I have never been able to understand how The Boys did not become much more popular during their original career in the late Seventies. Whilst undeniably one of the earliest bands on the London punk rock scene, with close connections to The Damned, The Clash and others, they had all the credibility that others could only wish for, and at the same time were releasing catchy records that should have been getting played on every radio station across the country. They released four fine albums (five if you include The Yobs LP) over a five year period before splitting up, leaving behind a legacy that ensured that interest in the band continued long after they stopped playing together.
Over the ensuing years, there were numerous offers for the band to reform, which they consistently turned-down until 1999, when the opportunity to play in Japan proved too tempting to miss. After this, The Boys decided to continue playing live, albeit on a much more occasional basis, and their popularity continued to thrive. However, in 2011, it was announced that, following dates in South America, bass player/vocalist Duncan ‘Kid’ Reid had left the band. This came as quite a surprise to the fans and, even though The Boys themselves still intended to continue (and, indeed, finally got around to writing and recording a new album, ‘Punk Rock Menopause’, released in 2014) it was a little less certain whether we would hear more from Duncan. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long before his first ‘solo’ album, ‘Little Big Head’, was released and heralded his return to both studio and live work. Over the next few years, his new band, The Big Heads, established themselves as a great live act and produced three more albums (‘The Difficult Second Album’, ‘Bombs Away’ and ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’) which saw the songwriting and musicianship getting better and better with every new release. It was as if fans of The Boys were now getting two lots of presents for every birthday!
Unfortunately, the latest album, ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’, fell foul of the first Covid lockdown, being released just before live-music went on hold and preventing the band from being able to promote it properly. This was particularly harsh as the record was also their best to date and really deserved to be heard by a wider audience (hopefully this will be resolved when the current restrictions are finally removed.) To keep interest ticking-over in the meantime, an excellent live album ‘Live at Akkurat’ has been made available (so far only via ‘bandcamp’) to serve as a stop-gap until we can actually see the band onstage again.
Over the ensuing years, there were numerous offers for the band to reform, which they consistently turned-down until 1999, when the opportunity to play in Japan proved too tempting to miss. After this, The Boys decided to continue playing live, albeit on a much more occasional basis, and their popularity continued to thrive. However, in 2011, it was announced that, following dates in South America, bass player/vocalist Duncan ‘Kid’ Reid had left the band. This came as quite a surprise to the fans and, even though The Boys themselves still intended to continue (and, indeed, finally got around to writing and recording a new album, ‘Punk Rock Menopause’, released in 2014) it was a little less certain whether we would hear more from Duncan. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long before his first ‘solo’ album, ‘Little Big Head’, was released and heralded his return to both studio and live work. Over the next few years, his new band, The Big Heads, established themselves as a great live act and produced three more albums (‘The Difficult Second Album’, ‘Bombs Away’ and ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’) which saw the songwriting and musicianship getting better and better with every new release. It was as if fans of The Boys were now getting two lots of presents for every birthday!
Unfortunately, the latest album, ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’, fell foul of the first Covid lockdown, being released just before live-music went on hold and preventing the band from being able to promote it properly. This was particularly harsh as the record was also their best to date and really deserved to be heard by a wider audience (hopefully this will be resolved when the current restrictions are finally removed.) To keep interest ticking-over in the meantime, an excellent live album ‘Live at Akkurat’ has been made available (so far only via ‘bandcamp’) to serve as a stop-gap until we can actually see the band onstage again.
With circumstances finally starting to look as if things are gradually returning to ‘normal’, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with Duncan and discuss how things have been going and how he hopes them to progress. So, at an appropriate socially-distanced pub in Hampstead, we order some drinks and start with the one thing we have in common… We both grew up in Canterbury…
‘Yeah, although I left there when I was about 17 to move up to London. Luckily, it was just the right time for me to fall-in with everything that was going on in Maida Vale and it proved to be life-changing. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t got involved with all of that… But it’s funny in a way because, although Canterbury is only 60 or 70 miles from London, I have friends and family who get kind of jittery if they have to go there. But I always wanted to get to London… Back then, the only bands you could get to see or hear in Canterbury were all those old prog-rockers and I wanted something more exciting. My parents were separated and my father was living in London so he suggested I could move-up there and go to this college which specialised in getting students into Oxford or Cambridge Universities. I had no intention of doing that but it gave me the chance to move. I didn’t do a stroke of work and failed and after that, I had about a year before I could start another course at University College. But in that time I met the various people who would eventually become The Boys, which was right at the beginning of Punk. I eventually went to UCL for one day, decided I didn’t like it and went home to tell my dad that I was going to be a Punk Rocker instead. Of course, that went down really well, hahaha!’
How did you actually meet the other members of The Boys?
‘Well, once I’d told my dad that I didn’t want to go to University, he told me that I’d have to get a job and I first started working at a very upmarket clothes shop in Knightsbridge… I think I only got the job because they thought I had a pretty face and hoped this little urchin would go down well with the aristocratic women who shopped there. But then I got offered a job at a t-shirt printing factory in Chiswick and it turned out that John Plain was the foreman, which for anyone who knows him, was the most ridiculous idea in the world! Jack Black was also there, so when they heard that I played bass, they told me that they had this place where they’d all get together on a Sunday to just play… that turned out to be Matt Dangerfield’s little studio. I don’t think anyone who was going down there was even in any bands at that point, but it included people like Mick Jones and Tony James, I think Brian James would turn up occasionally and even Steve Jones came down once. So, all these people who would end up in the early Punk bands would be there on a Sunday. We all still had long hair, flares and what have you – this would have been 1975 or '76, I think. Nobody could really play very well… we used to play the intro to ‘Slow Death’ by the Flamin’ Groovies and stretch it out as long as we could, because none of us were good enough to get past the intro! But it was a really important part of what was about to happen… That place should have a blue plaque on it, because so much musical history came out of there.’
