The Hollywood Brats were a real anomaly in the British music scene of the early Seventies. In a period of time when rock’n’roll had been reduced to pretentious prog or cartoon pop, they brazenly raised their heads above the parapets and called them all out. With a singular Year Zero attitude that Punk would claim five years later, they dismissed everything around them as insignificant or half-hearted and stormed down their own path. They donned extravagant garb and revved-up their sound with a truly raw intent, whilst never lacking a great tune at the heart of the matter. But while their single-mindedness created a vital statement, it also cost them the success they deserved. Unwilling to compromise, and naïve to the real machinations of the music business, they failed to get that elusive record deal and, although a great album was recorded, their failure to get it released subsequently led to their demise. However, the album was eventually released (initially, only in Norway !) and the band had an undeniable influence on the early Punk scene. Indeed, had they returned at that point, they would have undoubtedly found themselves the wider audience that they had always deserved, but in the meantime, the various band members had gone their separate ways. Casino Steel joined The Boys (who also adopted a couple of the Brats’ songs.) Vocalist Andrew Matheson released solo albums in 1979 and 1994, but otherwise seemed to keep a pretty low profile until, in the last few years, he made several guest appearances singing his original songs with The Boys. In 2015 his biography of the Hollywood Brats, ‘Sick On You’, was published to rave reviews, bringing both Andrew and the band to a the attention of a whole new audience. The book combines the tale of the Brats together with Andrews’ insistent writing-style to create a vivid account of the bands’ glorious failure. It’s funny, frustrating and highly enjoyable in equal measures, with a cast of famous figures making cameo appearances to punctuate the events. Quite simply, it’s one of the best books ever written about rock’n’roll.
The opportunity arose to interview Andrew (thanks Steve !) and I was more than happy to take up the offer. Everything fell in to place smoothly and I ended-up meeting him on a Friday afternoon at his local pub in Belsize Park. Beers on the table, and despite obnoxious interruptions from shrieking kids (Babies in pubs ? What a stupid idea… Pubs are supposed to be a place where you can get away from that sorta thing…) we soon get in to the interview. Firstly and, as it turns out, rather predictably, I asked why he had finally decided to write the biography of the Hollywood Brats ?
‘You know, I’ll have to try to come up with a much snappier answer for that question, because I’m being asked it all the time. But, really, there isn’t any snappy answer. I just decided one day to sit down and do it, and it really was that boring and banal. I got a nice set-up at a nice table and set-out all my notes and diaries… I’ve always managed to keep those things around, regardless of divorces, fires, hurricanes, a couple of earthquakes… I’ve lived in three or four countries on a couple of different continents and I’ve managed to lose everything from sports cars to expensive jewellery, but for some reason, I’ve always managed to keep hold of all the Brats’ paraphernalia. A box load has always stuck with me over all these years and I’d found that people had always liked hearing the stories, so it was dead-easy. Not that I’d ever gone around blabbing tales to everyone, but it was just one of those things that when you were in a social situation, particularly with anyone who was involved in music, people would often ask about the Brats and I’d tell them a couple of stories. It seemed to be entertaining, so I thought, before I pop my clogs, maybe I should actually get the whole story down. I think it’s worked out rather well.’
Did it take you very long to put it together ?
‘Not really. Once I started writing, it took me from February through to June. I tend to write quite quickly and I had no distractions at the time. I had plenty of whisky with me, so it was just a case of getting it done. Inevitably, there were edits and a few re-writes. I also relocated to London around that time, so suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork to talk to me and I was able to cross reference a couple of dates and things like that. There were a few alterations, but in essence, it was pretty much done in that first five month period.’
The text flows very well when you read it, so I did get the impression that was the way you wrote it as well…
‘Oh yes, it was dead-easy to write, and it was also pretty entertaining for me. I was laughing along with it as well ! I had good source material, because I kept diaries in those days and so did Brady. Between the two of us, I could always cross-reference where we were at what time. That was very handy. I actually stopped keeping a diary some time ago and it’s not as if my life is any less-interesting now, so I regret that. It’s something I really should have kept going with. As far as this book is concerned, those diaries have been absolutely invaluable to me. There were a few incriminating bits’n’bobs… the hardest part of the book was actually the ‘legal-read’, because once the lawyers got at it… I mean, I’d been insulting somebody every three lines, including myself ! But I’d insulted loads of people who are now rich and have huge lawyers, so that was very tough, deciding what we couldn’t risk leaving in there. Very tough indeed. And it was also very expensive to get it done, particularly as I’d be arguing the whole time… But in the end, that’s all chicken-feed compared to the fact that the project is done and it’s been well-received. It’s opened lots of doors for me and slammed lots of others…’
Did it take you very long to put it together ?
‘Not really. Once I started writing, it took me from February through to June. I tend to write quite quickly and I had no distractions at the time. I had plenty of whisky with me, so it was just a case of getting it done. Inevitably, there were edits and a few re-writes. I also relocated to London around that time, so suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork to talk to me and I was able to cross reference a couple of dates and things like that. There were a few alterations, but in essence, it was pretty much done in that first five month period.’
The text flows very well when you read it, so I did get the impression that was the way you wrote it as well…
‘Oh yes, it was dead-easy to write, and it was also pretty entertaining for me. I was laughing along with it as well ! I had good source material, because I kept diaries in those days and so did Brady. Between the two of us, I could always cross-reference where we were at what time. That was very handy. I actually stopped keeping a diary some time ago and it’s not as if my life is any less-interesting now, so I regret that. It’s something I really should have kept going with. As far as this book is concerned, those diaries have been absolutely invaluable to me. There were a few incriminating bits’n’bobs… the hardest part of the book was actually the ‘legal-read’, because once the lawyers got at it… I mean, I’d been insulting somebody every three lines, including myself ! But I’d insulted loads of people who are now rich and have huge lawyers, so that was very tough, deciding what we couldn’t risk leaving in there. Very tough indeed. And it was also very expensive to get it done, particularly as I’d be arguing the whole time… But in the end, that’s all chicken-feed compared to the fact that the project is done and it’s been well-received. It’s opened lots of doors for me and slammed lots of others…’
I assume from your style that you must have been writing other things over the years ?
‘Oh, yeah, it’s a life sentence. You must know… if you write, you write, and that’s all there is to it. But the thing I hadn’t really done was publishing, although I have had a few things published. Really, I just write to write, and I’ve got reams of things at home, which people are suddenly interested in seeing, by the way ! But I have published the occasional magazine article, things like that, and I’ve written forwards for other books. As I said, I’m always writing.’
The book has had an incredibly positive reaction. I haven’t seen any negative reviews at all…
‘Yeah, I’ve noticed that myself. The reviews have been through the roof, which is very, very nice. And it’s good for my relationship with the publishing company, if nothing else. I actually thought it would be well-received, but nowhere near as well as it has been. It was awarded Mojo’s Book of the Year, and that really surprised me. And it looks as if there’s going to be a film version, now, which is all being worked out at the moment. We’ve already had several meetings and I can’t mention names, as yet, but they are pretty big names in the film industry. It’s not 100%, but it’s looking very good. I always knew it could be a film, and when I got my original contract with Random House, the one thing I insisted on changing was the percentages involved in the film rights. It was the one thing I wanted to change because I just knew it could easily become a film, and I was right.’
The way that the text is written really lends it towards a film interpretation…
‘Yes, it does. It’s a crazy story, plus there’s sex and violence, and all kinds of those juicy-things that people like to see in a film…’
But also in a way that comes across as humorous rather than exploitative…
‘Oh yeah. It’s amusing violence ! It wasn’t so hilarious when we were in the middle of it, but looking back on it, it sounds pretty damn funny. A lot of the reviews have said that it’s something that could easily be made in to a film, and that has certainly helped with some of the meetings we’ve been having.’
