THE ACTION: ROGER POWELL INTERVIEW (2012)

If ever an excuse was needed to chat about the life and music of mod’s favourite sons The Action, the forthcoming biography of the band In The Lap of The Mods by Ian Hebditch and Jane Shepherd surely provides it.  A decade in the making, the book features contributions from all original band members: Reggie King, Mike Evans, Alan ‘Bam’ King, Pete Watson and Roger Powell; over 200 images including many previously unpublished photographs, flyers, posters and press cuttings; first-hand testimonies from fans and musical contemporaries; a complete guide to their gigs; and an examination of how the band’s mod following at clubs like The Birdcage in Portsmouth and The Marquee in London informed their decision making as a band.  In addition, this year also finally sees the release of an amazing new album on Circle Records of Reggie King’s post-Action demos, Looking For A Dream, recorded with his ex-band mates during the late 60s.

With these hugely exciting projects nearing completion it was a real honour and privilege to be asked by The New Untouchables to share a coffee and croissant with The Action’s drummer Roger Powell.

It was a wonderful surprise to recently see on the In The Lap of The Mods website footage of The Action outside the Royal Albert Hall performing “I’ll Keep Holding On” for the Dick Clark Show.  What do you remember about it?

Not a lot.  It was a bit embarrassing to be honest.  There were all these people throwing paper airplanes and generally just being shitty and we were miming and we used to hate miming.  You couldn’t hear anything and had to pretend you were really getting in to it.  We didn’t really like anything like that; we were pretty anti-social, anti-establishment. 

Do you think that might have been why you didn’t go as far as you could’ve?

Oh yes.  When we played with The Move they were saying you’ve got to do all these outrageous things, tie yourselves to railings and wear outrageous clothes, and we thought that was moving towards show business. 

Did your manager Rikki Farr try to push you into a more commercial market and get a hit? 

Yes, we knew we needed a manager as we needed publicity to get gigs.  We’d built up a really good following on the circuit and could’ve carried on just doing that but Marquee Artists and Rikki obviously wanted to make money and get the right record for us because we were on £100 a night and once you had a hit record you’d be on £500 or more and go to gigs in cars, have roadies and stay in nice hotels.   But none of the records I felt were anything near a hit record or anything edgy enough people would remember.  We never felt comfortable going after a hit even though we went along with it putting records out but they weren’t really doing anything.  I think “I’ll Keep Holding On” got to number 39 in the charts.

Was it disheartening to keep putting records out that didn’t hit?

It wasn’t disheartening because we were there for the music; we weren’t there for the hit record although all the people around us were getting them: The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Who, Spencer Davis Group, Manfred Mann.  It seemed everyone we played with at the Marquee had a hit record except for us.

Why do you think that was?

I think because they were doing original stuff and we were doing covers.  And we never got an original cover.  Something like “Ride Your Pony” would come out in America and someone else would do it in England.  At the time we didn’t consider writing our own songs as there was so many cool records to explore we just enjoyed playing them.  If we’d had an original cover first we might have had a hit record.

“Shadows and Reflections” was a very original cover. 

Yes but it didn’t get played, it didn’t get marketed, no machine behind it.  It was who you know not what you know.  You needed the right contacts, like The Who had with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp.  They had the contacts, the money, and were right in with all the faces of the time, although I think they would’ve hit anyway.

Having George Martin as your producer must’ve helped.

Being with George at Abbey Road helped but although “I’ll Keep Holding On” was alright and “Never Ever” was okay, you couldn’t do it without the machine behind you.  You needed the publicity, to know people at the BBC to plug it.  And a lot of people bought their records in to the charts.  They’d get a little sniff into the charts, once it was there, the DJs would play it, you’d get on the telly and you’d be away.  So from an initial investment of say ten grand you could make it back.

Mike Evans said when “I’ll Keep Holding On” got to number 39 that was when you needed to start buying up all the records.

At that point there was a bit of a woo-hah about it. Early on you had a list of all the shops they took the chart returns from so you could send boys and girls in to buy a copy of this, two copies of that.  There was many twenty or thirty record shops in London where they took the charts from, so if you knew the shops…

You still managed to get on Ready Steady Go a few times.

I think we did it three times.  We did it with Pete Stringfellow who was bought down from the Mojo Club in Sheffield to compere it and we played a couple of songs live on there.  It was the first time anyone played live on Ready Steady Go and it gave us that appeal for the mods on the circuit and we got a really good following from it.

The book is titled In The Lap of The Mods, is that how it felt?

Someone said it to me that we were in the lap of the mods and I thought it was great, so we used it as the title.  That’s how it felt.  They’d meet us on their scooters and we’d meet them in the pub before the gigs.  We were like mates; there was no differentiation between us and the audience.  We were all regular guys; we didn’t put on any airs and graces.  It was all, “You got any leapers?  Yeah, great”. 

We refer to The Action nowadays as a mod band but did you consider yourselves mods?  Did you think in those terms?

No, I don’t think anybody did.  I don’t think people had this idea early on of being this thing called mod.  It was just smart blokes.  We used to like mohair suits and very smart Italian clothes.  We never really had a concept of what it was.  I would say we were a sort of soul band. 

  

The Small Faces had accounts the length of Carnaby Street for their clothes, where did yours come from?  Did you buy them yourselves?

Yeah, John Stephens, Carnaby Street, all those.  We bought them ourselves.  There’s a picture of us in the book outside Harry Fenton’s, once we’d put the clothes on and had our photograph taken we had to put the clothes back.  “The Action supplied by Harry Fenton” but they never gave us anything.  It was the same with drums.  If I wanted to play Premier drums I had to buy them, you needed a hit record before they’d give you anything.  Keith Moon got a contract with Premier.

Were you mates with Keith Moon and The Who?

Sort of because we did a lot of gigs with them and used to support them for quite a while so we were sort of friendly but they were always a bunch of piss takers so I didn’t really want to spend too much time around them.  I remember at the press release at the Marquee for “Never Ever” Moonie was throwing peanuts at us.   

Your drum kit had a two bass drum set-up which others also used, where did that idea come from?

A lot of people may tell you otherwise but I was definitely the first person to get two bass drums at the Marquee.  Definitely.  Then Moonie got two, Ginger Baker got two, Mitch Mitchell got two, and then most of the other drummers got two.  So then I took mine away and just had the one.  Buddy Rich had two bass drums and I thought it looked really smart, but it was nice with the tambourine as it gave that off-beat.  We didn’t have someone playing the tambourine so when I was playing I didn’t use the hi-hat, just used the bass drum for the off-beat with the tambourine, which was important for The Action’s sound.  You could do some amazing things with the two.