‘Yeah, although I left there when I was about 17 to move up to London. Luckily, it was just the right time for me to fall-in with everything that was going on in Maida Vale and it proved to be life-changing. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t got involved with all of that… But it’s funny in a way because, although Canterbury is only 60 or 70 miles from London, I have friends and family who get kind of jittery if they have to go there. But I always wanted to get to London… Back then, the only bands you could get to see or hear in Canterbury were all those old prog-rockers and I wanted something more exciting. My parents were separated and my father was living in London so he suggested I could move-up there and go to this college which specialised in getting students into Oxford or Cambridge Universities. I had no intention of doing that but it gave me the chance to move. I didn’t do a stroke of work and failed and after that, I had about a year before I could start another course at University College. But in that time I met the various people who would eventually become The Boys, which was right at the beginning of Punk. I eventually went to UCL for one day, decided I didn’t like it and went home to tell my dad that I was going to be a Punk Rocker instead. Of course, that went down really well, hahaha!’
How did you actually meet the other members of The Boys?
‘Well, once I’d told my dad that I didn’t want to go to University, he told me that I’d have to get a job and I first started working at a very upmarket clothes shop in Knightsbridge… I think I only got the job because they thought I had a pretty face and hoped this little urchin would go down well with the aristocratic women who shopped there. But then I got offered a job at a t-shirt printing factory in Chiswick and it turned out that John Plain was the foreman, which for anyone who knows him, was the most ridiculous idea in the world! Jack Black was also there, so when they heard that I played bass, they told me that they had this place where they’d all get together on a Sunday to just play… that turned out to be Matt Dangerfield’s little studio. I don’t think anyone who was going down there was even in any bands at that point, but it included people like Mick Jones and Tony James, I think Brian James would turn up occasionally and even Steve Jones came down once. So, all these people who would end up in the early Punk bands would be there on a Sunday. We all still had long hair, flares and what have you – this would have been 1975 or '76, I think. Nobody could really play very well… we used to play the intro to ‘Slow Death’ by the Flamin’ Groovies and stretch it out as long as we could, because none of us were good enough to get past the intro! But it was a really important part of what was about to happen… That place should have a blue plaque on it, because so much musical history came out of there.’
I’ll skip the history of The Boys here, as we’ve covered that in previous interviews, but why did the band eventually split in 1982…
‘Well, Cas left after ‘To Hell with the Boys’ and went back to Norway where he became incredibly successful working with Gary Holton... to this day, he’s still very well-known in Scandinavia. We made one more album, ‘Boys Only’, without him, but then split up. I think we just thought that it had run it’s course…’
What did you do following that?
‘I briefly joined a band called the Hollywood Killers, which I really enjoyed. They were a really good band and, in fact, when The Big Heads played in Japan a couple of years ago, it turned out that one of their singles is now considered an underground classic over there. So we decided to play it at one of our gigs and everybody went mad for it, which was really weird… Anyway, after that I finally went to University. I’d actually passed some A-levels while I was still at school and they saved my life, really, as they allowed me to go to Imperial College to do an Engineering Degree. Unexpectedly, I really enjoyed it, which was perhaps because I’d already spent all those years being a musician, which meant I could concentrate on the work and actually enjoy it. That being said, when I came to the end of that, it seemed like my only options were going on to do research or finding a job in some grotty steelworks. I quickly decided not to do that and ended-up working for Andrew Lloyd Webber, which meant I spent quite a long time travelling around the world and living out of a suitcase. For my sins, I helped to saturate the world with his shows, but it was actually very interesting work. After that, I went to work at Nottingham Forest football club… they were in the Premier League at that point, but then went down to the Championship league, only to go back up to the Premier again. I really, really enjoyed working there because football is just so mad! I mean, if you’re a football fan, it’s exciting to just watch a game. But imagine what it’s like if your whole livelihood depends on it… that takes it to a whole other level of exciting! I enjoyed that and I also enjoyed living in Nottingham, but my wife and daughter were still living in London and only coming up to Nottingham for weekends and school holidays, so eventually we had to decide whether we all wanted to move full-time to Nottingham and cut our ties with London, or else I would have to look for another job closer to home. Like I said, the football world was crazy, you really have no idea of how nuts it can be, so I decided to move back to London and started working in Film and TV, which wasn’t really too different to what I’d been doing before. As it turned out, this was also around this time that The Boys got an offer to play some gigs in Japan... there was a band in Japan who had recorded ‘Soda Pressing’, I think, and had a hit with it, so there was suddenly a lot of interest in us over there. We’d had other offers for us to get back together, from various Punk festivals or whatever, and it was always me and Matt that said, ‘No, no, no… The Boys was a young thing, it was of its’ time, we shouldn’t try to do it again.’ But when we got the offer from Japan, we thought, well that could be good… So we agreed to do it and the gigs were booked, although I have to say that the first one was bloody awful and we were shit. Fortunately the second one wasn’t bad at all and things went on from there. We agreed to do further concerts when we got home and, from 2000 until about 2010, we really had a great time and ended up playing all over the world. Playing in the UK was always good, but when we went abroad, we always got a great response and were treated really, really well.’
‘Well, Cas left after ‘To Hell with the Boys’ and went back to Norway where he became incredibly successful working with Gary Holton... to this day, he’s still very well-known in Scandinavia. We made one more album, ‘Boys Only’, without him, but then split up. I think we just thought that it had run it’s course…’
What did you do following that?