There’s also the whole romance in the fact that, despite all your efforts and intentions, the Brats didn’t really get anywhere…
‘Oh yes. It was a failure. And personally, I’m more interested in those stories of struggle and failure… There are plenty of books about being a success and living the high life, but they’re boring to me.’
It’s a very peculiar British trait – people always seem to like an underdog, even if they fail to succeed…
‘Yeah, you’re right. In fact, I’ve heard it said about football fans, that they don’t really love their team until they’re losing. When they’re struggling and fighting, that’s when you love them, and that’s when you become a real fan of them. It’s not when they’re sailing high and winning competitions… It’s the same kind of thing. There’s something that draws you to the struggle. It’s something about human nature that prefers to follow the losers, so I’m milking that for all it’s worth ! The book is about our failure, but I have no problems with that. What we did was still a complete success to us !’
‘Oh, yeah, it’s a life sentence. You must know… if you write, you write, and that’s all there is to it. But the thing I hadn’t really done was publishing, although I have had a few things published. Really, I just write to write, and I’ve got reams of things at home, which people are suddenly interested in seeing, by the way ! But I have published the occasional magazine article, things like that, and I’ve written forwards for other books. As I said, I’m always writing.’
The book has had an incredibly positive reaction. I haven’t seen any negative reviews at all…
‘Yeah, I’ve noticed that myself. The reviews have been through the roof, which is very, very nice. And it’s good for my relationship with the publishing company, if nothing else. I actually thought it would be well-received, but nowhere near as well as it has been. It was awarded Mojo’s Book of the Year, and that really surprised me. And it looks as if there’s going to be a film version, now, which is all being worked out at the moment. We’ve already had several meetings and I can’t mention names, as yet, but they are pretty big names in the film industry. It’s not 100%, but it’s looking very good. I always knew it could be a film, and when I got my original contract with Random House, the one thing I insisted on changing was the percentages involved in the film rights. It was the one thing I wanted to change because I just knew it could easily become a film, and I was right.’
The way that the text is written really lends it towards a film interpretation…
‘Yes, it does. It’s a crazy story, plus there’s sex and violence, and all kinds of those juicy-things that people like to see in a film…’
But also in a way that comes across as humorous rather than exploitative…
‘Oh yeah. It’s amusing violence ! It wasn’t so hilarious when we were in the middle of it, but looking back on it, it sounds pretty damn funny. A lot of the reviews have said that it’s something that could easily be made in to a film, and that has certainly helped with some of the meetings we’ve been having.’
There’s also the whole romance in the fact that, despite all your efforts and intentions, the Brats didn’t really get anywhere…
‘Oh yes. It was a failure. And personally, I’m more interested in those stories of struggle and failure… There are plenty of books about being a success and living the high life, but they’re boring to me.’
It’s a very peculiar British trait – people always seem to like an underdog, even if they fail to succeed…
‘Yeah, you’re right. In fact, I’ve heard it said about football fans, that they don’t really love their team until they’re losing. When they’re struggling and fighting, that’s when you love them, and that’s when you become a real fan of them. It’s not when they’re sailing high and winning competitions… It’s the same kind of thing. There’s something that draws you to the struggle. It’s something about human nature that prefers to follow the losers, so I’m milking that for all it’s worth ! The book is about our failure, but I have no problems with that. What we did was still a complete success to us !’
Looking back on when the Hollywood Brats came to an end, there was a real sense of disappointment. I was wondering, was the way you put the book together now an attempt to put it all to rest ?
‘Perhaps, but although it was disappointing when that happened, it only felt that way for, like, five minutes. It didn’t crush me for the rest of my life or anything. I got on with other things pretty much immediately and, in fact, I didn’t even want to talk about the Brats for years after that. When I released my own records, later on, interviewers would sometimes ask me about the Hollywood Brats, but I just wasn’t interested. I was disappointed with what happened, but only for a short time and eventually, when I thought back about it, I could only think of it as a humorous situation. So I don’t think that writing the book had been cathartic in the slightest, because I simply didn’t need that. But it has neatly wrapped things up. There were many erroneous stories about the Brats still flying around, so I wanted the book to put it to bed. People can still disagree about certain things, but for me, this wraps it up nice and neatly and now I can go on to something else.’
The book begins at a point where you’re just about to return to London from Canada… As you were born in England, this prompts the obvious question, how did you end up on the other side of the Atlantic ?
‘I was kidnapped by my parents and I couldn’t fight back because I was only a kid ! We emigrated and I grew up over there, but when I was seventeen, I came up with this idea for the Hollywood Brats… not with that name, but just the idea of the attitude, the look, the razor-wire approach to things… But I needed to fund this operation so I ended up working at three jobs and they were all ridiculous ! First, I was a furniture delivery man. Actually, not even that, I was just his assistant, and I was pretty hopeless because I wasn’t particularly strong. Then I worked as a busboy at Woolworths and then, finally, I got a job working in a mine, which was pretty terrifying. I was working with Troglodytes who wanted to kill me every day, so I’d never want to go down a mine again. It’s just wrong ! You should never go down a mine – leave it to the miners ! But I managed to save a grand and then I hit the road.’
Had you been involved in any music while you were still in Canada ?
‘Just a few teenage bands, you know, learning the ropes and paying my dues. We played gigs… I got my first job in a band when I was 13, while the rest of the guys were 18 and, if you remember when you were that age, that kind of gap is huge when you’re a teenager ! But I looked good and I sang great, so I got the gig. It was a really good way to learn. Not wanting to sound like an old guffer, but in this day and age it seems that everything is instant. Someone comes along and instantly, they’re a star ! People just make one appearance on TV and that’s all they have to do. But that’s the wrong way of doing it, you have to work at it to really find out what it’s all about. In my case, I paid my dues in Canada and then I came over here and had to do it all over again. I had to come to London if I wanted to do things properly, because that was the big league and it still is, even now. It’s a tough school, but it’s the only way to do it.’
‘Perhaps, but although it was disappointing when that happened, it only felt that way for, like, five minutes. It didn’t crush me for the rest of my life or anything. I got on with other things pretty much immediately and, in fact, I didn’t even want to talk about the Brats for years after that. When I released my own records, later on, interviewers would sometimes ask me about the Hollywood Brats, but I just wasn’t interested. I was disappointed with what happened, but only for a short time and eventually, when I thought back about it, I could only think of it as a humorous situation. So I don’t think that writing the book had been cathartic in the slightest, because I simply didn’t need that. But it has neatly wrapped things up. There were many erroneous stories about the Brats still flying around, so I wanted the book to put it to bed. People can still disagree about certain things, but for me, this wraps it up nice and neatly and now I can go on to something else.’
The book begins at a point where you’re just about to return to London from Canada… As you were born in England, this prompts the obvious question, how did you end up on the other side of the Atlantic ?
‘I was kidnapped by my parents and I couldn’t fight back because I was only a kid ! We emigrated and I grew up over there, but when I was seventeen, I came up with this idea for the Hollywood Brats… not with that name, but just the idea of the attitude, the look, the razor-wire approach to things… But I needed to fund this operation so I ended up working at three jobs and they were all ridiculous ! First, I was a furniture delivery man. Actually, not even that, I was just his assistant, and I was pretty hopeless because I wasn’t particularly strong. Then I worked as a busboy at Woolworths and then, finally, I got a job working in a mine, which was pretty terrifying. I was working with Troglodytes who wanted to kill me every day, so I’d never want to go down a mine again. It’s just wrong ! You should never go down a mine – leave it to the miners ! But I managed to save a grand and then I hit the road.’
Had you been involved in any music while you were still in Canada ?
‘Just a few teenage bands, you know, learning the ropes and paying my dues. We played gigs… I got my first job in a band when I was 13, while the rest of the guys were 18 and, if you remember when you were that age, that kind of gap is huge when you’re a teenager ! But I looked good and I sang great, so I got the gig. It was a really good way to learn. Not wanting to sound like an old guffer, but in this day and age it seems that everything is instant. Someone comes along and instantly, they’re a star ! People just make one appearance on TV and that’s all they have to do. But that’s the wrong way of doing it, you have to work at it to really find out what it’s all about. In my case, I paid my dues in Canada and then I came over here and had to do it all over again. I had to come to London if I wanted to do things properly, because that was the big league and it still is, even now. It’s a tough school, but it’s the only way to do it.’