It gave you that good Motown sound.  Where were you hearing those records?

We got them through Mike’s mum who worked for EMI so she used to get us all these obscure records.  We weren’t really into the mainstream Tamla, we were into Stax and really obscure stuff.  There was also the DJ at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester.  We used to go back to his house after the club to hear them and Guy Stephens used to give us stuff.  That’s where we got a lot of the info.  Then we’d learn them and try to put our own little spin on them. 

When you did the all-nighters how many sets were you playing throughout the night?

Sometimes we’d do three sets.  Three quarters of an hour each and usually you’d be the only band.  They’d be records, we’d do a set, more records, another set. 

There must be a lot of songs you played live but didn’t record.

In the book there is a playlist of every song we ever played.  We didn’t repeat songs in a night.  We might occasionally do one twice if it was really popular.  We wouldn’t repeat “Land of a 1000 Dances” or anything but “Needle In A Haystack” we might do twice or “Heatwave” as people loved that.  We had a good lot of songs and we used to rehearse all the time.

The collector’s edition In The Lap of The Mods includes your audition disc of The Temptations’ “Girl (Why Do You Want To Make Me Blue)” you made for Decca.  What do you remember about that and Decca turning you down?

Nothing!  I remember going in to this big executive office at their studios.  We played three songs but only one was taped which was that one.  Jane bought it on eBay.  Mike knew it was genuine but was saying it wasn’t to put off other bidders.  

Did you stay for the all-nighters after you’d played them?

Yes it wasn’t worth going back. They’d finish at six in the morning and we’d stay up and drive back with a little help so we weren’t falling asleep at the wheel. 

Were you taking many drugs?

We were all on leapers most of the time because we were doing all-nighters and otherwise you just couldn’t keep going.  We got busted at the Birdcage for amphetamines.   We were all in the dressing room when suddenly all these policemen came in.  Everyone was dropping stuff.  I think they found some amphetamines in Mike’s pocket and took him away to the police station so we had to go and try getting him bailed out so we could finish the gig. 

How did LSD enter the scene?

In the early days we were one of the first people to take acid because it had just come over from America and we knew people in Pond Street who had gallons of LSD.  These people came over just to turn on London.   And when we were staying with Nick Jones in Bognor this guy came down to turn us on and that was our first acid trip.  I couldn’t believe it.

Was the trip arranged beforehand?

Yes, it was a party and it was about twelve o’clock and this guy was about to arrive.  We didn’t want to trip with all these people around so we thought we’d better try and get rid of them so we put on a crazy Albert Ayler LP and everyone said “I gotta go now”.  He gave us this stuff, I think it was me and Mike, maybe Bam, but not all the band wanted to take it.  I remember sitting there about half an hour later and looked at Mike and he looked at me and we just started laughing and laughing and laughing.  It made life so funny and so stupid.  We tripped all night and went out to the beach.  To be honest it did destroy people, I know a lot of people who didn’t make it. You needed a strong inner core and need to be comfortable with yourself.  We tripped actually on Ready Steady Go, me and Mike and then got spiked afterwards.   We’d gone back to this guy’s house and were coming down from the trip and he gave us some toast and we started freaking out again wondering what was happening. He’d put more LSD on it.  It was only when he told us that we thought thank goodness for that. 

There seemed such a huge shift from the mod days once 1967 arrived.

By ’67 all the underground stuff started happening in London with the UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road.  A lot of the psychedelic bands were self-indulgent nothing.  I didn’t like Pink Floyd or any of those bands, I couldn’t get into it.  The all-nighters at the Roundhouse people were all over the place.  The drugs had changed.  With the old amphetamines everyone liked a chat, wanted to be your mate, it was brilliant.  When people were taking acid it was totally different.  It’s an important thing drugs and culture, they’re a totally interlinked thing.  I mean, but even if the mods weren’t taking uppers they were very chatty, friendly people.  At the Roundhouse people were isolated in their own heads, doing their own thing.   It was like chalk and cheese.   Mod gigs and the Roundhouse, unbelievable difference.  I didn’t like the Roundhouse, it was too self-indulgent. 

So what was it like when you were then playing one song for 45 minutes?

I wouldn’t call it psychedelic by any means.  It was more jazzy, rock-jazz, but I liked the three minute things.  In the space of half an hour you could get loads of brilliant records rather than one long thing.  We lost touch with the club scene after a while, at the end of The Action, and got a bit disenchanted with it.  The early days of The Action were the most exciting, when we were playing the Birdcage and stuff like that.  That was an incredible time in the clubs.  

When The Action got back together in 1998 it was great it was all original members, which is very unusual.  How did that feel?

It had to be.  We wouldn’t have done it otherwise.  It was exciting and it felt like there was unfinished business, that somehow we hadn’t really closed the circle.  We knew it wasn’t going to be the same as we weren’t twenty anymore, so we knew it was going to be different but it was still worth doing as it was nice for people to see us again.  It was awesome.  I’m really pleased we did it as we got to meet people like Jane and Ian, Rob Bailey, yourself.

On some of the reunion shows you included a sax player and percussion; would you have liked to have had a Hammond player or a sax player back in the day?

I think so, it would have been great.  That’s what I liked about Jimmy James and The Vagabonds; they had a nice big fat sound with an organist and a sax but the vocals were the main thing with The Action. 

Did you help arrange the vocals harmonies? 

Oh no, I wasn’t musical at all.  Reg used to say, “Just shut up and bang the bloody drums!”  People used to call him Reg, and he’d say “Mister King, to you”.

Reggie was quite a character.

Reg was always a bit of wild card.  He just started going funny, a bit out of control, towards the end of The Action days.  We were playing a gig at the Blue Lagoon and all of a sudden Reg started climbing up this palm tree.  The bouncers came up, Reg jumped off the tree, we’re still playing and the bouncers are chasing him around the audience whilst he’s still singing.  “You’ll never play here again!”  Then he got arrested on the M1 at the Blue Boar services.  We’d eaten and had come out and were sitting in the van, ready to go, and it was “Where’s Reg?”  We looked around, couldn’t find him and twenty minutes later this policeman comes up and knocks on the window.  “Do you know Reg King?  He’s just been arrested for threatening someone with a plastic knife”.  I don’t know what it was about, something about where he wanted to eat his egg and chips.  Eventually we just decided, a sort of mutual thing, to move on.  But he got his head together a bit and we worked with him on his album.  The trouble was once we started doing stuff like John Coltrane’s “India” what was he going to do while we played that for half an hour?  Stand there and go “Elephants… Elephants”?     