‘I briefly joined a band called the Hollywood Killers, which I really enjoyed. They were a really good band and, in fact, when The Big Heads played in Japan a couple of years ago, it turned out that one of their singles is now considered an underground classic over there. So we decided to play it at one of our gigs and everybody went mad for it, which was really weird… Anyway, after that I finally went to University. I’d actually passed some A-levels while I was still at school and they saved my life, really, as they allowed me to go to Imperial College to do an Engineering Degree. Unexpectedly, I really enjoyed it, which was perhaps because I’d already spent all those years being a musician, which meant I could concentrate on the work and actually enjoy it. That being said, when I came to the end of that, it seemed like my only options were going on to do research or finding a job in some grotty steelworks. I quickly decided not to do that and ended-up working for Andrew Lloyd Webber, which meant I spent quite a long time travelling around the world and living out of a suitcase. For my sins, I helped to saturate the world with his shows, but it was actually very interesting work. After that, I went to work at Nottingham Forest football club… they were in the Premier League at that point, but then went down to the Championship league, only to go back up to the Premier again. I really, really enjoyed working there because football is just so mad! I mean, if you’re a football fan, it’s exciting to just watch a game. But imagine what it’s like if your whole livelihood depends on it… that takes it to a whole other level of exciting! I enjoyed that and I also enjoyed living in Nottingham, but my wife and daughter were still living in London and only coming up to Nottingham for weekends and school holidays, so eventually we had to decide whether we all wanted to move full-time to Nottingham and cut our ties with London, or else I would have to look for another job closer to home. Like I said, the football world was crazy, you really have no idea of how nuts it can be, so I decided to move back to London and started working in Film and TV, which wasn’t really too different to what I’d been doing before. As it turned out, this was also around this time that The Boys got an offer to play some gigs in Japan... there was a band in Japan who had recorded ‘Soda Pressing’, I think, and had a hit with it, so there was suddenly a lot of interest in us over there. We’d had other offers for us to get back together, from various Punk festivals or whatever, and it was always me and Matt that said, ‘No, no, no… The Boys was a young thing, it was of its’ time, we shouldn’t try to do it again.’ But when we got the offer from Japan, we thought, well that could be good… So we agreed to do it and the gigs were booked, although I have to say that the first one was bloody awful and we were shit. Fortunately the second one wasn’t bad at all and things went on from there. We agreed to do further concerts when we got home and, from 2000 until about 2010, we really had a great time and ended up playing all over the world. Playing in the UK was always good, but when we went abroad, we always got a great response and were treated really, really well.’
Which was why it came as a bit of a surprise when you decided to leave the band in 2011…
‘Well, bands are a weird thing and things can become strange… I ended up having a bloody big fight with one of the other members and it resulted up in a situation where it was going to be either me or him, so I decided to leave. At the time it was very painful because I enjoyed being in The Boys and I didn’t want to leave, but with hindsight now, I can see that I would never have got to record the four solo albums which I have subsequently done, and I’m incredibly proud of them. And I’ve been able to put together a new band that, to my mind, is one of the best live bands there’s ever been. So it’s been a funny old thing… I ended up in a situation that I really didn’t want to be in, but it turned into one of the best things that could’ve happened for me and would not have happened otherwise.’
I suppose you had a kind of trial-run towards your first solo album when you recorded The Mattless Boys album in 2010, along with Honest John, Casino Steel and Vom Ritchie…
‘I think The Mattless Boys was a little bit of a reaction to the weirdness that was going on in The Boys at that point. I enjoyed being in the band but I also wanted to try and do something new, while other members just weren’t interested… although, oddly enough, after I left they did go on to make another album so it’s funny how these things can go. But when there was this big bust-up in The Boys, I think John decided that he wanted to stay in the band. I did ask him if he might be interested in doing something new with me, but he said that I should really get my own band together and Vom pretty-much said the same thing as well. He said I should move-on and do my own thing, which was hard to do as it was painful for me to leave The Boys, but thank God they did give me that advice because they’ve been proven right.’
Particularly as a live band, The Big Heads have really established themselves. A lot of people in your position would be more than happy to fill-up their gigs with lots of the well-known songs from their previous band, but in the case of The Big Heads, the new material more than stands up for itself, only leaving space for a few of the older songs from The Boys…
‘We still play a handful of the old songs because, well, why would you not want to play something like ‘First Time’? I love playing those songs and I’m very proud of having been in The Boys, so why not? Actually, we even played one of The Mattless Boys’ songs, ‘Any Old Time’, at some of the early gigs because I think it’s a great song… the funny thing about it is that I swapped credits with John, even though it was 100% my song. He said that he really fancied having a credit on the song, so I said okay, if he gave me a credit on his song ‘Romanian Girl’, which I really liked! But really, I had nothing to do with that song and he had nothing to do with ‘Any Old Time’… But I think half of our audiences now will be saying ‘it’s great to hear those old Boys songs’, while the other half will be saying, ‘you don’t need to play those anymore’. I’m happy to include them in our sets because they’re great songs and I enjoy playing them, but it is nice that I don’t have to rely on them.’
‘Well, bands are a weird thing and things can become strange… I ended up having a bloody big fight with one of the other members and it resulted up in a situation where it was going to be either me or him, so I decided to leave. At the time it was very painful because I enjoyed being in The Boys and I didn’t want to leave, but with hindsight now, I can see that I would never have got to record the four solo albums which I have subsequently done, and I’m incredibly proud of them. And I’ve been able to put together a new band that, to my mind, is one of the best live bands there’s ever been. So it’s been a funny old thing… I ended up in a situation that I really didn’t want to be in, but it turned into one of the best things that could’ve happened for me and would not have happened otherwise.’
I suppose you had a kind of trial-run towards your first solo album when you recorded The Mattless Boys album in 2010, along with Honest John, Casino Steel and Vom Ritchie…
‘I think The Mattless Boys was a little bit of a reaction to the weirdness that was going on in The Boys at that point. I enjoyed being in the band but I also wanted to try and do something new, while other members just weren’t interested… although, oddly enough, after I left they did go on to make another album so it’s funny how these things can go. But when there was this big bust-up in The Boys, I think John decided that he wanted to stay in the band. I did ask him if he might be interested in doing something new with me, but he said that I should really get my own band together and Vom pretty-much said the same thing as well. He said I should move-on and do my own thing, which was hard to do as it was painful for me to leave The Boys, but thank God they did give me that advice because they’ve been proven right.’
Particularly as a live band, The Big Heads have really established themselves. A lot of people in your position would be more than happy to fill-up their gigs with lots of the well-known songs from their previous band, but in the case of The Big Heads, the new material more than stands up for itself, only leaving space for a few of the older songs from The Boys…
‘We still play a handful of the old songs because, well, why would you not want to play something like ‘First Time’? I love playing those songs and I’m very proud of having been in The Boys, so why not? Actually, we even played one of The Mattless Boys’ songs, ‘Any Old Time’, at some of the early gigs because I think it’s a great song… the funny thing about it is that I swapped credits with John, even though it was 100% my song. He said that he really fancied having a credit on the song, so I said okay, if he gave me a credit on his song ‘Romanian Girl’, which I really liked! But really, I had nothing to do with that song and he had nothing to do with ‘Any Old Time’… But I think half of our audiences now will be saying ‘it’s great to hear those old Boys songs’, while the other half will be saying, ‘you don’t need to play those anymore’. I’m happy to include them in our sets because they’re great songs and I enjoy playing them, but it is nice that I don’t have to rely on them.’