One of the main themes that runs all through the book is your general contempt and disgust you’re your contemporary music scene…
‘Yeah, totally. And that remains to this day, firmly entrenched. I was completely disgusted with absolutely everything. I have perhaps warmed-up slightly over the years, but at that point the music scene was absolutely horrible. Everything had really gone off the rails. From Swinging London in the Sixties and all those fabulous bands, to what was happening just a few years later, everything had changed. Albums were being released in quadruple-gatefold sleeves for some weird reason, or they folded-out like origami, into the shape of a grand piano ! I mean, who needs that ? I hated everything about it, I hated Old Grey Whistling Bob, I hated it all. But hate was good for the Hollywood Brats. It was a good part of the engine, an essential part, like the oil. For us, hatred was a good thing and I applaud it.’
It’s like the so-called ‘Year Zero’ attitude that a lot of the punk bands adopted in 1976-77, saying that everything before then didn’t matter anymore. In reality, it was a load of nonsense because, of course, the new bands had all been into different types of music before then. But by stating that, it meant that they had to go out and do something of their own…
‘Of course ! I think that, every five, six or seven years, a new broom should come along and sweep. For me, Punk was always full of holes and destined to sink, but it also had some great moments. I certainly loved the big, brash noise it suddenly created and it certainly gave the charts a different flavour for a while. I mean, in comparison, how many times could you listen to Leo Sayer ?’
The one band that do seem to escape your absolute loathing is the Rolling Stones…
‘Well, they were like our grandfathers or our Dads… They did their bit, no question about it. I would say they only did their bit up to 1969 but, up until then, they probably did their bit more than anyone else. I still respect the Stones, although I don’t listen to anything since 1969… No Jones - No Stones, I have to say. I’ll also add that the Fabs were untouchable. If you don’t like them, you can hit the road.’
One of the comments often made about the Hollywood Brats was that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Certainly, in terms of success, that’s true, but at the same time, considering what was going on around you, it could also be said that you were exactly what the music scene needed at that point…
‘A case could be made for that, and I think that gradually we were converting people. There were some that started showing up to our gigs because they’d seen us the week before and they were starting to change their garb when they came to see us, so it was working. I think we were exactly where we were supposed to be, to do our bit. It was when we started playing at the Café des Artistes in West London where we really made our bones. The place would be packed when we played there and if we had carried on doing that, we would have definitely been in the right place at the right time. The funny thing was that there would always be a lot of tourists down there, so they were getting the impression that we were the hippest thing in London ! But if we played anywhere else, the reaction was like death and we actually played a lot of other places. We played every gig that we could get, up until we got signed by The Mob. Once we got signed, we stopped playing so many gigs, because we wanted to do it right. We had lousy equipment, no lights… we wanted to be able to do it right. We concentrated on writing, rehearsing and recording the album, thinking that would be the best thing to do, but then the management put us out on the road with a band called Stray, which was about as ridiculous and it could ever have been. Or they’d suddenly send us to play on our own in places like Cleethorpes or Yeovil ! We’d get a call from them and they’d tell us they’d booked a gig for us, but it would be in a place that none of us had even heard of ! We got to finish the album, but it didn’t get released and everything imploded and we never had a chance to see what might have happened. But I have no complaints, it was one of the best times of my life and those chaps are still my friends now. So I guess we were in the right place at the right time, when you look back at it now. Somebody had to do it, so we did.’
‘Yeah, totally. And that remains to this day, firmly entrenched. I was completely disgusted with absolutely everything. I have perhaps warmed-up slightly over the years, but at that point the music scene was absolutely horrible. Everything had really gone off the rails. From Swinging London in the Sixties and all those fabulous bands, to what was happening just a few years later, everything had changed. Albums were being released in quadruple-gatefold sleeves for some weird reason, or they folded-out like origami, into the shape of a grand piano ! I mean, who needs that ? I hated everything about it, I hated Old Grey Whistling Bob, I hated it all. But hate was good for the Hollywood Brats. It was a good part of the engine, an essential part, like the oil. For us, hatred was a good thing and I applaud it.’
It’s like the so-called ‘Year Zero’ attitude that a lot of the punk bands adopted in 1976-77, saying that everything before then didn’t matter anymore. In reality, it was a load of nonsense because, of course, the new bands had all been into different types of music before then. But by stating that, it meant that they had to go out and do something of their own…
‘Of course ! I think that, every five, six or seven years, a new broom should come along and sweep. For me, Punk was always full of holes and destined to sink, but it also had some great moments. I certainly loved the big, brash noise it suddenly created and it certainly gave the charts a different flavour for a while. I mean, in comparison, how many times could you listen to Leo Sayer ?’
The one band that do seem to escape your absolute loathing is the Rolling Stones…
‘Well, they were like our grandfathers or our Dads… They did their bit, no question about it. I would say they only did their bit up to 1969 but, up until then, they probably did their bit more than anyone else. I still respect the Stones, although I don’t listen to anything since 1969… No Jones - No Stones, I have to say. I’ll also add that the Fabs were untouchable. If you don’t like them, you can hit the road.’
One of the comments often made about the Hollywood Brats was that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Certainly, in terms of success, that’s true, but at the same time, considering what was going on around you, it could also be said that you were exactly what the music scene needed at that point…
‘A case could be made for that, and I think that gradually we were converting people. There were some that started showing up to our gigs because they’d seen us the week before and they were starting to change their garb when they came to see us, so it was working. I think we were exactly where we were supposed to be, to do our bit. It was when we started playing at the Café des Artistes in West London where we really made our bones. The place would be packed when we played there and if we had carried on doing that, we would have definitely been in the right place at the right time. The funny thing was that there would always be a lot of tourists down there, so they were getting the impression that we were the hippest thing in London ! But if we played anywhere else, the reaction was like death and we actually played a lot of other places. We played every gig that we could get, up until we got signed by The Mob. Once we got signed, we stopped playing so many gigs, because we wanted to do it right. We had lousy equipment, no lights… we wanted to be able to do it right. We concentrated on writing, rehearsing and recording the album, thinking that would be the best thing to do, but then the management put us out on the road with a band called Stray, which was about as ridiculous and it could ever have been. Or they’d suddenly send us to play on our own in places like Cleethorpes or Yeovil ! We’d get a call from them and they’d tell us they’d booked a gig for us, but it would be in a place that none of us had even heard of ! We got to finish the album, but it didn’t get released and everything imploded and we never had a chance to see what might have happened. But I have no complaints, it was one of the best times of my life and those chaps are still my friends now. So I guess we were in the right place at the right time, when you look back at it now. Somebody had to do it, so we did.’
It must have been very frustrating at the time, but in retrospect, I’m sure it’s great to look back and see what you did do rather than looking back and thinking, I wish we’d tried to do that…
‘Oh yeah… the one good thing that we did do was to record the album, so it’s still in the grooves. Had the book just been the story, without the album to back it up, it would be nothing. But the thing was, we did get signed by WWA and we did get in to Olympic Studios, which was the apex at the time. That was fabulous.’
Actually, in the book you talk about quite a few different recording sessions. Do you still have all of that material ?
‘I still have it… as I said earlier, for some reason, all of that Brats stuff just stuck with me over the years. I’ve got all of the original acetates and tapes, I’ve still got all of it, which has come in very handy over the past year or so as The Hollywood Brats album is going to be re-mastered and re-released later this year with extra bits and pieces. It’s coming out on Cherry Red again, but I’m overseeing the project this time,so hopefully this will cover everything more thoroughly.’
Is there much unreleased material still out there ?