Did you think Reg leaving would give the band more freedom or did you think that was going to be the end?

No, you just go through a transition you don’t think “oh I’m changing now into something else”.    It was very subtle.  It’s only when you look back in retrospect you realise you’ve changed from A to B.  So it didn’t affect us that much.  After Reg, Rod Stewart was going to join The Action at one point.  We knew him quite well and when Reg didn’t make a gig at the Twisted Wheel Rod sang a few songs with us.  But it didn’t materialise as he then got into the Faces as they’d had some hits and were bigger than we were.  We also tried to get the organist Keith Emerson.  I went round to his flat to ask him if he’d be interested and he said he would’ve been but was just joining The Nice.  We got Ian Whiteman and Martin Stone in and become more of a jazz-funk-jamming band.

How did that go down with your audience?

It depended where we played.  Some people were bored with it; some people sort of liked it.  We got to point where we didn’t know where we were and the audience didn’t know quite what we were doing.  It took us a bit of time to find our direction with Mighty Baby when we started writing our own stuff.

How long did you keep The Action name after Reg left?

About six months I think.  It was a bit of a mess really.  We wanted to somehow change.  Pete Watson left, even when Reg was still with us people would come up to us at gigs and say “Oi, you’re not The Action”, which was fair enough really because we were doing new stuff we’d written and all wearing Granny Takes A Trip suits.  It was a transition period.  We started getting into West Coast, Captain Beefheart, Love.  Things like “Dustbin Full of Rubbish” which Ian Whiteman wrote was still The Action, but it wasn’t The Action.  We didn’t have a new name basically until we went with John Hurd at Head Records and we said we had to change the name and he came up with Mighty Baby, which I wasn’t that keen on as it felt a bit silly but in retrospect it was all right and we did a couple of albums.

Do you look back at the periods of The Action and Mighty Baby differently or is it one continuous thing?

No, as different lives, definitely.  The Action was very exciting.  The whole scene, the music, the atmosphere in the clubs was brilliant. As soon as you walked in those clubs, the Marquee, the Birdcage, you could feel people were really into it.  With Mighty Baby you had to create an atmosphere with the music, you really had to win them over, which was more difficult.  With Mighty Baby we were searching, it was a time of introspection and because we’d all downed massive amounts of LSD what we thought was real wasn’t real.  Once you’d taken acid, tables were like vibrating with energy and flowers were absolutely stunning, you know.  You have to rethink totally who you are and what life’s about.  We became like travelling philosophers.  I was listening to one of the Mighty Baby tracks on the train coming down, “Tasting The Life”, which is all about seeking, searching, holy islands.  Whenever we’d do gigs as Mighty Baby if there was a castle we’d go there, Stonehenge we’d stop there, so we were always seeking some meaning in life through our music.  In Mighty Baby we were analysing life, who we were.  In The Action we weren’t, we were just being the life.  

For other MonkeyPicks interviews with The Action see:

Reggie King, Mike Evans, Pete Watson

THE ACTION - IN THE LAP OF THE MODS

The very long-awaited book by Ian Hebditch and Jane Shepherd telling the story of The Action is finally inching towards daylight, with publication now due in early 2012.

The previously mooted narrow title of The Sound of the Birdcage has thankfully been replaced with the more encompassing In The Lap of The Mods and promises contributions from all members of the band – Reggie King, Mike Evans, Pete Watson, Alan King, Roger Powell, Ian Whiteman and Martin Stone; rare informal and promotional photographs and memorabilia; recollections from former club regulars at the Marquee, Watford Trade, the Goldhawk, the Cavern and Portsmouth’s Birdcage; foreword by Sir George Martin; and, a comprehensive chronology of the band including events, gigs played and details of recording sessions at Abbey Road.

If that wasn’t exciting enough, in addition to the standard softback there’s a limited edition hardback including the single “(Girl) Why You Wanna Make Me Blue” – the previously unreleased track cut for a (failed) 1965 audition for Decca Records.

More news and ordering details can be found, from 1st November, at www.theactionbook.co.uk.

THE ACTION AND MIGHTY BABY: MIKE EVANS INTERVIEW (2000)

The following interview with Michael Evans, bass player of The Action and Mighty Baby, was conducted circa 2000 and has not been published until now.

My intention, after in-depth chats with Reggie King and Pete Watson about the core years of The Action, was to cover for Shindig! fanzine the lesser documented period after the final Action single through to their metamorphosis into Mighty Baby. My preference would have been for a chinwag over a pint or a cup of tea but Mike wanted to do the interview via email. Unfortunately, in my view, I only received brief answers which then needed following up and expanding upon, so we went back and forth until I pieced together what you read now. However, I was never satisfied with the result and therefore did not submit it.

Understandably Mike wasn’t best pleased and looking back now maybe I should have persevered a little longer. Sadly, with his passing last year, it’ll never be finished but I hope this serves as a small belated tribute.

I want to start from the last Action single, “Shadows and Reflections”. Reg King said George Martin made it clear that if that wasn’t a hit, he’d have to let the band go. Is that how you recall it?
I remember meeting with George sometime after the release. He had heard our demos and we tired one or two out with him in the studio. It was then that he decided to call it a day.

Did he give you any actual reasons for calling it a day?
As I remember, it was simply an economic reason. His company Air had financed all our recordings up to then and we weren’t having any hits.

When the single didn’t do as well as hoped, and your time with George ended, what was the spirit and attitude of the band like? Was there a temptation to call it a day?
No, we were not tempted to quit. The pressure to make it commercially was from the record companies. The spirit and attitude of the band was (although disappointed to have to break from George) great because we were developing our playing and writing.

Can you tell me how Ian Whiteman and Martin Stone came to join the Action? I presume this was post-“Shadows and Reflections”. Was a decision made to recruit some fresh ideas into the band, or did it happen more by chance?
We felt we were a good rhythm section with voices but we wanted to have a lead instrument. We placed an advert in Melody Maker for a Hammond organist, and found Ian who was a multi-instrumentalist; which was a bonus. We had previously played a gig with Savoy Blues Band and had been impressed by Martin. At around the time Ian left temporarily we bumped into Martin and asked him if he would like to play.

Why did Ian leave temporarily?
To be totally accurate you would have to ask him.

What did Ian and Martin bring to the band: both musically and personally?
Apart from their brilliant talent, they were remarkable people. They helped to reshape the band musically and to take it into a new direction. They were both great musicians, you can hear that for yourself, and both jolly nice chaps to boot.