You’ve previously said in interviews that you wanted to record your first ‘solo’ album, ‘Little Big Head’, mostly on your own, to see if it was something that you could actually manage to do…
‘Well, at the time I didn’t have a band to record with, so apart from a couple of people who helped out, like Vom, I didn’t have people in place to play on the album. Also, I’d never really written much while I was in the Boys… there’s only about five songs that I wrote or co-wrote and at the time I found it very hard. In some ways, I think I might have been intimidated by the songs that Matt, Cas and John were writing. I certainly felt in awe of them. I’ve said before that The Boys was the best song-writing school that I could have ever gone to, because Matt, Cas and John are all brilliant song-writers and I really learned a lot from them. They were just so good at what they were doing. I remember going to rehearsals when they’d play their new songs and being so in awe of what they were bringing to the band. I do think that Jack and I also brought something important to the band, a certain energy perhaps... Their song-writing was always the important thing, but Jack and I did bring a certain something to the band as well, even though we may not have been the core of the creativity. So it wasn’t until the time of The Mattless Boys album that I started getting into writing songs and I ended up writing quite a bit for that record. Suddenly, I found that I could write my own songs and I really enjoyed it… The thing I was really in awe of was the way that Matt and Cas could harmonise… you just don’t think about things like that when you’re first starting to write your own songs. So, looking back, I think I was pretty curious to see if I could do it for myself. I mean, if I listen to that first album now, I’ll be thinking that there were ways in which it could’ve been better, like having a proper guitarist on the whole record, but I also think it has a charm to it which comes from me trying to do all of those things. It doesn’t sound like the kind of album that I’d make today, but it wasn’t a bad place to start from.’
I’d agree… there’s been a very steady progress with the albums and I think that’s been down to the band becoming such a tight unit. How did The Big Heads actually come together?
‘It came together when I decided that I wanted to play some gigs. I needed to find some musicians but I also wanted it to sound a bit different. I wanted to get away from that ‘Les Paul through a Marshall’ sound… I still love that sound, but I wanted us to do something a bit different and get away from that leather jacket, black jeans and t-shirt look, which again is a brilliant look but I wanted to do something different. Which is where I came up with the purple suits and looking completely different to how I’d been in The Boys. In a similar way, having been in a band called The Boys, I thought it might be fun to be in a band with girls in it. Anna Donarsky, who I knew because she was a friend of Vom in Dusseldorf, had recently moved to London. I knew she played guitar although I hadn’t actually heard her, but asked if she’d like to join my new band. As it turned out, she was really good and actually ended-up being a guitar-tech for people like Ronnie Wood and Pete Townsend, which is why she eventually left us. She was working on a Rolling Stones tour which coincided with a couple of gigs we had been offered, so Sophie came in initially just for a couple of gigs. I hit it off with her straight away, especially onstage, and realised that she was just what the band needed. So it was the only time in my life that I had the difficult task of telling someone, Anna, that I wanted someone else in the band... It was very difficult and I’ve been regretting it ever since!!! No, I don’t mean that… Sophie is incredible in every way, as a musician and as a truly wild woman! She really is one of the wildest people I’ve ever met but also a very lovely person and very talented. I also thought it would be good to have some younger people in the band, to give it a different outlook, which is why I asked Alex Gold to join. Obviously, the line-up has changed since then, but it’s just evolved over time as people have moved on, until we reached this point where it’s been pretty stable for about five years. For me, playing in a band with people from different generations has been great because their influences have been more from the Nineties and Noughties, rather than the 1977 sound that my generation might be more into. It’s been good to have those different sounds coming into the band… I mean, Sophie is a big fan of Joan Jett, which is possibly more Glam than Punk, whereas Nick had no idea about all of this stuff and didn’t even know who The Boys were when he first came to play with us! He’s a huge fan of ‘Pop-punk’ but didn’t know much at all about the 1977 bands.’
‘Well, at the time I didn’t have a band to record with, so apart from a couple of people who helped out, like Vom, I didn’t have people in place to play on the album. Also, I’d never really written much while I was in the Boys… there’s only about five songs that I wrote or co-wrote and at the time I found it very hard. In some ways, I think I might have been intimidated by the songs that Matt, Cas and John were writing. I certainly felt in awe of them. I’ve said before that The Boys was the best song-writing school that I could have ever gone to, because Matt, Cas and John are all brilliant song-writers and I really learned a lot from them. They were just so good at what they were doing. I remember going to rehearsals when they’d play their new songs and being so in awe of what they were bringing to the band. I do think that Jack and I also brought something important to the band, a certain energy perhaps... Their song-writing was always the important thing, but Jack and I did bring a certain something to the band as well, even though we may not have been the core of the creativity. So it wasn’t until the time of The Mattless Boys album that I started getting into writing songs and I ended up writing quite a bit for that record. Suddenly, I found that I could write my own songs and I really enjoyed it… The thing I was really in awe of was the way that Matt and Cas could harmonise… you just don’t think about things like that when you’re first starting to write your own songs. So, looking back, I think I was pretty curious to see if I could do it for myself. I mean, if I listen to that first album now, I’ll be thinking that there were ways in which it could’ve been better, like having a proper guitarist on the whole record, but I also think it has a charm to it which comes from me trying to do all of those things. It doesn’t sound like the kind of album that I’d make today, but it wasn’t a bad place to start from.’
I’d agree… there’s been a very steady progress with the albums and I think that’s been down to the band becoming such a tight unit. How did The Big Heads actually come together?
