:09:08.520 --> 2:09:13.480 us was like you couldn't it was. It was kind 2:09:13.480 --> 2:09:17.280 of dream like and going. And remember he called me 2:09:17.400 --> 2:09:19.960 one morning, pretty early in the morning, and he said, 2:09:20.000 --> 2:09:22.120 what are you doing And I said, I'm ranking and 2:09:22.200 --> 2:09:24.120 he said, we'll stop doing that. He said, We're going 2:09:24.160 --> 2:09:27.200 to go and meet Scotty Moore. So I'm in the 2:09:27.280 --> 2:09:31.400 lobby in five minutes. I mean, you know, this was 2:09:32.560 --> 2:09:34.800 and I remember we went to Chech took us to 2:09:34.880 --> 2:09:38.240 Studio B where Elvis had recorded, and I said to 2:09:38.360 --> 2:09:41.360 check where did Elvis used to stand? And he pointed, 2:09:41.920 --> 2:09:44.640 and Mark and I went and stood and hugged each other. 2:09:45.480 --> 2:09:47.320 It was that kind of It was the romance thing 2:09:47.360 --> 2:09:50.280 that was talking about earlier. And I think that one 2:09:50.360 --> 2:09:53.440 of the things about Mark Noveler is that he was 2:09:53.720 --> 2:10:01.960 very generous in including me a little bit, because obviously 2:10:02.040 --> 2:10:04.680 I'm doing a different area of the job in the 2:10:04.800 --> 2:10:09.480 creative process. So he would on more than one occasion 2:10:09.680 --> 2:10:14.040 come into the office brandishing a guitar, sit down in 2:10:14.120 --> 2:10:16.000 front of my desk, can play a song to me 2:10:17.280 --> 2:10:20.520 and say what do you think of that? And I 2:10:20.640 --> 2:10:25.520 can remember not in the office, but he remember him 2:10:25.800 --> 2:10:27.800 when he the first time he played Robbio and Juliet 2:10:27.960 --> 2:10:30.640 to me and I just stared at the floor I 2:10:30.760 --> 2:10:33.360 had no idea what to say. And there's a line 2:10:33.400 --> 2:10:35.520 in that song you and me babe, how about it? 2:10:36.480 --> 2:10:40.040 I thought, what a great line, what fantastic lyric. And 2:10:40.160 --> 2:10:43.760 I imagine John Landau has the same kind of I 2:10:43.800 --> 2:10:46.440 know John's actually played guitar with Bruce and his band 2:10:46.880 --> 2:10:51.920 and drums. I played drums with the notting Hillbillies for takeing. Okay, 2:10:51.960 --> 2:10:56.760 how did that come about? So that we finished the 2:10:56.840 --> 2:11:04.480 brothers dance thing? And I think as a kind of 2:11:05.480 --> 2:11:11.440 kind of reaction to Mark is not very he's not 2:11:11.600 --> 2:11:15.680 very comfortable with fame and celebrity. And in the same way, 2:11:15.800 --> 2:11:19.800 when Bruce did is Nebraska record, there was a bit 2:11:19.840 --> 2:11:22.200 of a I think it's a subconscious desire to take 2:11:22.280 --> 2:11:24.960 the heat out of the situation, to try and get 2:11:25.000 --> 2:11:28.560 it down from the stadiums that you're talking about, and 2:11:28.640 --> 2:11:32.160 the two road crew and we didn't know their names, 2:11:32.320 --> 2:11:38.760 that sort of stuff. And he's always been a fan 2:11:38.880 --> 2:11:43.400 of I'm loosely going to call Americana roots music, blues folk, 2:11:43.480 --> 2:11:47.800 all of that. And one day, um, he has a 2:11:47.840 --> 2:11:50.720 little studio in a newshouse not not that far from here, 2:11:50.880 --> 2:11:54.600 and and somebody said to me, somebody who worked for me, 2:11:54.680 --> 2:11:58.640 said Mark, Mark's doing an album. I said what He said, 2:11:58.880 --> 2:12:02.240 He's doing an album And this turned out to be 2:12:02.440 --> 2:12:04.560 the first nothing Elbudis record. And he called me up 2:12:04.640 --> 2:12:07.080 one day and he said, where are your drums? I 2:12:07.160 --> 2:12:10.520 said there at the house. He said, I'll send Ron, 2:12:10.800 --> 2:12:14.000 that's one of the roadies, round to get them and 2:12:14.160 --> 2:12:17.880 we set them up in the downstairs bedroom, trail the 2:12:18.000 --> 2:12:21.240 microphone out from the upstairs bedroom out of the window, 2:12:21.400 --> 2:12:23.440 down the side of the building in and hung it 