How did Georgio Gomelsky, at Marmalade records, become involved? I understand that the recordings that have subsequently been released as both Brain: The Lost Recordings and Rolled Gold were made for Marmalade.
When we broke from our previous management, Georgio provided a base for our activities. Rolled Gold was made for George Martin in the first instance but no one was very interested at the time.

Those Rolled Gold songs were markedly different from the soul covers period Action. What new things were influencing you?
We had always listened to a lot of varied music: from mod jazz, R&B, blues, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and later Grateful Dead, The Band etc.

All those songs were recorded in, what is now seen as a fairly short period of time. “Shadows and Reflections” being released in July 1967, and by early 1968 you had an album’s worth of demos. Were these songs written in the studio or did people come in with the bulk of the song written?
We were living together at the time and playing every day and recording at demo studios a lot. It was a very intense time, so ideas, riffs, were given time to develop into the stage of the demo. We never considered them complete and Rolled Gold would never have been released by us. The issue was forced by the issue of Brain which was so sub standard that we felt obliged to release what we had. Some of the songs are very Reg, for example “Little Boy”, “Come Around” and “Climbing Up The Wall”, but the band defined them. The rest are collaborations.

Where was the place you were all living? How long were you there for?
We lived in a house in Chelsea. I think we were there for most of 1968.

Can you describe a typical day during this time?
Midday: Wake up. Answer door. Rick Gretsh from Family returns my bass which he’d borrowed for a gig the night before.
1pm: Ronnie Lane arrives to listen to our Rolled Gold demos.
2pm: After Ronnie leaves pop around to Family house for tea and biscuits and a smoke.
4pm: Run through some songs with Reg and Bam.
5pm: Fortnum and Mason deliver a food hamper courtesy of Ronnie. What a gent.
7pm: Pete Brown turns up to borrow my bass for a session.
8pm: Still running through ideas with Reg and Bam.
9pm: Location caterers are parked outside for a film unit shooting up the street, so we pretend to be extras and eat for free.
11pm: Some Swedish girls turn up who we had met at a gig previously. Good night all.

“In My Dreams” was mooted as a single but never appeared. It’s been said Gomelsky ultimately turned that down, and the album worth of demos, because he couldn’t hear a hit single there. Looking back, do you think that’s fair comment?
There may have been some potential there, I really do not know. If we had been able to do more work on them, maybe, but times were changing rapidly.

The press reported that the Action had changed their name to Azoth. Who came up with that name, what does it mean and how did you then become known as Mighty Baby?
Martin came up with the name. It is an arcane name for the One Thing. The “A” and “Z” relate to the Greek Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end. When Reg left, the Action was really finished. The band had changed from a rhythm section with voices to a playing band; experimental and rooted in R&B and blues, fusing mod jazz ideas. The alchemy was complete and Mighty Baby was born.

What reasons did Reg give you for leaving? What effect did his leaving have?
Reg left to develop his own ideas in song writing and producing. The effect was to accelerate the growth of Mighty Baby.

Can you explain how Mighty Baby got their recording deal. Did you have to record more demos to sell yourself or were you offered a deal straight out?
John Curd who ran Head Records was an ex-roadie of the Action. After Gomelsky we were based at Blackhill who ran the Hyde Park concerts. They also had Marc Bolan on their books at the time. This proved rather short lived and we joined with Head Records because we knew John. There was nothing to prove.

What was the reaction to the debut Mighty Baby album? Its fluid, almost jazzy feel, seems slightly at odds with the blues-rock sound that was happening then.
The album for Head was produced over a few months, in part by Guy Stevens, and by the band. It was a mixture of our influences at the time. It was received very well: mostly by the student audience. The lyrics were mostly surreal and occult derived as a result of our massive reading intake at the time. We were almost a mobile study group as well as a band.

Can you give some examples of the books you were reading as part of this “study group”?
Everything you can imagine. From Bhavagad Gita to Gurdjef to Ouspensky etc.

How much touring and live shows did you do? Both albums sound like they lent themselves to some elongated jamming.
Colleges and Universities were where most of our gigs came from. We also worked on the continent, Holland, Germany etc. We did love to jam and we tried to develop this side of playing at gigs. It could be hit or miss. It demanded a lot of the audience but we were up for it if they were.

The photograph of Martin Stone on the first LP has him dressed in what looks like a wizard’s cape. Reg King said when he left things were getting weird: people having to face East in the recording studio for example. I think he was joking but how much were you and the other band members interested in magick, Aleister Crowley etc?
Martin is a bit of wizard on the guitar as well. We revelled in eccentricity at the time and being normal was weird to us. Crowley and the occult were stops along the way. I always think it better to try and understand a little about something than remain totally ignorant. Too many belief systems are demonised by society.

Crowley hardly seems the “wickedest man” he was painted. Any particular thoughts about him?
A human being, just like us.

You said about revelling in eccentricity. What form did this eccentricity take?
It was more inward than outward.

Your second album A Jug of Love was releases on Blue Horizon in October 1971. How would you compare this album to the first?
For me, it is a culmination of all the work that went before it. It is calmer but has an underlying intensity in the playing that comes from the experience of improvising and playing together for so long. The lyrics are real life autobiographical. In comparison to the first album it is more refined musically and has more time space. The first Head album really is in your head.

How and why did Mighty Baby disband?
Because it was not perceived that the band could continue at the same time as other personal and spiritual goals were being achieved. Possibly this was regrettable. Misguided even.

Which period do you look back on with most fondness?
I enjoyed all of it but the Mighty Baby period was a bit special.

Which of your records are you most proud of and why?
The Mighty Baby recordings because of the development and the bravery.

For Reggie King interview see here.
For Pete Watson interview see here.
Tweet

THE ACTION: REGGIE KING INTERVIEW (1995)

This interview took place at Reggie’s south-east London flat one night in early 1995. At the time he hadn’t had any contact with his old band mates for about twenty five years. I conducted it for my Something Had Hit Me fanzine but for reasons long forgotten it wasn’t published until 1999 in issue four of Shindig! A couple of years ago it also featured in the book Shindig! Annual Number One. The following as a very slightly edited version but I feel worth making available to all as it’s the only interview of its kind with the late, great, Reggie King.

When did you start singing?
I used to sing every Saturday as a kid at the Hampstead Playhouse. All the kids would go there and watch films. And then the kids would get on stage and sing. If the other kids liked you they would cheer and you would get an ice-cream. So I used to get a free ice-cream every week! I used to sing things like ‘Blue Moon’, ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’, ‘When I Fall In Love’ and ‘Moon River’, which were everyone’s favourites then.