‘It came together when I decided that I wanted to play some gigs. I needed to find some musicians but I also wanted it to sound a bit different. I wanted to get away from that ‘Les Paul through a Marshall’ sound… I still love that sound, but I wanted us to do something a bit different and get away from that leather jacket, black jeans and t-shirt look, which again is a brilliant look but I wanted to do something different. Which is where I came up with the purple suits and looking completely different to how I’d been in The Boys. In a similar way, having been in a band called The Boys, I thought it might be fun to be in a band with girls in it. Anna Donarsky, who I knew because she was a friend of Vom in Dusseldorf, had recently moved to London. I knew she played guitar although I hadn’t actually heard her, but asked if she’d like to join my new band. As it turned out, she was really good and actually ended-up being a guitar-tech for people like Ronnie Wood and Pete Townsend, which is why she eventually left us. She was working on a Rolling Stones tour which coincided with a couple of gigs we had been offered, so Sophie came in initially just for a couple of gigs. I hit it off with her straight away, especially onstage, and realised that she was just what the band needed. So it was the only time in my life that I had the difficult task of telling someone, Anna, that I wanted someone else in the band... It was very difficult and I’ve been regretting it ever since!!! No, I don’t mean that… Sophie is incredible in every way, as a musician and as a truly wild woman! She really is one of the wildest people I’ve ever met but also a very lovely person and very talented. I also thought it would be good to have some younger people in the band, to give it a different outlook, which is why I asked Alex Gold to join. Obviously, the line-up has changed since then, but it’s just evolved over time as people have moved on, until we reached this point where it’s been pretty stable for about five years. For me, playing in a band with people from different generations has been great because their influences have been more from the Nineties and Noughties, rather than the 1977 sound that my generation might be more into. It’s been good to have those different sounds coming into the band… I mean, Sophie is a big fan of Joan Jett, which is possibly more Glam than Punk, whereas Nick had no idea about all of this stuff and didn’t even know who The Boys were when he first came to play with us! He’s a huge fan of ‘Pop-punk’ but didn’t know much at all about the 1977 bands.’
There was quite a bit of shuffling in the line-up during the first few albums…
‘Yeah, things didn’t really settle-down until the third album, ‘Bombs Away’. Nick didn’t actually play on that record, it was Mauro Venagas who was superb. But Nick was with us by the time we started playing it live and things have been pretty stable since then. After I left The Boys, I really wanted to have another band, so I kind of regret calling it ‘Duncan Reid and the Big Heads’, because I didn’t really want to be seen as a person with a backing band. I definitely would have preferred it just being recognised as a band in its’ own right.’
There does seem to be a real chemistry with the band now…
‘Oh yeah, it’s unpredictable but it really works. I’ll look around in the middle of a gig at Nick and Sophie and I’ll just have to think, What the Hell are they doing now? She’ll be playing guitar while sitting on his shoulders, or they’ll both be on the floor… God knows what’s going to happen, but that’s great! It can get really funny and I never know what’s going to happen with this band, but it’s never in a bad way. We enjoy playing live and we enjoy each others’ company, which I think comes across to the audience.’
It’s one of the things about live bands… some can be technically perfect but very static in their stage presence, while others may not be entirely note-perfect but give a performance that’s so much more exciting…
‘I think one of my strengths, and this is a weird thing, is to feel the audience and what they want. I don’t know what it is, but it’s as if when I go onstage I become another person. I think that was a big part of my job in The Boys, to be that bloke upfront, jumping around and getting the audience going. But now, it’s actually easier for me because I’ve got a whole band who are doing the same thing… In many ways that’s why it’s more fun for me. Being in The Boys was great and I always loved it, but it’s more fun now because of the different characters. I think that’s the best thing about it. When you’re playing something that you know is good and you can feel that the audience are really into it… there’s no other feeling like it. When you get that coming back at you, it’s brilliant.’
For the most part, you’ve been self-releasing your own records, or licensing them to other labels. Is that something you were particularly keen to do?
‘There were a few people who helped out early on and I really appreciate that, but it’s come to the point where it doesn’t make sense to have other labels licensing the records anymore. It’s got to the point where you can get yourself on Spotify worldwide, so you might as well pay to manufacture your own albums, sell them at your gigs and keep all the money, because what we’re doing now is such a niche thing. I mean, if someone came along and said they wanted to spend £100,000 on a marketing campaign to make the band famous, I’d say, Yeah, alright! But in reality, that’s not going to happen, so you might as well do things yourself. It’s a bit like I was saying earlier about it being a good thing to go back to University and use your brain… it can actually be quite good fun to do all these things that you have to do to be a musician now. You have to learn Photoshop and you’ve got to learn video-editing so that you can record something on your mobile phone and edit it together. And it’s quite enjoyable to learn how to not be what we were in the Seventies, which was basically thick musicians who were told what to do and just got on with it. But these days, it’s really possible for people to do everything for themselves. Nick’s got another band, called the Middlenight Men, and he’s really got into it. If you see some of the videos he’s been doing, it’s really impressive. They’re really high quality stuff, very cinematic, and in a lot of ways doing things like that can get to a lot more people than just playing gigs. I mean, for me, you can’t beat playing gigs and building up that core-audience, but he’s gone for that video route and that’s working really well for him.
‘Yeah, things didn’t really settle-down until the third album, ‘Bombs Away’. Nick didn’t actually play on that record, it was Mauro Venagas who was superb. But Nick was with us by the time we started playing it live and things have been pretty stable since then. After I left The Boys, I really wanted to have another band, so I kind of regret calling it ‘Duncan Reid and the Big Heads’, because I didn’t really want to be seen as a person with a backing band. I definitely would have preferred it just being recognised as a band in its’ own right.’
There does seem to be a real chemistry with the band now…
‘Oh yeah, it’s unpredictable but it really works. I’ll look around in the middle of a gig at Nick and Sophie and I’ll just have to think, What the Hell are they doing now? She’ll be playing guitar while sitting on his shoulders, or they’ll both be on the floor… God knows what’s going to happen, but that’s great! It can get really funny and I never know what’s going to happen with this band, but it’s never in a bad way. We enjoy playing live and we enjoy each others’ company, which I think comes across to the audience.’
It’s one of the things about live bands… some can be technically perfect but very static in their stage presence, while others may not be entirely note-perfect but give a performance that’s so much more exciting…
‘I think one of my strengths, and this is a weird thing, is to feel the audience and what they want. I don’t know what it is, but it’s as if when I go onstage I become another person. I think that was a big part of my job in The Boys, to be that bloke upfront, jumping around and getting the audience going. But now, it’s actually easier for me because I’ve got a whole band who are doing the same thing… In many ways that’s why it’s more fun for me. Being in The Boys was great and I always loved it, but it’s more fun now because of the different characters. I think that’s the best thing about it. When you’re playing something that you know is good and you can feel that the audience are really into it… there’s no other feeling like it. When you get that coming back at you, it’s brilliant.’