2:12:23.520 --> 2:12:28.960 off the light. Then he played me Bewildered, which is 2:12:29.040 --> 2:12:30.920 one of the songs on that record. He said, can 2:12:31.000 --> 2:12:33.520 you play that? I said yeah. He said can you 2:12:33.560 --> 2:12:36.000 play it with brushes? This is this is why he 2:12:36.040 --> 2:12:38.160 got me in, because he doesn't know anybody who can 2:12:38.200 --> 2:12:42.680 play brushes and I said yeah, I said yeah. So 2:12:43.280 --> 2:12:47.720 I played it one take. He said, okay, next one, 2:12:49.480 --> 2:12:54.040 played the next one, jud finished, did that, the sampled 2:12:54.160 --> 2:12:56.000 me as well. I'm not saying I'm on every track. 2:12:56.240 --> 2:12:59.680 And then a couple of nights later we were but 2:13:00.240 --> 2:13:03.320 wine Bar and he said, okay, we're going to go 2:13:03.400 --> 2:13:05.640 on tour him you're the drummer and I went no, no, no, 2:13:05.800 --> 2:13:08.160 and I hang on a minute, Hang on a minute, 2:13:09.040 --> 2:13:12.200 and said, I haven't played in a while. He said, now, 2:13:12.280 --> 2:13:15.160 don't worry about that, is it just play time. Well, 2:13:15.240 --> 2:13:17.760 of course, when we got into rehearsals, we rehearsed for 2:13:17.920 --> 2:13:22.760 forty two days without a day off, from noon until 2:13:22.880 --> 2:13:25.800 nine o'clock at night. We had one day off and 2:13:25.920 --> 2:13:29.160 we played forty three shows without a day off, two 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:31.800 and a half hour set. And I'll tell you an 2:13:31.840 --> 2:13:35.880 interesting thing. You'll be interested in this, Bob Mark because 2:13:35.880 --> 2:13:39.120 he was a school teacher. At rehearsals, he'll have an 2:13:39.240 --> 2:13:43.280 enormous blackboard and a piece of chalk and he draws 2:13:43.320 --> 2:13:47.280 a grid on it, and in the in the left 2:13:47.360 --> 2:13:51.360 hand side here there's this song list getting longer and 2:13:51.560 --> 2:13:55.640 longer and longer. And if you don't get at the 2:13:55.720 --> 2:13:57.200 end of the day, you have to play the songs. 2:13:57.240 --> 2:13:58.840 And if you don't get a ticket in the box, 2:13:58.960 --> 2:14:02.240 you don't go home. You play it until you get 2:14:02.240 --> 2:14:05.360 a tick in the box. And I've seen dast rights 2:14:05.400 --> 2:14:11.760 rehearsals when the road crew have been going because they 2:14:11.800 --> 2:14:14.440 hadn't taken the box. Okay, So I had it in 2:14:14.640 --> 2:14:21.400 with you and Mark well after they the last straights 2:14:21.440 --> 2:14:24.080 tour that they on every street record, which I have 2:14:24.240 --> 2:14:27.840 to say was a difficult period. That was the kind 2:14:27.880 --> 2:14:31.600 of divorce tour. I will leave it at that, and 2:14:33.840 --> 2:14:37.120 we sold it on. We just ran out of gas. 2:14:38.080 --> 2:14:40.680 We litterally. I mean, we're good friends, we have a 2:14:40.800 --> 2:14:45.320 respectful relationship. I have a good relationship with John and 2:14:46.560 --> 2:14:49.200 some of the road crew in my office staff. But 2:14:49.400 --> 2:14:52.960 we kind of it just ran its course. And I 2:14:53.040 --> 2:14:55.000 think one of the tricks in life, especially if you 2:14:55.800 --> 2:14:58.880 have the wherewithal to do this, is to recognize when 2:14:58.920 --> 2:15:01.960 you've got to the cell by day, speaking of which 2:15:02.080 --> 2:15:05.720 you've been married how many times? Twice? And I'm in 2:15:05.760 --> 2:15:08.600 the middle of getting divorced. It'll probably come through tomorrow 2:15:08.800 --> 2:15:19.440 fully enough. Did it reach its sale by date? Yes? Okay, Um, yeah, 2:15:19.680 --> 2:15:24.560 that's yeah, that's that's a bit of a raw subject. Yes, 2:15:24.680 --> 2:15:28.800 I mean, I mean, I think that no disrespect to 2:15:28.880 --> 2:15:37.920 me the lady. Um, yeah, it's we put it in 2:15:37.960 --> 2:15:41.839 a different way. Do you have someone in your life now? Okay, 2:15:42.320 --> 2:15:45.360 because otherwise getting older it can be kind of amazing 2:15:45.920 --> 2:15:49.600 being I have somebody who unfortunately is marooned in your 2:15:49.640 --> 2:15:53.120 country and I have not seen her since March. As 2:15:53.160 --> 2:15:55.800 they say that will end hopefully within you know, months, 2:15:56.360 --> 2:15:58.960 but in any event, well not or not if not, 2:15:59.120 --> 2:16:02.920 if the governor of Tech excess as his way, you know, 2:16:04.160 --> 2:16:07.080 it's just astounding. We're fighting between states here. You know, 2:16:07.240 --> 2:16:10.200 they keep it, you know, taking ship to California and Texas. 