How did you meet the other members of The Action?
I went to school with the drummer, Roger Powell. He and I were school pals. There was this local pub that we used to go to occasionally when I was 18 where I’d get up and sing – The Malden Arms, on the border of Kentish Town and Hampstead. I got a band together with Roger and guitarist Alan King. Roger and I wanted to form a band, we were the nucleus. Alan wanted to join also, because he could hear I was a good singer and Roger a good drummer. It was Alan that knew Mick Evans, so gave him a ring. We rehearsed in Bam’s [Alan King’s] living room, at his mum’s house. We were all right, you know, just a four piece: guitar, bass, drums and a singer.

What year was this?
1963. No, 1964. But we did need a second guitar, a lead guitar. Mick Evans found Pete Watson. Pete’s father owned a pub opposite St. Pancras station. Pete came along with his big guitar, no slim thing, a great big thick thing, I’m almost certain it was a Gibson. This was before he had his Rickenbacker. It had a nice sound, a sort of soft sound.

Where did your early influences come from?
We used to go down The Scene club. Me and Roger used to go there all night, before the band really started, and listen to Tamla Motown, Stax label things, great records, and get our influences there. All black music. I don’t think The Action ever played any songs by white artists.

So you genuinely were mods down The Scene club then?
Oh yeah, we were really into it. As well as the music it was hip to seen in all the gear. Prince of Wales checked trousers, the shirts, everything. Chelsea style clothing in the true mod image. Plus a French influence with the French beret and Paris t-shirts. We played up this image as we liked it very much.

It’s been written that when The Action played in Brighton the mods would give you a scooter escort in to town. Is this true?
Strictly speaking no. It was, as I remember, our manager Rikki Farr’s idea, simply for the press. Although, we were very popular in Brighton, and in fact all the other south coast resorts we played.

Going back to the beginning, how did your recording career start?
We were playing one day and this guy called Mike Court came in and spotted us. He then worked for Juke Box Jury television show. He asked how we would like a manager. He wanted to put a record out and asked if we could write. I said yes I do a bit of writing. And he said he had a girl singer, Sandra Barry that he wanted to put us with. We groaned but said we’d give it a try. It meant leaving our jobs and turning professional. The spark was in my eye from the off but I didn’t like the idea of walking into something that was going to fall on its face.

We had some songs and by and large it was out songs they we played and sung on. Sandra Barry would come in and overdub her voice on top of it. This was at Decca. We recorded ‘Really Gonna Shake’ but he never managed to get it on Juke Box Jury. It sold fairly well actually, we got our names in the papers and got some good regular work from that. Then Sandra started being all on this “I’m a superstar, you’re my backing band” kind of trip. We went “What? Don’t start that with us darling or you’ll never work again!” So we finished out contractual obligations, until the end of the month, and left her.

Around this time we’d met this great gut called Ziggy Jackson. He said he could get us work in Europe, said we were a good band and should do what the Beatles did and exercise ourselves over there and give crap to the Germans and they’d love it. By the time we get back we’d be an excellent band. Over there, we didn’t do two half hour spots, we’d do six or seven slots per night. This was in Hanover and Bronsreich. Bloody hard work but when we got back we were really tight. It did exactly what Ziggy had said.

What happened after you got back from Germany?
We needed a good agent and we found Mervyn Conn. He said “Okay boys, I can get you work.” He then told us to get into country and western because he said it was going to become very big in the UK! We obviously told him to go away! But to be fair he did get us some good work. We worked hard, earned well, but we wanted a record deal, wanted the big time.

We did one gig in Southampton, at The Birdcage, and Rikki Farr who was looking after that club said “You haven’t got a manager, I’m your boy.” We were a bit apprehensive but he set up an office in London and looked after us. He went screaming round to see George Martin, who was then setting up his independent production company. He told us to go round to Abbey Road studios and he’d see what we were like, whether we were worth recording. Rikki told us this and we went “Wow!” But we didn’t really know what songs to play him. Rikki thought George wanted to hear any creations of our own but also to have a couple of covers as standbys for B-sides or whatever.

We went there and it was like “Hello George”. It was like meeting the Prime Minister of Rock. We were nervous but he put us at ease. It was, “Come on boys, relax, you won’t put anything down well on tape unless you relax. Don’t let me worry you, just do it your normal way.” So that afternoon we recorded ‘Land of 1000 Dances’ and, I think, ‘Since I Lost My Baby’.

Rikki wasn’t there because we told him not to go anywhere near the studio. We didn’t want him jumping down George Martin’s ear while e was trying to work with us. Anyway, George got in touch with Rikki and said he'd like to take us on. We were overjoyed, we’d go the best producer in the world. George said he wanted to release ‘Land of 1000 Dances’, said we were an excellent band and he liked us very much. So we contracted with George and his Air-London and put our records out via Parlophone.

What about the single you made as The Boys?
Yeah, that was for Pye. Kenny Lynch. I can’t remember how we bumped into him but I remember he was looking for a back-up band at the time. He’d seen us play somewhere and wanted us to go and see him. We went along to the studios and he asked us to play a couple of our own songs. We took ‘It Ain't Fair’ and ‘I Want You’. Kenny liked the songs, said they sounded good and they came out on Pye. The record didn’t actually flop, it more kind of slid! It sold a few to be honest, did alright, got our names in the papers etc.

Whose idea was it to change the name from The Boys to The Action?
I seem to remember all of us throwing names around. The Action was put in by Roger or Mick, or both. We kept the name The Boys after Sandra Barry and The Boys and then eventually changed it, as then we were playing some excellent material, moving into the soul field. However, when Mike Court spotted us, we were called Aden Marlow and the Rainchecks!

The second Action single, ‘I’ll Keep Holding On’, was nearly a hit. Did you play that when you appeared on Ready Steady Go?
Um, I don’t know. I’m almost sure we did ‘Land of 1000 Dances’. We might have done two songs on there so the other one would probably have been ‘I’ll Keep Holding On’. I loved that song. The ones that sounded better from us were the ones we loved that most. That’s proved by listening to the songs. In the ones that come across best you can hear the feeling come across. That band was good, I always felt proud standing there singing with them. It was other influences, other things that messed us about in the end, which was a shame. But the band as it stood them, were truly an excellent band.

You changed some the songs you covered, adding your own arrangements to them, didn’t you?
Yes. A lot of bands in this country were taking good American soul songs and simply copying them. That’s never been good enough for me or any of the lads, because we weren’t copyists. We’d take an influence and use it. To a certain degree you are copying, because you’re playing the same song after all, but what we’d always do was take the song and add to it. We’d play around with the song and do our own arrangements so by the time it hint he stage it was worth playing. I used to love The Action’s three part harmonies, the detail in them.