‘Yes, but it’s absolute crap. If any of it had been good, it would’ve been on the album. But most of it is rubbish, just like everybody else’s outtakes are rubbish. Actually, no, it’s not all rubbish… there’s a brilliant version of ‘I Need You’ by The Kinks, which makes the original sound like a bunch of granddads trying to play rock’n’roll. That’s how good the Brats could be ! And there are other bits and pieces… a live version of ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, where you can actually hear the booing at the end ! I think that’s great because it’s accurate, it’s the truth ! And the real fans will love to hear that ! There’s bits of dialogue, you know, just us messing around while the tapes were still on… there’s a recording of Brady being sick ! That’s all stuff that I’m sure the fans will love. We try to give value for money. But in essence, the tracks that are on the original album are the ones that we wanted on there and the rest of the recordings were deemed to be inferior or just not good enough. The extra stuff we’ll be including on the new version of the album will be material that will be good stuff for a fan.’
In particular, there’s the song ‘Melinda Lee’, which seemed to be a very important part of your live set. You even mention in the book that you’re not sure why it wasn’t included on the album…
‘Yeah, it was one of those oddball things… Me and Cas will still talk about it now, when we see each other. Why the Hell didn’t we record that song ? It was a really popular number and it served us well. We always opened our shows with it and, if we were getting attacked, we’d play it again because it seemed to make everybody shut-up ! It really was an oversight and I really have no I have no clue why we didn’t record it for the album, because we taped some real nonsense while we were in the studio. I don’t think we were overly drunk at the time, either, so I can’t even blame it on that. It was actually recorded once, earlier on, but those tapes disappeared so who the Hell knows where they are…’
‘Oh yeah… the one good thing that we did do was to record the album, so it’s still in the grooves. Had the book just been the story, without the album to back it up, it would be nothing. But the thing was, we did get signed by WWA and we did get in to Olympic Studios, which was the apex at the time. That was fabulous.’
Actually, in the book you talk about quite a few different recording sessions. Do you still have all of that material ?
‘I still have it… as I said earlier, for some reason, all of that Brats stuff just stuck with me over the years. I’ve got all of the original acetates and tapes, I’ve still got all of it, which has come in very handy over the past year or so as The Hollywood Brats album is going to be re-mastered and re-released later this year with extra bits and pieces. It’s coming out on Cherry Red again, but I’m overseeing the project this time,so hopefully this will cover everything more thoroughly.’
Is there much unreleased material still out there ?
‘Yes, but it’s absolute crap. If any of it had been good, it would’ve been on the album. But most of it is rubbish, just like everybody else’s outtakes are rubbish. Actually, no, it’s not all rubbish… there’s a brilliant version of ‘I Need You’ by The Kinks, which makes the original sound like a bunch of granddads trying to play rock’n’roll. That’s how good the Brats could be ! And there are other bits and pieces… a live version of ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, where you can actually hear the booing at the end ! I think that’s great because it’s accurate, it’s the truth ! And the real fans will love to hear that ! There’s bits of dialogue, you know, just us messing around while the tapes were still on… there’s a recording of Brady being sick ! That’s all stuff that I’m sure the fans will love. We try to give value for money. But in essence, the tracks that are on the original album are the ones that we wanted on there and the rest of the recordings were deemed to be inferior or just not good enough. The extra stuff we’ll be including on the new version of the album will be material that will be good stuff for a fan.’
In particular, there’s the song ‘Melinda Lee’, which seemed to be a very important part of your live set. You even mention in the book that you’re not sure why it wasn’t included on the album…
‘Yeah, it was one of those oddball things… Me and Cas will still talk about it now, when we see each other. Why the Hell didn’t we record that song ? It was a really popular number and it served us well. We always opened our shows with it and, if we were getting attacked, we’d play it again because it seemed to make everybody shut-up ! It really was an oversight and I really have no I have no clue why we didn’t record it for the album, because we taped some real nonsense while we were in the studio. I don’t think we were overly drunk at the time, either, so I can’t even blame it on that. It was actually recorded once, earlier on, but those tapes disappeared so who the Hell knows where they are…’
Actually, that’s one of the things that came across in the book. Although the band were leading a pretty chaotic lifestyle, when it came recording, you were very focused on what you were doing…
‘The way we were living was very chaotic, but we were really on the ball about what we were doing. We were absolutely blinkered and dedicated when it came to the music. Everything else was utter chaos, but our attitude to the music was ultra-professional. We were very intent on what we were doing and making sure we got it down right. Everything else may have been like a hurricane, but that was the one thing we all focused on.’
One of the things that some people have been surprised about in the book is the way that you seem to be quite dismissive of the New York Dolls. In a lot of ways, they were taking a very similar approach to what the Brats were doing, so some would have expected you to be more enthusiastic about them…
‘I dismissed them in some ways, but in other ways I didn’t. We weren’t influenced by them for the simple fact that we had no clue about them when we started out. It wasn’t as if it now, where everyone has the internet and knows about everything else that’s going on. We were operating in a separate universe, but there were definite parallels. When we first discovered them, we got dead worried as we though we were the only guys doing this thing and we got very worried about them. They looked great, everything they said sounded great, but when I finally got to hear the record, I thought, thank God, because I knew we could wipe the floor with them. I’ve never really had any regard for them in terms of their music, but in many other ways I have nothing but respect for them. I liked the fact that the existed and I considered them a huge threat to what we were doing until I actually heard them. But when Wheezy Bob on Whistle test called them ‘mock rock’, that changed everything for us. We got our backs-up about that and became defenders of them. So I think it’s unfair to say I didn’t respect the New York Dolls. I respect who they were and what they were trying to do, but I just thought that the music was a bit weak. I was really worried about them to begin with, but by the time I heard their first record, I was more concerned about where they managed to get a pink drum set !’
On the opposite end of the scale, another person you briefly became involved with at the time, was Cliff Richard…
‘Cliff ! I love Cliff ! Have you ever seen his teeth ? Fabulous ! He’s got that brown, tanned face and those white teeth… if you ever see him in a dark room, those teeth just light up the place ! He’s got a lovely way of walking, too. I couldn’t do it, but he can. Beautiful ! A very nice chap, very polite and very generous. To us, going in to his realm, to the extent that we did, was just like being in a magic kingdom. They had food ! They had liquor cabinets ! They had bottles of wine, all kinds of things… And he was a very, very nice chap towards us, a consummate gentleman and a good guy. I know there’s been various allegations made against him recently and we didn’t exactly spend lots of time with him, but I have to say, he certainly didn’t strike us as that kind of person. I mean, we were all dressing in a kind of effeminate way and even wearing lipstick, but he just genuinely seemed to want to help us.’
‘The way we were living was very chaotic, but we were really on the ball about what we were doing. We were absolutely blinkered and dedicated when it came to the music. Everything else was utter chaos, but our attitude to the music was ultra-professional. We were very intent on what we were doing and making sure we got it down right. Everything else may have been like a hurricane, but that was the one thing we all focused on.’
One of the things that some people have been surprised about in the book is the way that you seem to be quite dismissive of the New York Dolls. In a lot of ways, they were taking a very similar approach to what the Brats were doing, so some would have expected you to be more enthusiastic about them…
‘I dismissed them in some ways, but in other ways I didn’t. We weren’t influenced by them for the simple fact that we had no clue about them when we started out. It wasn’t as if it now, where everyone has the internet and knows about everything else that’s going on. We were operating in a separate universe, but there were definite parallels. When we first discovered them, we got dead worried as we though we were the only guys doing this thing and we got very worried about them. They looked great, everything they said sounded great, but when I finally got to hear the record, I thought, thank God, because I knew we could wipe the floor with them. I’ve never really had any regard for them in terms of their music, but in many other ways I have nothing but respect for them. I liked the fact that the existed and I considered them a huge threat to what we were doing until I actually heard them. But when Wheezy Bob on Whistle test called them ‘mock rock’, that changed everything for us. We got our backs-up about that and became defenders of them. So I think it’s unfair to say I didn’t respect the New York Dolls. I respect who they were and what they were trying to do, but I just thought that the music was a bit weak. I was really worried about them to begin with, but by the time I heard their first record, I was more concerned about where they managed to get a pink drum set !’