For the most part, you’ve been self-releasing your own records, or licensing them to other labels. Is that something you were particularly keen to do?
‘There were a few people who helped out early on and I really appreciate that, but it’s come to the point where it doesn’t make sense to have other labels licensing the records anymore. It’s got to the point where you can get yourself on Spotify worldwide, so you might as well pay to manufacture your own albums, sell them at your gigs and keep all the money, because what we’re doing now is such a niche thing. I mean, if someone came along and said they wanted to spend £100,000 on a marketing campaign to make the band famous, I’d say, Yeah, alright! But in reality, that’s not going to happen, so you might as well do things yourself. It’s a bit like I was saying earlier about it being a good thing to go back to University and use your brain… it can actually be quite good fun to do all these things that you have to do to be a musician now. You have to learn Photoshop and you’ve got to learn video-editing so that you can record something on your mobile phone and edit it together. And it’s quite enjoyable to learn how to not be what we were in the Seventies, which was basically thick musicians who were told what to do and just got on with it. But these days, it’s really possible for people to do everything for themselves. Nick’s got another band, called the Middlenight Men, and he’s really got into it. If you see some of the videos he’s been doing, it’s really impressive. They’re really high quality stuff, very cinematic, and in a lot of ways doing things like that can get to a lot more people than just playing gigs. I mean, for me, you can’t beat playing gigs and building up that core-audience, but he’s gone for that video route and that’s working really well for him.
Obviously, the recent pandemic and the lock-downs that it’s produced have had a great impact on bands and venues. In your case, your latest album was released just before the first lock-down came into force, which effectively meant that you were unable to play live and promote it. On top of that, it also meant that musicians and artists were not able to rehearse or record in the usual ways…
‘I have to admit, as things went on and the lockdowns became longer and longer, I was quite concerned that the band might not survive. I mean, we’re booked to play at the Kubix Festival in Sunderland in July, if it goes ahead, and that will be 18 months since the last time we played. You have to wonder if everyone’s enthusiasm for the band will endure but so far, we all seem to be looking forward to it and that’s great. It’s good that things seem to be a bit more optimistic right now… Around this time last year, I was getting very fed-up with all of our gigs being cancelled, re-scheduled and then cancelled again, so I thought, bugger it, and ended-up going over to France with my whole family and our dogs from July to October! It actually turned out to be a great time with the family and it felt really good to just turn-off from everything that was going on. That being said, as soon as we got back to England at the end of October, the new songs just started coming fast, so that’s what I’ve been doing. There were a few other things I got involved with, making videos and things, but I also came across this recording that the soundman had made of us at a concert in Stockholm. He’d recorded it off the desk and sent me the multi-tracks, so I loaded it up in my studio and it sounded brilliant. We thought it might be a good time to release a live album and the easiest way to put it out was going to be through Bandcamp. We didn’t really want to get involved with manufacturing vinyl or CD’s, but at the same time it seemed like a good kind of stop-gap before we could start playing live again. And I’m really happy with it because I think it sounds fantastic and really captures the spirit and the rawness of how we sound live, because we’re very different live to how we are on record. I wouldn’t want to make studio records that sounded how we are live, because they are different things. But I love the way the live album captures how we are onstage. I mean, some of the things I say! I really become a different person when I’m onstage…I hear some of the things I say and think, what the Hell was that?’
The latest album, ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’, received great reviews but at the same time, was thwarted by the ongoing lock-downs. It must have been incredibly frustrating…
‘It was, because we had an amazing list of gigs set-up to play through Summer and Autumn last year. I know I said about going to France with my family, but I did also get on the internet and did loads and loads of radio and podcast interviews all around the world. There are millions of stations now, that’s one of the beauties of the internet. If you take the time to look for them, there are some really great stations out there, some of them just music fans who started up with no expectations but they’re now getting across to so many other people. It’s great that you can still get to hear good music, both new and old, from people and stations that aren’t just doing it as a job. So I did a lot of interviews like that while I could, while the world was in that situation. But I think it’ll be even better to be back when we can play live again. I’m sure there’ll be a bit of trepidation but, like riding a bike, once we’re out there I’m sure it’ll be alright.’
‘I have to admit, as things went on and the lockdowns became longer and longer, I was quite concerned that the band might not survive. I mean, we’re booked to play at the Kubix Festival in Sunderland in July, if it goes ahead, and that will be 18 months since the last time we played. You have to wonder if everyone’s enthusiasm for the band will endure but so far, we all seem to be looking forward to it and that’s great. It’s good that things seem to be a bit more optimistic right now… Around this time last year, I was getting very fed-up with all of our gigs being cancelled, re-scheduled and then cancelled again, so I thought, bugger it, and ended-up going over to France with my whole family and our dogs from July to October! It actually turned out to be a great time with the family and it felt really good to just turn-off from everything that was going on. That being said, as soon as we got back to England at the end of October, the new songs just started coming fast, so that’s what I’ve been doing. There were a few other things I got involved with, making videos and things, but I also came across this recording that the soundman had made of us at a concert in Stockholm. He’d recorded it off the desk and sent me the multi-tracks, so I loaded it up in my studio and it sounded brilliant. We thought it might be a good time to release a live album and the easiest way to put it out was going to be through Bandcamp. We didn’t really want to get involved with manufacturing vinyl or CD’s, but at the same time it seemed like a good kind of stop-gap before we could start playing live again. And I’m really happy with it because I think it sounds fantastic and really captures the spirit and the rawness of how we sound live, because we’re very different live to how we are on record. I wouldn’t want to make studio records that sounded how we are live, because they are different things. But I love the way the live album captures how we are onstage. I mean, some of the things I say! I really become a different person when I’m onstage…I hear some of the things I say and think, what the Hell was that?’
The latest album, ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’, received great reviews but at the same time, was thwarted by the ongoing lock-downs. It must have been incredibly frustrating…
‘It was, because we had an amazing list of gigs set-up to play through Summer and Autumn last year. I know I said about going to France with my family, but I did also get on the internet and did loads and loads of radio and podcast interviews all around the world. There are millions of stations now, that’s one of the beauties of the internet. If you take the time to look for them, there are some really great stations out there, some of them just music fans who started up with no expectations but they’re now getting across to so many other people. It’s great that you can still get to hear good music, both new and old, from people and stations that aren’t just doing it as a job. So I did a lot of interviews like that while I could, while the world was in that situation. But I think it’ll be even better to be back when we can play live again. I’m sure there’ll be a bit of trepidation but, like riding a bike, once we’re out there I’m sure it’ll be alright.’