That was you, Pete Watson and Alan King, yes?
Yeah, that was it. They were very good harmony singers, Wally and Bam. And Roger Powell had a very good falsetto voice but we never actually used it as such. We’d mess about with it in the van singing on the way to gigs, Beach Boys songs, ‘Good Vibrations’. Roger could sing very high indeed but I don’t think he could’ve sung and played drums at the same time because he was such a powerful drummer. Mick was always the silent one, stood at the side and didn’t say much. He’s very much the underestimated one of The Action.

‘Never Ever’ was the only original Action song to be an A-side single. Was it George Martin’s decision to release covers?
We were not a hit-singles band really. We wrote album sort of stuff. We had no problems putting songs together, arranging them. And they were good because I would refuse to do anything that wasn’t, or that we didn’t really enjoy playing, or suit us perfectly. But we didn’t really write songs that would be big hits. We were good at what we did. And people, like you, are still writing about The Action today, so how bad is that? I mean, think of all the bands that were going then, how many of them are still remembered now?

The B-side ‘24th Hour’ was a good song too.
Often I can remember exactly when I wrote songs, and ‘24th Hour’ was written in our flat in Chelsea. I just sat there in the bedroom one evening and sang it to myself. It was quite a simple song, you know, ‘I love you darling and want to be with you 24 hours a day’ kind of thing. Wrote it through to the grisly end. It was quite a plonky little tune but I enjoyed it. It was going to have about 60 seconds of a minute, 365 days of the year etc, but in the end I kept it simple to 24 hours of the day.

There was a competition in Rave magazine to design the cover of The Action album. Did that album actually exist at the time?
No, it was a Rikki Farr gee-up. We’d had a bit of success and Rikki was telling people that we were working on an album. He didn’t actually say we were recording one! Anyway, Rikki got this competition idea for the sort of sleeve that the fans wanted to see. We got quite a lot of ideas sent in. Most of them were pretty daft but there were one or two good ones. But there was never an album as such.

I’ve seen some film of The Action performing tow songs by The Ronettes, ‘You Baby’ and ‘Do I Love You’. Were these recorded?
No. George Martin was very tied up with The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper at the time. So we only had time to try and make do. That time was really just spent on the songs that came out, with a couple of exceptions.

What do you remember of Pete Watson leaving?
He didn’t leave – we sacked him. We got fed up with two things. His musical ability was good but he wasn’t getting any better. We were getting more progressive and developing and he wasn’t really up to it. We didn’t really know what to do at the time. We went back to a four piece for a while. Eventually I think it was Mick Evans who got hold of Martin Stones as the new lead guitarist. Martin used to sit on his bum facing east. Whichever way east is when you’re inside a bloody recording studio.

You wrote ‘Something Has Hit Me’ with Nick Jones who at the time was a writer for Melody Maker. How did that come about?
The group lived together in a flat and Nick moved in with us. We were just sitting there one night and Nick says, “Come on, let’s write a song”. I was playing guitar and doing the “bow, bow, bow, bow-bow” bits. It just went from there. We played it to George Martin and he liked it but said it needed a middle-eight, so he helped us with that.

What was it like working with George Martin?
It was always good working with George Martin, he was such a perfectionist. He knocked me out, absolutely knocked me sideways, when we made ‘Shadows and Reflections’. All that on just a four-track machine. I couldn’t believe it, the mixing that he did with it, so clever. A genius. I’ll never forget Paul McCartney coming in when we were doing ‘Shadows and Reflections’. He says, “That sounds like a good song Reggie, I like it”. I just replied, “Oh, thanks a lot Paul…”

You had a residency at The Marquee for a while didn’t you?
We started off supporting The Who at The Marquee but their manager Kit Lambert got us sacked. Kit wanted a band to go on and be a nice little rhythm and blues band, la-di-da, then “Now… The Who!” and everyone would notice the difference. The Who were very good every time they went on in any case but we were good pros and Kit could see that. We were there as The Who tied up their recording deal, so when The Who finished their residency we took over. And we held the record at the time for packing more people in to The Marquee than anyone had done before. How about that? And I’m still bloody skint! I always looked forward to those gigs, they were fantastic and always afterwards we’d go to The Speakeasy. McCartney used to go there and Lennon used to pop in.

You knew Yoko Ono early as well, is that right?
Yeah, I met Yoko at the Middle Earth in Covent Garden. She said “Reggie, you look very much like John Lennon” – which a few people had said before because I guess I do look a bit like him. “I’d really like to meet John” she said. As we had the same producer as The Beatles she wouldn’t leave me alone. It wasn’t me she wanted, it was John. So I said, “Look, if it helps, John does occasionally go to The Speakeasy. I see him there sometimes on a Tuesday night.” The very next Tuesday she was there. Before, she’d had all the flower dresses on, the psychedelic outfit, but in The Speakeasy she had the West End girl look. All smooth and smart. That night Paul and John came in. Paul said hello. And John used to say to me (adopts heavy scouse accent) “Aye, ye Action Man!” That was all he ever used to say, but he spoke to me at least! Yoko stood there dumbfounded, “Wow, you really do know The Beatles.” Within fifteen minutes she was in there and the rest is history.

How did working with George Martin and Parlophone come to an end?
George told us that he was going to make ‘Shadows and Reflections’ our last single. If it didn’t make it big he was going to have to say goodbye. And as much as it may have deserved to be a hit, it just wasn’t. It sold pretty well, got to about number 50 or something, but it didn’t go that high. So that, unfortunately, was that.

You must’ve been disappointed The Action weren’t bigger.
The Action in their day were a superb band. They really did get to quite a prominent position by sheer hard work and a lot of rehearsing and we were all disappointed. Like, when I hear some of the half-arsed crap that’s around it makes me want to cry!

Pete Watson blamed the collapse of The Action on your manager Rikki Farr.
Yeah, I mean, we were working for him in the end without realsising it. Because we were out on the road, ,so busy, either rehearsing, travelling or playing, or collapsed in the corner of a hotel or whatever, done in by it all. We just didn’t time to think about how much tax we should be paying, all that rigamarole. He was busy collecting on our behalf and in the end we had lots of bills that were just not paid. We had writs and all kinds of things out on us. So, we went back and had a meeting between us and Rikki and said enough’s enough and we left him. Shortly afterwards I had an offer from Georgio Gomelsky to work with him at Marmalade, a subsidiary of Polydor records and produce Gary Farr I their old four-track studio in Stratford place. The engineer there was Carlos Olmes. Before that though The Action had gone in that studio with Carlos and made what would have been an album for Marmalade. That had some great stuff on it. I believe you’ve heard it, ‘Look at the View’, ‘Brain’, all those other things.