On the opposite end of the scale, another person you briefly became involved with at the time, was Cliff Richard…
‘Cliff ! I love Cliff ! Have you ever seen his teeth ? Fabulous ! He’s got that brown, tanned face and those white teeth… if you ever see him in a dark room, those teeth just light up the place ! He’s got a lovely way of walking, too. I couldn’t do it, but he can. Beautiful ! A very nice chap, very polite and very generous. To us, going in to his realm, to the extent that we did, was just like being in a magic kingdom. They had food ! They had liquor cabinets ! They had bottles of wine, all kinds of things… And he was a very, very nice chap towards us, a consummate gentleman and a good guy. I know there’s been various allegations made against him recently and we didn’t exactly spend lots of time with him, but I have to say, he certainly didn’t strike us as that kind of person. I mean, we were all dressing in a kind of effeminate way and even wearing lipstick, but he just genuinely seemed to want to help us.’
The Brats finally signed up with World Wide Artists (WWA) and, at first, you all seemed to think you were finally on the road to success. But in the end, it proved to be the start of your demise…
‘Well, we were very impressed with Ken Mewis, who actually signed us, because he looked great and he had previously worked at Immediate Records with Andrew Oldham. We looked at Andrew Oldham as if he were God, and if we ever thought of the kind of manager we wanted, that was all we pictured – Andrew Loog Oldham ! Ken looked like he could be his younger brother, he had worked with him and even introduced us to him, so how could we not sign with Ken ? I couldn’t fucking wait to sign with him ! When someone gave me a copy of the contract and asked me to read it, I thought they were kidding. Who’s got time to read a contract ? So we signed to World Wide Artists, but it turned out to be about as shady as it could get. We just thought that was the way it was in the music business, because there was no-one telling us anything different. We didn’t hear that if you signed to Warners it would be any different, we just thought, this is it. They had a guy like Ken up front, he was the kinda glamorous front-of-house man, but then there were all these other guys sitting behind the big doors… You know, we just thought it was the same all over. Maybe it was ? On one occasion, we were in the office and this American guy turned up with his bodyguards, looking like something straight out of the Mafia. We ended up talking to him about Dean Martin and Sinatra. It was an amazing time and it’s still incredible that we didn’t end up dead ! I’m sure things are still pretty much the same today, just with different clothes, you know ? But it was a very interesting time for us.’
Although you recorded an album that you were very happy with, you then found it impossible to get it released and consequently, the disappointment lead to the band breaking up…
‘We ended up in a stalemate. It was a lovely stalemate for a while, because we were living in a fabulous pad, we had a TV and we had hot’n’cold running chicks, so everything was great. We had dope sent to us by the company and all kinds of other nonsense. Everything was being paid-for but that was only going to last for a while. We were still sitting there, watching Top Of The Pops and throwing things at the TV because it was all so bad, while we had a great album in the can and we just wanted to get it out there. But we didn’t know what to do next. We’d done our bit and now it was up to the company, but we didn’t know that WWA was imploding at the same time and all kinds of weird stuff was going on. We had no clue about that… and we also had no clue that all the record labels were going to hate our music ! In the book, I list all those different meetings with record labels and I know they all took place because I have Ken’s notes from that period, which he allowed me to use. He went to all those meetings and every one of the labels basically said, What the fuck is this ? That was happening to us while WWA was imploding behind the scenes. There were actually times that we went to the office and as we walked up the stairs, some guy in a suit, carrying a briefcase, would be coming down with his face smashed-in ! Which wasn’t really a good sign… In the end, we heard that they were going to burn our tapes, so we had to sneak in and steal them before they got destroyed. And when you suddenly realise that you’re stealing tapes from the Mafia, even in a musicians’ head, something is going to click and say, there’s something wrong here… So it all went to Hell in a handbasket and, of course, we all started fighting among ourselves. Everybody ended up believing it was someone else’s fault and never their own. And I’m not just talking about arguments, we were literally fighting, which was stupid. Then the company stopped playing our rent and we had to get out of the house. We were all really jaded by that point and just ended up thinking, well, if the world doesn’t want us, fuck ‘em ! We split-up and that was it, which was crushing for a while, but maybe not as long as you’d expect. I’m fairly resilient about these kind of things, but it was still very disappointing that we hadn’t been able to release the album, and also disappointing to leave my friends. We may have been sick to death of each other by then, but we’d always been able to stick together and now it was over.’
‘Well, we were very impressed with Ken Mewis, who actually signed us, because he looked great and he had previously worked at Immediate Records with Andrew Oldham. We looked at Andrew Oldham as if he were God, and if we ever thought of the kind of manager we wanted, that was all we pictured – Andrew Loog Oldham ! Ken looked like he could be his younger brother, he had worked with him and even introduced us to him, so how could we not sign with Ken ? I couldn’t fucking wait to sign with him ! When someone gave me a copy of the contract and asked me to read it, I thought they were kidding. Who’s got time to read a contract ? So we signed to World Wide Artists, but it turned out to be about as shady as it could get. We just thought that was the way it was in the music business, because there was no-one telling us anything different. We didn’t hear that if you signed to Warners it would be any different, we just thought, this is it. They had a guy like Ken up front, he was the kinda glamorous front-of-house man, but then there were all these other guys sitting behind the big doors… You know, we just thought it was the same all over. Maybe it was ? On one occasion, we were in the office and this American guy turned up with his bodyguards, looking like something straight out of the Mafia. We ended up talking to him about Dean Martin and Sinatra. It was an amazing time and it’s still incredible that we didn’t end up dead ! I’m sure things are still pretty much the same today, just with different clothes, you know ? But it was a very interesting time for us.’
Although you recorded an album that you were very happy with, you then found it impossible to get it released and consequently, the disappointment lead to the band breaking up…
‘We ended up in a stalemate. It was a lovely stalemate for a while, because we were living in a fabulous pad, we had a TV and we had hot’n’cold running chicks, so everything was great. We had dope sent to us by the company and all kinds of other nonsense. Everything was being paid-for but that was only going to last for a while. We were still sitting there, watching Top Of The Pops and throwing things at the TV because it was all so bad, while we had a great album in the can and we just wanted to get it out there. But we didn’t know what to do next. We’d done our bit and now it was up to the company, but we didn’t know that WWA was imploding at the same time and all kinds of weird stuff was going on. We had no clue about that… and we also had no clue that all the record labels were going to hate our music ! In the book, I list all those different meetings with record labels and I know they all took place because I have Ken’s notes from that period, which he allowed me to use. He went to all those meetings and every one of the labels basically said, What the fuck is this ? That was happening to us while WWA was imploding behind the scenes. There were actually times that we went to the office and as we walked up the stairs, some guy in a suit, carrying a briefcase, would be coming down with his face smashed-in ! Which wasn’t really a good sign… In the end, we heard that they were going to burn our tapes, so we had to sneak in and steal them before they got destroyed. And when you suddenly realise that you’re stealing tapes from the Mafia, even in a musicians’ head, something is going to click and say, there’s something wrong here… So it all went to Hell in a handbasket and, of course, we all started fighting among ourselves. Everybody ended up believing it was someone else’s fault and never their own. And I’m not just talking about arguments, we were literally fighting, which was stupid. Then the company stopped playing our rent and we had to get out of the house. We were all really jaded by that point and just ended up thinking, well, if the world doesn’t want us, fuck ‘em ! We split-up and that was it, which was crushing for a while, but maybe not as long as you’d expect. I’m fairly resilient about these kind of things, but it was still very disappointing that we hadn’t been able to release the album, and also disappointing to leave my friends. We may have been sick to death of each other by then, but we’d always been able to stick together and now it was over.’