Regarding album-releases, you’ve been pretty prolific, especially in comparison to your former band… four studio albums in ten years as opposed to one, although I doubt that you did that deliberately to make a point…
‘Yeah, well, it’s not as if I’m in competition. I’ve just enjoyed writing and recording with this band and it’s as if I can’t stop. I just started to enjoy the process of writing and I don’t know where that comes from. I’d even say that I’m quite surprised that I’m able to do it. I have to admit, it’s a great ego-boost to write and record something and then have people say that it’s great. I definitely get a buzz from that… And I really enjoy the lyric writing. I often won’t know where it comes from, but I do impress myself sometimes!’
One of the lyrical surprises from the latest album is the song ‘Motherfucker’. I don’t think you’ve ever used swear-words in any of your previous songs, not even in the songs you sang with The Boys…
‘Haha! I think it’s a part of getting older… I’m getting more grumpy. In particular, when I think about Brexit and the detrimental effects it’s had on my life. I know that I really need to let it go and stop being angry about it, but the whole way that it came about and the way those aristocratic Etonians influenced everything. People fell for it, including a lot of supposed ‘punks’… working class punks who became enthralled by these people. So I thought, I’d just do a song about it that hopefully came across in a funny sort of way. But all this stuff that happened, all that flag-waving and stuff… it made me angry. I mean, some of it was down to racism and you can’t get away from that, but there were also a lot of really decent people who just seemed to lap it up. That’s the thing that’s been hard to understand. I think a lot of people supported Boris Johnson because they felt left- behind by the established politicians and I can understand that, even though I think they were wrong. I mean, really, how could anyone ever think that a person like Ann Widdecombe was great? It’s a very surreal situation to be in, to actually know people who think someone like that is wonderful. I find it quite painful to realise that we’re living in such a divided world and that there is no gap inbetween anymore. It’s as if everything has to be one thing or the other. It’s sad to say that social media is at least partly to blame for this, because it’s become such a perfect way to reinforce social prejudices and encourage people to become more extreme. There’s so much nonsense online, but it’s presented in a way to make it appear genuine. I’ve actually written a song recently called ‘Bill Gates’, which was inspired by QAnon and all of that stuff… It led me to research all of those myths and conspiracy theories that people believe, like the idea that Bill Gates is trying to chip everyone, or all the different things about Donald Trump, and even that Elvis is still alive and working as a gardener at Gracelands… Although my favourite, and one that loads of people actually believe, is that Finland is a myth and it doesn’t actually exist! The idea is that the Russians and Japanese invented this story so that they could take all of the fish out of the Baltic without anyone else knowing about it…’
‘Yeah, well, it’s not as if I’m in competition. I’ve just enjoyed writing and recording with this band and it’s as if I can’t stop. I just started to enjoy the process of writing and I don’t know where that comes from. I’d even say that I’m quite surprised that I’m able to do it. I have to admit, it’s a great ego-boost to write and record something and then have people say that it’s great. I definitely get a buzz from that… And I really enjoy the lyric writing. I often won’t know where it comes from, but I do impress myself sometimes!’
One of the lyrical surprises from the latest album is the song ‘Motherfucker’. I don’t think you’ve ever used swear-words in any of your previous songs, not even in the songs you sang with The Boys…
‘Haha! I think it’s a part of getting older… I’m getting more grumpy. In particular, when I think about Brexit and the detrimental effects it’s had on my life. I know that I really need to let it go and stop being angry about it, but the whole way that it came about and the way those aristocratic Etonians influenced everything. People fell for it, including a lot of supposed ‘punks’… working class punks who became enthralled by these people. So I thought, I’d just do a song about it that hopefully came across in a funny sort of way. But all this stuff that happened, all that flag-waving and stuff… it made me angry. I mean, some of it was down to racism and you can’t get away from that, but there were also a lot of really decent people who just seemed to lap it up. That’s the thing that’s been hard to understand. I think a lot of people supported Boris Johnson because they felt left- behind by the established politicians and I can understand that, even though I think they were wrong. I mean, really, how could anyone ever think that a person like Ann Widdecombe was great? It’s a very surreal situation to be in, to actually know people who think someone like that is wonderful. I find it quite painful to realise that we’re living in such a divided world and that there is no gap inbetween anymore. It’s as if everything has to be one thing or the other. It’s sad to say that social media is at least partly to blame for this, because it’s become such a perfect way to reinforce social prejudices and encourage people to become more extreme. There’s so much nonsense online, but it’s presented in a way to make it appear genuine. I’ve actually written a song recently called ‘Bill Gates’, which was inspired by QAnon and all of that stuff… It led me to research all of those myths and conspiracy theories that people believe, like the idea that Bill Gates is trying to chip everyone, or all the different things about Donald Trump, and even that Elvis is still alive and working as a gardener at Gracelands… Although my favourite, and one that loads of people actually believe, is that Finland is a myth and it doesn’t actually exist! The idea is that the Russians and Japanese invented this story so that they could take all of the fish out of the Baltic without anyone else knowing about it…’
Now that things seem to be steadily improving and, in theory at least, lockdown restrictions are easing-off, have you been able to start making plans for the band again?
‘Surprisingly, we have got a few gigs that have survived or, at least been re-scheduled, which you can see on the website. So there are a few things that we already have between now and the end of the year… I’ve also booked The Lexington for the most-delayed Album Launch ever! That’ll be in December, over 18 months since the album actually came out... I’m particularly glad we’ll still be doing it there, because that’s probably my favourite venue in London and I’m really looking forward to it... I am still a bit wary about starting to set-up things on the booking-schedule until I know that they really will be going ahead, but as soon as we know things are up and running again, we all want to get back out there.’