Yeah, there’s some brilliant stuff on it.
A version of ‘Little Boy’ that was on my Reg King album, ‘Climbing Up The Wall’. ‘Come Around’ was one of my favourites – I play piano on that one. I play a bit of piano and guitar on the Reg King album as well as sing. I produced those tracks, some are good and I like very much, others didn’t quite sound right to me, which is good really because it means you’re never fully satisfied with everything you do. There’s always room for improvement.

Why didn’t Marmalade release that album?
What Georgio wanted for the label was a smash hit single, which he finally got with Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger’s ‘This Wheel’s On Fire’. But he wanted from us, or The Blossom Toes, a good rock hit. From the material that we did he couldn’t see one. I thought ‘Come Around’ could have been a good hit single. It just had a nice feel to it. I’d have liked to have taken that to a proper 16-track studio and really worked on it. Remember we’d just done it on four-track. Georgio liked the stuff but there wasn’t to his mind a commercial single.

You said earlier that Martin Stone used to face east in the recording studio around this time. Is that how it was getting then? All a bit strange?
Er, not really strange, no. I always kept the same mode of operation whenever we recorded as The Action. Not that I was the boss but I kept good tight arrangements for everything we did. However delicate we wished to be, however jazzy of psychedelic or way-out, it had to be structured perfectly. But when Martin came in it did loosen up quite a lot.

What was Ian Whiteman like, who joined around the same time as Martin?
He was good. He always reminded me of the college loony. You know, a bit of a clever arse with a big scarf, get pissed as a fart and pill his trousers down and show you his bum! That type. But he had a lot of good musical sense and knowledge. I credited him with a lot of common sense music wise. A good harmony singer as well.

How did you come to leave The Action?
I got the offer from Georgio Gomelsky to produce Gary Farr. I knew that The Action were stuck in a position where they couldn’t do anything about it. In the end I said to the lads that I was off after we’d fulfilled all our remaining contracts. They understood. If I’d stayed I don’t think it would have lasted much longer. They reformed themselves into Mighty Baby but I kept in touch with them for quite a while, meet up with them for a drink. So much so that I got them to play on the Reg King album. After I left they changed their name, as I said, to Mighty baby because without me it wasn’t The Action, which was a nice pat on the back for me.

What did you think of the Mighty Baby albums?
Strange as it may seem, I never heard their albums. I don’t think I saw them perform because I was so tied up with producing and then working on my own solo album.

What did you do after you finished the Reg King album?
I went on the road with my band for a while and then I just took a long, long holiday. A bloody long holiday in fact! I left the band and just got pissed off with the world in actual fact. The Rock ‘n’ Roll world I mean. I’d just had enough. I hadn’t gone mental, crazy, or anything like that, I just thought “That’s your lot mater” and packed it in. I’d worked my balls off and when you’re badly ripped off in this business it stains you and marks you and leaves you feeling bad. It’s not pleasant but you have to get on with it and sort yourself out.

What were the best bits about your career that you look back on most fondly?
Erm… there were so many best bits. For me, every gig was gold. Like I say, we worked bloody hard and however long the journey, however hard the fight to get a song really, really good, whatever the pain in getting there, the satisfaction in being on that stage and performing in front of people has always been in my heart and always will be. And that’s it, it pays for it all, being on stage.

What was your favourite song The Action did?
I’ve often though it to be ‘Something Has Hit Me’, but then again ‘Wasn’t It You’ is a very good song. I’ve always enjoyed that one but I don’t hink I’m capable of picking one and sayin, “That’s the one – that’s the best we ever did.” There might be some that are techinically speaking better than others but I liked ‘Something Has Hit Me’, ‘Wasn’t It You’, ‘Land of 1000 Dances’ and ‘Shadows and Reflections’.

Would you like to get back into music?
I would certainly like to get a band together. A good back-up band for a gig or a recording session. Just something so I could get into a rehearsal room and rehearse well, go back really to roots. The Action were good because I rehearsed them through and through. I don’t mean I was the boss; we all put our ideas in. But I’d like to get a band now, rehearse them into the ground, get half a dozen songs really good and tight, then record them properly, and with a bit of luck, grab George Martin. Call it Action 2!

Mark Raison

Click for further MonkeyPicks Action interviews: Mike Evans,  Roger Powell, and  Pete Watson.
Tweet

THE ACTION: PETE WATSON INTERVIEW (1993)

Interest on Modculture about The Action has prompted me to start making available on-line the various fanzine interviews in did with them in the mid-90s. I’ll show them in the order they occurred (Reggie King and Mick Evans to follow).

This first one with original lead guitarist, Pete Watson (on the right in the picture), took place in 1993 and appeared in my Something Has Hit Me and also in Bill Luther’s Smashed Blocked. Myself, Pete and Darren Brooker and Richard Merrett from local pop combo The Wilsons were huddled together in Pete’s room not far from Heathrow.

How did you meet the rest of the band?
It all started in Kentish Town. My Mum and Dad had a pub there and that’s where the rest of the band also lived. I used to demonstrate guitar at Sound City in Shaftsbury Avenue on Saturday mornings and they came in to see me. They were already together the four of them, and called The Boys, but they needed a lead guitarist so asked if I wanted to join them. We did a few gigs at the start but weren’t any good so we took a year off. Just practiced and practiced. Originally we started the gigs in ’62 and then started again to do more and more around the end of ’63.

There was that Sandra Barry and The Boys single, were you on that?
Yeah. Sandra Barry, whatever happened to her? “Really Gonna Shake” it was called. We wrote that. Reg King wrote it and we all helped arrange it.

Why did you then change the name to The Acton after The Boys solo single “It Ain’t Fair”?
The Boys wasn’t really the sort of name to put to the music we were playing. The sounded too clean-cut.

The Action had a very strong mod image; was that a deliberate ploy or was it something you were really into?
Oh yeah, we were all really into that. Tamla Motown, soul music. That’s all we were into. We didn’t play any pop chart numbers at all, just soul numbers.

Did you collect soul records?
We used to go down Saville Row where there were these studios that Kenny Lynch worked in. We used to go and raid their library of all the American soul songs. We used to sort through them and pick the ones we liked, then put our own arrangements to.