You did still stick with Cas after the band broke up… Did you intend to carry on playing music together ?
‘Well, we were always great friends and I think we just assumed we’d do something else. You know, write new songs or watch football or something… Cas finally managed to get our album released on Mercury Records in Norway, in 1975, and that was a little boost but, by then, there was no Hollywood Brats, just me and Cas. For that one afternoon when copies of the album arrived, it was great, but after that it was back to nothing. We ended up in these doldrums which weren’t alleviated until one night, when we were watching football, and we got a yell from the street outside our window, which turned out to be Mick Jones and Tony James. But even that was just a minor distraction because, by then, we were just really fed up with all of it… I certainly was, maybe Cas was less so. He still had some drive, but I had none by then, so it all eventually petered out and I hit the road.’
You mention the time when Mick Jones and Tony James persuaded you and Cas to go down to Denmark Street and meet Malcolm McLaren, who made a proposal for the Hollywood Brats to reform. At the end of that episode, you comment that although you were not impressed with Malcolm on that occasion, you later changed your opinion of him. In what ways did that happen ?
‘Well, he was just such a weird cat. He’d talk to you in this strange way, you know, never actually looking at you in the eye. It was pretty disconcerting to someone like me as I like to look at someone when we’re talking. He’d also be making all these fey movements while we were discussing things, although I was sort of used to that as our previous manager used to do that kind of stuff. But it was almost as if he was talking to you in the third-person and it was very disconcerting. It made me lose a lot of his message because I was just getting annoyed with him. I probably would have listened more intently if he had just looked at me. I ended up wondering if he was on drugs or something. Maybe he was, and I’m not against that, but I underestimated him because of the way he came at me. Also, he didn’t really seem to know much about me, even though he was smart enough to know there was something there, which is why he instigated the meetings. The more I found out about him later on, the more I realised how smart he really was and maybe all that other stuff was just some kind of smoke screen that I couldn’t see through. I just found him annoying on that occasion, but watching his career trajectory from that point onwards, you have to tip your hat to him. The man did his bit. He was a bit of a carnival huckster, but I like that. You know, if someone’s got dancing chickens, I want to see them ! So, yes, I underestimated him at that point, although I have to temper that with, I was also very jaded and I probably wouldn’t have been able to see a good idea if one had been put right in front of me. But I under-estimated him and I do regret that.’
Soon after this, you were briefly involved with the formation of the London SS…
‘Yeah, and I really liked some of those guys, but musically, it was dreadful. We started to rehearse, but I just couldn’t face whipping them in to shape. I was thinking, it’s going to take at least another year of my life before we’re even ready to do anything… Also, I was 24 by then and I was thinking, I’m old ! I mean, Keith Moon was only 16 when he made it, but here I am and I’m 24 ! I’m supposed to be on to my fourth wife by now ! So it ended and I didn’t carry on with that. But it is funny that the London SS thing has since attained this legendary status. There are so many stories about them, but most of them are wrong. If you believe all the stories, it’s as if everybody was in the London SS, but really, hardly anyone was. Six guys, maybe, in total. It’s not something that keeps me awake at nights, but so many of the stories are wrong. There are guys that were playing pool in the other room who now claim they were in London SS ! It was an interesting concept for a band, and the kind of thing that I liked… ‘London SS’ does sound great ! We had ideas about the lighting, and having coils of barbed wire at the front of the stage. That was the stuff I loved, that was interesting to me. But the sheer lack of musical talent in that band was something that I could not handle. There was some talent, but other people just could not play. They could pose and they looked good, but the music just wasn’t there. So I hit the road, even before Bernie Rhodes got involved with them…’
‘Well, we were always great friends and I think we just assumed we’d do something else. You know, write new songs or watch football or something… Cas finally managed to get our album released on Mercury Records in Norway, in 1975, and that was a little boost but, by then, there was no Hollywood Brats, just me and Cas. For that one afternoon when copies of the album arrived, it was great, but after that it was back to nothing. We ended up in these doldrums which weren’t alleviated until one night, when we were watching football, and we got a yell from the street outside our window, which turned out to be Mick Jones and Tony James. But even that was just a minor distraction because, by then, we were just really fed up with all of it… I certainly was, maybe Cas was less so. He still had some drive, but I had none by then, so it all eventually petered out and I hit the road.’
You mention the time when Mick Jones and Tony James persuaded you and Cas to go down to Denmark Street and meet Malcolm McLaren, who made a proposal for the Hollywood Brats to reform. At the end of that episode, you comment that although you were not impressed with Malcolm on that occasion, you later changed your opinion of him. In what ways did that happen ?
‘Well, he was just such a weird cat. He’d talk to you in this strange way, you know, never actually looking at you in the eye. It was pretty disconcerting to someone like me as I like to look at someone when we’re talking. He’d also be making all these fey movements while we were discussing things, although I was sort of used to that as our previous manager used to do that kind of stuff. But it was almost as if he was talking to you in the third-person and it was very disconcerting. It made me lose a lot of his message because I was just getting annoyed with him. I probably would have listened more intently if he had just looked at me. I ended up wondering if he was on drugs or something. Maybe he was, and I’m not against that, but I underestimated him because of the way he came at me. Also, he didn’t really seem to know much about me, even though he was smart enough to know there was something there, which is why he instigated the meetings. The more I found out about him later on, the more I realised how smart he really was and maybe all that other stuff was just some kind of smoke screen that I couldn’t see through. I just found him annoying on that occasion, but watching his career trajectory from that point onwards, you have to tip your hat to him. The man did his bit. He was a bit of a carnival huckster, but I like that. You know, if someone’s got dancing chickens, I want to see them ! So, yes, I underestimated him at that point, although I have to temper that with, I was also very jaded and I probably wouldn’t have been able to see a good idea if one had been put right in front of me. But I under-estimated him and I do regret that.’
Soon after this, you were briefly involved with the formation of the London SS…
‘Yeah, and I really liked some of those guys, but musically, it was dreadful. We started to rehearse, but I just couldn’t face whipping them in to shape. I was thinking, it’s going to take at least another year of my life before we’re even ready to do anything… Also, I was 24 by then and I was thinking, I’m old ! I mean, Keith Moon was only 16 when he made it, but here I am and I’m 24 ! I’m supposed to be on to my fourth wife by now ! So it ended and I didn’t carry on with that. But it is funny that the London SS thing has since attained this legendary status. There are so many stories about them, but most of them are wrong. If you believe all the stories, it’s as if everybody was in the London SS, but really, hardly anyone was. Six guys, maybe, in total. It’s not something that keeps me awake at nights, but so many of the stories are wrong. There are guys that were playing pool in the other room who now claim they were in London SS ! It was an interesting concept for a band, and the kind of thing that I liked… ‘London SS’ does sound great ! We had ideas about the lighting, and having coils of barbed wire at the front of the stage. That was the stuff I loved, that was interesting to me. But the sheer lack of musical talent in that band was something that I could not handle. There was some talent, but other people just could not play. They could pose and they looked good, but the music just wasn’t there. So I hit the road, even before Bernie Rhodes got involved with them…’
And you were also, briefly, involved with The Boys…
‘I came back to London as they were getting together and I was involved with them but only for a similar sort of time, just fifteen minutes or something. I couldn’t handle that either. I’d had it up to here by that point, with starting bands and all that stuff. I thought that I’d already done the perfect job with the Hollywood Brats. I’d done what I set out to do so everything else just seemed stupid. And also, by then, I wanted to play football and, whatever level I was going to play, I just wanted to do it. I didn’t want to reach 35 and realise that I was too old to do it. So I’m glad I did that… I didn’t make much money, but I had fun and I got into perfect shape !’
The Boys also adopted several of the Hollywood Brats’ songs (‘Sick On You’ and ‘Tumble With Me’) which would have been the first time that most people got to hear them. Were you happy with them using your songs ?