2:16:10.280 --> 2:16:13.200 As far as him dropping all restrictions, you might as 2:16:13.240 --> 2:16:17.320 well shoot people. But um, okay, you came up in 2:16:17.360 --> 2:16:20.480 an error. It was all being developed as we started. 2:16:20.760 --> 2:16:25.640 It's all been consolidated today. What do you feel about 2:16:25.720 --> 2:16:29.960 the business today, the opportunities today, the music and landscape today. 2:16:30.320 --> 2:16:34.080 I think if you're twenty years old and you're coming 2:16:34.120 --> 2:16:37.040 into it, it's probably just as exciting as it was 2:16:37.120 --> 2:16:41.880 for me. For me, I find the process of it. 2:16:42.600 --> 2:16:44.959 You asked why Mark and I split up. It wasn't 2:16:45.040 --> 2:16:51.600 just between me and him. I had become bored with 2:16:51.760 --> 2:16:55.440 the process of it, the bureaucracy of it, if you like. 2:16:57.920 --> 2:17:02.200 It seemed to me that the business part was, if 2:17:02.280 --> 2:17:06.080 you had a kind of graph, the business part was 2:17:06.160 --> 2:17:10.360 going up and the musical bit was coming down. But 2:17:10.520 --> 2:17:13.280 that's a generational thing. You know. I was watching a 2:17:13.360 --> 2:17:17.200 couple of panels of the panels today, and you know, 2:17:17.360 --> 2:17:20.440 I've been doing interviewers for the ISLMC now for some 2:17:20.640 --> 2:17:23.720 twenty years or so. It's been quite interesting because every 2:17:23.760 --> 2:17:26.520 time I look at from the stage, the audience is 2:17:26.600 --> 2:17:33.120 getting younger, obviously, and what they're interested in is what 2:17:33.320 --> 2:17:37.280 applies to them now and in the future. They're not 2:17:37.760 --> 2:17:40.680 that interested in the history of it, which I think 2:17:40.800 --> 2:17:42.440 is a bit sad, but that's just the way it is. 2:17:43.240 --> 2:17:46.400 So for instance, I'm into viewing Irving days off tomorrow 2:17:47.120 --> 2:17:51.200 and rather than talk about the Eagles, because I don't 2:17:51.280 --> 2:17:55.200 think I could stay awake. Um, we will have to 2:17:55.280 --> 2:17:59.040 tackle some of the current stuff that's going on. And 2:17:59.120 --> 2:18:01.360 he and I had a chat last night. Within two 2:18:01.480 --> 2:18:04.920 minutes we've both fallen into exactly what we're going to 2:18:05.000 --> 2:18:08.280 do tomorrow, and I stopped him. I stopped him because 2:18:08.320 --> 2:18:11.560 I wanted to be spontaneous, right. But of course, with Irving, 2:18:11.760 --> 2:18:15.520 unlike many people like MTV itself for the Internet killed it, 2:18:16.040 --> 2:18:19.440 he kept changing with the generation. Oh yeah, a lot 2:18:19.520 --> 2:18:22.400 of people get stuck in there are Okay, I think 2:18:22.480 --> 2:18:24.560 we've come to the end of the feeling we've known. 2:18:25.080 --> 2:18:27.640 I think some of the audience either needs to get 2:18:27.720 --> 2:18:30.400 up and eat something or urinate. So I think we've 2:18:30.440 --> 2:18:33.920 come to a natural stopping point here and anything. We 2:18:34.000 --> 2:18:35.680 have a weekend, we can do what we can do. 2:18:35.840 --> 2:18:39.080 Part two another time absolutely drilled down on one of 2:18:39.160 --> 2:18:42.600 these areas. Anyway, this has been wonderful. Thanks thanks to 2:18:42.760 --> 2:18:46.080 all the audience from I L m C. This is 2:18:46.160 --> 2:18:49.800 a Bob left That's podcast signing on. Thank you. Thanks,