What ones were you doing in your live set?
Well, “Land of a Thousand Dances”, we were doing that right from the off. That song was really a part of us wherever we went. We used to finish with that one. It used to last about twenty minutes!

What were the gigs like?
Great. We did the university circuit which was good. Before that we did the Goldhawk, as well as the Marquee on every Tuesday night. We took over The Who’s Tuesday night slot. We were their backing group for a time, until we got the sack. Their manager Kit Lambert sacked us for taking too much of the limelight away from The Who. But not long after that they got their record going and left the Marquee, so we stepped in. We used to go back to Keith Moon’s flat in Shepherd’s Bush after playing the Marquee. He was a nutcase, good parties though. And Roger Daltrey still owes me a fiver. Imagine the interest on that now.

What other bands did you play with?
Most of them really. The Small Faces. Rod Stewart used to be in our backing band. Loads of gigs we did with him. Especially up north. Any gig up there and he always seemed to tag along. He was pretty much the same then as he is now. Always said he had no money. We did a Beatles Spectacular show as we had the same recording manager, George Martin.

How did you meet George Martin?
We kept phoning him up. We just wouldn’t leave him alone. In the end he came with his secretary to see us at a gig in this dancehall above a pub in Putney. He listened but said he couldn’t really tell much from that and he would know better once he got us into the studio.

What was he like to work with?
He was great. Lovely fella. You weren’t nervous about going into the studio with him. You’d play the song a couple of time and he’d just say “change that bit” or “try and do it like this”. Then he’d come ins and play the piano as well. Quite a few of those records had him on piano, things like “Since I Lost My Baby”. When The Beatles were recording George used to ring us up and ask if we wanted to come down. So we’d pop down there, have a cup of tea or coffee with them. We’d play cards with Ringo while the others were putting their vocals on. They were a good crowd. The only funny one was John, he was a bit off. You’d never know how to take him; he’d just take the piss basically. The rest of them were great.

Did George Martin alter the sound a lot in the studio or was it pretty much played live?
It was pretty much live, the vocals were double-tracked or whatever. He altered it a bit. Everyone said we were better on stage than on our records. People would say we were twice as good on stage. I don’t know what he did but here’s not enough bass for me. Not enough depth.

Were any of the concerts recorded?
Yeah, there was down at the Marquee. I don’t know whatever happened to it, whether it was for radio or television or what. There were cine cameras there as well. We did these things but I never knew what they were for.

What about television?
We did three Ready Steady Go’s, we did the Beatles Spectacular for television. We did some television up north. One of the Ready Steady Go’s had David and Jonathan, Dusty Springfield, The Mindbenders, us and a couple of others.

Tell us about the album that was recorded. Why didn’t it come out?
We did an album in ‘66/’67 for EMI, and a lot of it was our own songs. “The Place” from the compilation album was going to be on it. We just cut a load of songs and were going to piece it all together after that. I think it was not long after that that we sort of broke up, we didn’t even get as far as giving it a name.

Who picked the covers that got recorded? George Martin?
No, we’d choose them ourselves. George would then listen to it and tell us if he thought it was any good or not. Usually we’d do something and he’d say “that’s not going to be a number one!” t really bucked us up. They were really good days. It’s a pity we didn’t write as well as we played other people’s songs. Really it was only Reg and the bass player Mike who could write songs. I started to try and write but it always seemed too difficult for me. I’d sooner let them get on with it.

Why do you think the records never quite made it chart-wise?
I think mainly because we were playing great gigs all over the country and the public expected us to bring out something “different”, something totally unexpected. If we had recorded something unusual of our own rather than cover versions we might have done a lot better. That’s what we were getting towards near the end. We always tried to be different; we didn’t want to be like anyone else. The Who were playing the same songs but in a more outrageous way, we just did them differently. Also, with the right manager things might have been different.

Why? What did he do?
He just ripped us off. He was the bloke that did that Bob Dylan concert at the Isle of Wight. Took the advance ticket sales and buggered off with it. That’s the sort of bloke he was but we didn’t know it at the time. He ripped us off badly with the money. We only found out after he said he didn’t want to manage us any more, then we discovered all the debts. Every time we went up north it wasn’t just for one night, it was four or five, and we were staying in hotels, we had our own road managers who’d do everything for us. But none of the bills were ever paid. They had writs out against us all over the place. That’s why I left. The others carried on for a while. For about eight months they worked for nothing, just paying back debts. I didn’t want to go through it all again. I was so sick of what he had done to us, and us breaking up. I mean, we were nearly there, we were. We knew all the right people, we knew everyone, we had George Martin, what more could you want? But when that bastard did that to us I just washed my hands of it all. I went back to my Mum and Dad’s pub; just shut myself off from everyone. Watched all the others over the years getting richer and richer while I was getting poorer and poorer. At least I’m not dead though like Moonie. I knew he’d kill himself. He was always into drugs and stuff in excess.

Did any of you lot take anything?
The only time I ever took stuff was in the early days when I drove the van. I took speed to keep awake driving all night. It used to keep me awake and keep me talking. Bleedin’ jaws used to ache! No matter what people were discussing, no matter what subject, you knew about it. You could talk them under the table. Didn’t know what the hell you were saying though. I never went on to the heavier stuff like LSD or anything. Reg did. He fell off the stage one night and we had to pack up and go home.

Going back to The Ultimate Action, what’s your favourite song from it?
Apart from “Land of a Thousand Dances” which is sentimental because it was the first thing we did in the studio with George Martin, my favourite has to be “Since I Lost My Baby”. Everyone used to like that one, it’s always been my favourite. “The Place” is one we wrote for the album because there was this club called The Place that we used to do regular. To me “Hey-Sha-Lo-Ney” is a lot of bleedin’ rubbish. We only did it for a b-side because we didn’t have anything else. A lot of people seem to like it though.

That’s a beautiful Rickenbacker in the corner of the room.
That’s the original guitar on all The Action records. 1962 I bought it. Thirty one years old and I’ve never had to touch it; never had the neck straightened, nothing. It’s a twelve-string but I only use it as a six- string now, just to mess about with. Van Halen wanted it for studio work. Offered me £800 and a brand new Fender on top but I turned it down. It has got too much sentimental value.

Have you kept in touch with any of the band?
I’ve not seen the boys from that day to this. None of them. One of them joined Ace, who were one-hit wonders. Roger the drummer married an American, I don’t know if he went to America or not. Mick went funny, wears one of those funny hats and goes around praying all day. Reg went into record production for a while. I’d love to see them all again. I’ve not seen them for twenty-five years. Maybe I should get Cilla [Black on Surprise, Surprise] to arrange it.