‘Well, it was around the time that I really just wanted to close the door on the Brats, so I don’t remember feeling great about them playing and recording those songs. But at the same time, I didn’t really care. Cas was like my brother and I already knew Matt Dangerfield so I wished them well with it. I’m sure when their first album came out, I must have felt good that I had a couple of my songs on there, but I don’t particularly recall anything about it. I was just happy that Cas had something going, and feeling good for them. But I was pretty shut-off from it by then.’
Around the time that the Punk scene started to take-off, was there ever been any temptation to reform the Hollywood Brats ? I get the impression that if you had started playing live again in 1977 or 78, there would have been a lot more interest in what you were doing and probably much better opportunities to release the album…
‘Well, that was the crux of my meeting with Malcolm McLaren in the first place, and I guess there was some idea that Mick Jones and Tony James could be a part of it as well. I don’t really know… Malcolm wanted to get the Brats back together, but this time wearing Viviennes’ t-shirts, and he thought that would be great. But it was a recipe that just sounded so boring to me. The Brats had been so special and such a perfect little niche in time, that any attempt to resurrect the corpse would just have been a parody of itself. It seemed ridiculous to me so I couldn’t do that. I’d have rather done something else and, as they say, you can never go back. The past is a foreign country… well, the Brats was a foreign country to me by that point. They were rapidly becoming a fond memory and I was happy to keep it that way. Reforming that Brats had no appeal to me at that time and while I’m sure there would’ve been a much bigger audience for the Brats by then, I still felt no temptation to do it, not in the slightest. For a long time, I didn’t even want to talk about the band because I felt that I’d moved on. I couldn’t be screaming ‘Sick On You’ into a microphone when I was 26 years old ! And I was right, you have to be 20 or 21 to do that properly. In the last few years, I have got up on stage with some of my friends and sung that song again, but only because they’re my friends and we can still deliver it. I can still sing, I still look fine and I have fabulous hair, so I can enjoy getting up and singing it on rare occasions. But when I was 26 or 27 years old and people were asking me to reform the band and do it again, I had no interest whatsoever. But I think as you get older, you change your perspective. At one point, I would have said, with no exceptions, bands should never reform. But now, I look at it like… if Duke Ellington was playing in London, even if he was 90 years old, I would still want to see him. Once you realise that you would still want to see guys like that, you also start to think maybe you would like to see some bands reform, even though twenty years ago you would have been dead set against it.’
‘I came back to London as they were getting together and I was involved with them but only for a similar sort of time, just fifteen minutes or something. I couldn’t handle that either. I’d had it up to here by that point, with starting bands and all that stuff. I thought that I’d already done the perfect job with the Hollywood Brats. I’d done what I set out to do so everything else just seemed stupid. And also, by then, I wanted to play football and, whatever level I was going to play, I just wanted to do it. I didn’t want to reach 35 and realise that I was too old to do it. So I’m glad I did that… I didn’t make much money, but I had fun and I got into perfect shape !’
The Boys also adopted several of the Hollywood Brats’ songs (‘Sick On You’ and ‘Tumble With Me’) which would have been the first time that most people got to hear them. Were you happy with them using your songs ?
‘Well, it was around the time that I really just wanted to close the door on the Brats, so I don’t remember feeling great about them playing and recording those songs. But at the same time, I didn’t really care. Cas was like my brother and I already knew Matt Dangerfield so I wished them well with it. I’m sure when their first album came out, I must have felt good that I had a couple of my songs on there, but I don’t particularly recall anything about it. I was just happy that Cas had something going, and feeling good for them. But I was pretty shut-off from it by then.’
Around the time that the Punk scene started to take-off, was there ever been any temptation to reform the Hollywood Brats ? I get the impression that if you had started playing live again in 1977 or 78, there would have been a lot more interest in what you were doing and probably much better opportunities to release the album…
‘Well, that was the crux of my meeting with Malcolm McLaren in the first place, and I guess there was some idea that Mick Jones and Tony James could be a part of it as well. I don’t really know… Malcolm wanted to get the Brats back together, but this time wearing Viviennes’ t-shirts, and he thought that would be great. But it was a recipe that just sounded so boring to me. The Brats had been so special and such a perfect little niche in time, that any attempt to resurrect the corpse would just have been a parody of itself. It seemed ridiculous to me so I couldn’t do that. I’d have rather done something else and, as they say, you can never go back. The past is a foreign country… well, the Brats was a foreign country to me by that point. They were rapidly becoming a fond memory and I was happy to keep it that way. Reforming that Brats had no appeal to me at that time and while I’m sure there would’ve been a much bigger audience for the Brats by then, I still felt no temptation to do it, not in the slightest. For a long time, I didn’t even want to talk about the band because I felt that I’d moved on. I couldn’t be screaming ‘Sick On You’ into a microphone when I was 26 years old ! And I was right, you have to be 20 or 21 to do that properly. In the last few years, I have got up on stage with some of my friends and sung that song again, but only because they’re my friends and we can still deliver it. I can still sing, I still look fine and I have fabulous hair, so I can enjoy getting up and singing it on rare occasions. But when I was 26 or 27 years old and people were asking me to reform the band and do it again, I had no interest whatsoever. But I think as you get older, you change your perspective. At one point, I would have said, with no exceptions, bands should never reform. But now, I look at it like… if Duke Ellington was playing in London, even if he was 90 years old, I would still want to see him. Once you realise that you would still want to see guys like that, you also start to think maybe you would like to see some bands reform, even though twenty years ago you would have been dead set against it.’
I know you released a couple of solo albums later on, but after all the difficulties and frustrations you had with the Hollywood Brats, were you put-off the music business ?
‘Well, I’m still involved in it, so it can’t have put me off altogether ! In a way, it was actually quite the opposite. It just seemed like life at the carnival. I mean, it was never supposed to be an accountancy course, was it ? This is rock’n’roll, so let’s go ! It’s supposed to have mobsters and things like that in it. At the time, I just thought it was the norm, and it was also quite fun. Whenever we went in to the office, in Mayfair, there was always something happening there. There would always be something wild happening, or Ozzy Osbourne would be there to poke fun at… There would always be something interesting to see.’
You released a solo album in 1979, and another one later on in the 1994 but they were both very different, musically, to the Hollywood Brats…
‘Of course ! I mean, the Brats were never just one thing. Me and Cass were big country music fans, for one example, so there were all kinds of music that I’d like to work with. I try to release one album every decade, whether they want it or not, and I’m just about to sign another solo deal shortly, to release another album later this year. It’s not done yet, but it is going to happen. But there was a lot more that went in to the Brats music than most people realised and that’s what made it interesting. The spectrum of influences in our music was huge and that’s what makes it fascinating. You need a wealth of experiences and influences to make something good.’
Obviously, you haven’t played music full-time over the years, so I was wondering what you have been doing since the Seventies ?
‘What was I doing ? Billions of things ! I moved to Los Angeles… I like to move around a lot and try to stay one step ahead of my demons at all times. I actually went to Los Angeles to write the soundtrack for a fucking movie, which I did. I was only supposed to be there for two weeks but I ended up staying for eight years, which is what happens to a lot of people in Los Angeles. I loved it, so I stayed there for quite a long time. I was involved in various bits’n’bobs while I was there, but I was always involved with music. I also had a son while I was out there, and I was involved in a recurring legal soap opera… I’m editing myself as I go along, here ! I got the deal to release my second solo album while I was over there… I’d been self-publishing my own songs for a while and MCA offered to buy them out, so that lead to the album. I also built a house… I’m a carpenter, a fully-fledged chippy ! You know, I’ve just been doing lots of those normal things that lots of people do, that make you want to punch someone every time you get up ! I lived in Toronto for a while, and also in Paris for a time, but I’m back in London now and I hope that I’m back here for good.’