I think one of the problems that really messed things up in the early stages of the pandemic was that people didn’t realise just how long the situation was going to continue. Even when the first lock-down started, most people were thinking it would only last a couple of months at most, before everything returned to normal. Due to that, no-one was really making provisions for any alternative ways to continue what they were doing…
‘Around September of last year, I was a bit taken-on by all these people saying that it was all over and it was going to be gone soon. But of course, it all came back even worse and I think that took us all by surprise, to some extent. But I am starting to feel more optimistic now and I’m hoping that it’s all going to be alright. For all the nonsense that has been going on, the rest of Europe seems to be only a few weeks or so behind us and I'm hoping it should all get cleared-up properly this time. The problem for us as a band is going to be that we’ve still got the last album to promote, whilst at the same time I’ve also got a bunch of new songs that I’ve written over the past year which I’m eager to work-on with the rest of the band. We’ve actually booked some rehearsal time at the end of June, which is quite funny because, as everyone is so busy all the time, we’ve never really rehearsed in the normal way. We would usually just work on new songs at soundchecks until we were happy with them and then we’d play them live. But after such a long break, we’ll have to see how it goes. We have got a new single coming out soon, which is going to be ‘Your Future Ex Wife’ from the album, while the b-side will feature two unreleased songs, one being an outtake from the ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’ sessions and the other is a demo of a song that didn’t make it… So I hope that will keep people interested until the end of the year, when we’ll probably start thinking about doing the next album. It’ll all depend on when we finish writing it and feel that we’re ready to do it. But, after everything that’s happened over the past year, there’s no rush to do it and, in the meantime, we really need to have a period of time so we can play the last album live… I’m really looking forward to being able to play songs like ‘Your Future Ex Wife’ and ‘To Live or Live Not’ live, because I’m sure they’re going to sound great. We have already played ‘Motherfucker’ and a couple of the others live, just bedding them in, but it’ll be good to hear how the rest of the album goes down with the audiences. It’s always great when you play something live for the first time and get a positive response from the audience… that’s when it feels really good.’
‘Surprisingly, we have got a few gigs that have survived or, at least been re-scheduled, which you can see on the website. So there are a few things that we already have between now and the end of the year… I’ve also booked The Lexington for the most-delayed Album Launch ever! That’ll be in December, over 18 months since the album actually came out... I’m particularly glad we’ll still be doing it there, because that’s probably my favourite venue in London and I’m really looking forward to it... I am still a bit wary about starting to set-up things on the booking-schedule until I know that they really will be going ahead, but as soon as we know things are up and running again, we all want to get back out there.’
I think one of the problems that really messed things up in the early stages of the pandemic was that people didn’t realise just how long the situation was going to continue. Even when the first lock-down started, most people were thinking it would only last a couple of months at most, before everything returned to normal. Due to that, no-one was really making provisions for any alternative ways to continue what they were doing…
‘Around September of last year, I was a bit taken-on by all these people saying that it was all over and it was going to be gone soon. But of course, it all came back even worse and I think that took us all by surprise, to some extent. But I am starting to feel more optimistic now and I’m hoping that it’s all going to be alright. For all the nonsense that has been going on, the rest of Europe seems to be only a few weeks or so behind us and I'm hoping it should all get cleared-up properly this time. The problem for us as a band is going to be that we’ve still got the last album to promote, whilst at the same time I’ve also got a bunch of new songs that I’ve written over the past year which I’m eager to work-on with the rest of the band. We’ve actually booked some rehearsal time at the end of June, which is quite funny because, as everyone is so busy all the time, we’ve never really rehearsed in the normal way. We would usually just work on new songs at soundchecks until we were happy with them and then we’d play them live. But after such a long break, we’ll have to see how it goes. We have got a new single coming out soon, which is going to be ‘Your Future Ex Wife’ from the album, while the b-side will feature two unreleased songs, one being an outtake from the ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’ sessions and the other is a demo of a song that didn’t make it… So I hope that will keep people interested until the end of the year, when we’ll probably start thinking about doing the next album. It’ll all depend on when we finish writing it and feel that we’re ready to do it. But, after everything that’s happened over the past year, there’s no rush to do it and, in the meantime, we really need to have a period of time so we can play the last album live… I’m really looking forward to being able to play songs like ‘Your Future Ex Wife’ and ‘To Live or Live Not’ live, because I’m sure they’re going to sound great. We have already played ‘Motherfucker’ and a couple of the others live, just bedding them in, but it’ll be good to hear how the rest of the album goes down with the audiences. It’s always great when you play something live for the first time and get a positive response from the audience… that’s when it feels really good.’
To end with, everyone knows you now as Duncan Reid, but I was just wondering at what point you decided that it wasn’t really appropriate to call yourself ‘Kid’ Reid anymore?
‘Hahaha! Actually, it’s a little bit like, when I was saying that me and Matt always refused to reform the band, because The Boys had been this kind of young thing. And particularly with the band having that name, it just seemed to illustrate the point. So when we did eventually get back together in 2000, I just couldn’t call myself ‘Kid’ anymore. The others were telling me that I should still use that name, but I was in my forties by then so it just wasn’t right! More recently, it was like when I realised that I was coming up to my Sixtieth birthday… I was looking at the dates and thinking, hang on, this can’t be right? I mean, when it started, Punk was all about kids doing their own thing and that was great. But now it’s forty years later and a lot of us are still doing it, not because we have to but because we want to. It’s as if the whole thing has been turned on its’ head, but at the same time, why should we stop just because someone else thinks we should? In a lot of ways, we’re still doing it for exactly the same reasons, so I really can’t see any reason to stop.’
‘Hahaha! Actually, it’s a little bit like, when I was saying that me and Matt always refused to reform the band, because The Boys had been this kind of young thing. And particularly with the band having that name, it just seemed to illustrate the point. So when we did eventually get back together in 2000, I just couldn’t call myself ‘Kid’ anymore. The others were telling me that I should still use that name, but I was in my forties by then so it just wasn’t right! More recently, it was like when I realised that I was coming up to my Sixtieth birthday… I was looking at the dates and thinking, hang on, this can’t be right? I mean, when it started, Punk was all about kids doing their own thing and that was great. But now it’s forty years later and a lot of us are still doing it, not because we have to but because we want to. It’s as if the whole thing has been turned on its’ head, but at the same time, why should we stop just because someone else thinks we should? In a lot of ways, we’re still doing it for exactly the same reasons, so I really can’t see any reason to stop.’
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