‘Well, I’m still involved in it, so it can’t have put me off altogether ! In a way, it was actually quite the opposite. It just seemed like life at the carnival. I mean, it was never supposed to be an accountancy course, was it ? This is rock’n’roll, so let’s go ! It’s supposed to have mobsters and things like that in it. At the time, I just thought it was the norm, and it was also quite fun. Whenever we went in to the office, in Mayfair, there was always something happening there. There would always be something wild happening, or Ozzy Osbourne would be there to poke fun at… There would always be something interesting to see.’
You released a solo album in 1979, and another one later on in the 1994 but they were both very different, musically, to the Hollywood Brats…
‘Of course ! I mean, the Brats were never just one thing. Me and Cass were big country music fans, for one example, so there were all kinds of music that I’d like to work with. I try to release one album every decade, whether they want it or not, and I’m just about to sign another solo deal shortly, to release another album later this year. It’s not done yet, but it is going to happen. But there was a lot more that went in to the Brats music than most people realised and that’s what made it interesting. The spectrum of influences in our music was huge and that’s what makes it fascinating. You need a wealth of experiences and influences to make something good.’
Obviously, you haven’t played music full-time over the years, so I was wondering what you have been doing since the Seventies ?
‘What was I doing ? Billions of things ! I moved to Los Angeles… I like to move around a lot and try to stay one step ahead of my demons at all times. I actually went to Los Angeles to write the soundtrack for a fucking movie, which I did. I was only supposed to be there for two weeks but I ended up staying for eight years, which is what happens to a lot of people in Los Angeles. I loved it, so I stayed there for quite a long time. I was involved in various bits’n’bobs while I was there, but I was always involved with music. I also had a son while I was out there, and I was involved in a recurring legal soap opera… I’m editing myself as I go along, here ! I got the deal to release my second solo album while I was over there… I’d been self-publishing my own songs for a while and MCA offered to buy them out, so that lead to the album. I also built a house… I’m a carpenter, a fully-fledged chippy ! You know, I’ve just been doing lots of those normal things that lots of people do, that make you want to punch someone every time you get up ! I lived in Toronto for a while, and also in Paris for a time, but I’m back in London now and I hope that I’m back here for good.’
I remember the night that you joined The Boys onstage at the Borderline for a version of ‘Sick On You’. Apparently, it was the first time you’d sung that song in public since the Seventies, but you certainly claimed the stage as your own and made a real impression on the audience…
‘Well, if you’re going onstage as the lead singer, you have to do that, you have to take over. That’s your job. It was the first time I’d sung that song since the Brats had broken up and it was fun. We didn’t have any rehearsal for it, either. Rehearsals are for amateurs ! It was no problem, it was just like swimming… you either swim or you drown. For me, it was nothing but fun and I loved getting together with those chaps again … Of course, Duncan is no longer plays with them, but he’s still my friend so I have got up and sung with his band as well. Getting together with any of those chaps, it’s just as if it’s 1975 again. . It was just like having a kick-around in the park after not playing football for thirty years. It’s the easiest thing I could ever do and so much fun. I’ve always loved The Boys because they could play well, they had great songs and they had the right attitude. In fact, the only thing I didn’t like about them was the name. They have the worst name in the history of music… but that’s the only thing I don’t like about them and when I think about everything else, they’re my favourite band. I was a bit disappointed when Duncan left the band, but I think it’s worked out for them and Duncan’s doing just fine with his own band as well. I completely respect all of them.’
Playing live again, even for just those occasional guest appearances, did it tempt you to try and do anything else ?
‘No, not at all. It was thoroughly enjoyable, I enjoyed working the crowd and I think they enjoyed seeing me, so that was perfectly fine. That was enough of a shot for me.’
But with the success of the book, and the possibility of a film version, isn’t it inevitable that there will be new offers for the Hollywood Brats to reform ?
‘Well, speaking of this, the Brats have already been offered a bundle to reform and it may happen… We’ve been offered some big gigs, as well, so I have been weighing it up. I got a phone-call from someone, offering quite a decent amount of money for the band to reform, but I said no thank you, even though I was flattered. Then the phone rang again, about half an hour later, the offer had increased and was very, very interesting, but I still said no thank you, because I just didn’t want to do it. The next day, the phone rang once more and the offer had got to the point where I started thinking, well, I really have to start looking at this ! I mean, philosophically, the only way that I would do it is if we can make sure that it’s done perfectly. If it sounds like we can’t cut it, then I definitely wouldn’t do it. I’m sure that I can deliver, but the rest of the band would have to be able to as well. Even if they come just below the line, then I wouldn’t do it at all. I mean, it’s nice to be offered a good amount of money to reform, but for me, I could only play if we were going to be doing it properly and for the right reasons. If I do end up doing anything with the Brats again, it will be totally top drawer, from my perspective. It will be done to the ultimate degree, with everything we want to have onstage. Screens, all kinds of nonsense going on, it will be a real show. If it does happen, it will be money well-spent on a gig because we will only do it if we know that we can deliver.’
‘Well, if you’re going onstage as the lead singer, you have to do that, you have to take over. That’s your job. It was the first time I’d sung that song since the Brats had broken up and it was fun. We didn’t have any rehearsal for it, either. Rehearsals are for amateurs ! It was no problem, it was just like swimming… you either swim or you drown. For me, it was nothing but fun and I loved getting together with those chaps again … Of course, Duncan is no longer plays with them, but he’s still my friend so I have got up and sung with his band as well. Getting together with any of those chaps, it’s just as if it’s 1975 again. . It was just like having a kick-around in the park after not playing football for thirty years. It’s the easiest thing I could ever do and so much fun. I’ve always loved The Boys because they could play well, they had great songs and they had the right attitude. In fact, the only thing I didn’t like about them was the name. They have the worst name in the history of music… but that’s the only thing I don’t like about them and when I think about everything else, they’re my favourite band. I was a bit disappointed when Duncan left the band, but I think it’s worked out for them and Duncan’s doing just fine with his own band as well. I completely respect all of them.’
Playing live again, even for just those occasional guest appearances, did it tempt you to try and do anything else ?
‘No, not at all. It was thoroughly enjoyable, I enjoyed working the crowd and I think they enjoyed seeing me, so that was perfectly fine. That was enough of a shot for me.’
But with the success of the book, and the possibility of a film version, isn’t it inevitable that there will be new offers for the Hollywood Brats to reform ?
‘Well, speaking of this, the Brats have already been offered a bundle to reform and it may happen… We’ve been offered some big gigs, as well, so I have been weighing it up. I got a phone-call from someone, offering quite a decent amount of money for the band to reform, but I said no thank you, even though I was flattered. Then the phone rang again, about half an hour later, the offer had increased and was very, very interesting, but I still said no thank you, because I just didn’t want to do it. The next day, the phone rang once more and the offer had got to the point where I started thinking, well, I really have to start looking at this ! I mean, philosophically, the only way that I would do it is if we can make sure that it’s done perfectly. If it sounds like we can’t cut it, then I definitely wouldn’t do it. I’m sure that I can deliver, but the rest of the band would have to be able to as well. Even if they come just below the line, then I wouldn’t do it at all. I mean, it’s nice to be offered a good amount of money to reform, but for me, I could only play if we were going to be doing it properly and for the right reasons. If I do end up doing anything with the Brats again, it will be totally top drawer, from my perspective. It will be done to the ultimate degree, with everything we want to have onstage. Screens, all kinds of nonsense going on, it will be a real show. If it does happen, it will be money well-spent on a gig because we will only do it if we know that we can deliver.’
And that, discerning readers, is where the interview came to an end. Our time in the pub, however, continued in its’ merry fashion for quite some time, and as Andrew is quite the perfect drinking-companion, it was all good fun. However, this was to be my undoing. Having only expected to be there for a hour or so, I had missed lunch altogether and the steady flow of Sierra Nevada ale eventually caught up with me as we continued drinking on into the evening. Faced with a long journey back home, I just wanted to go to sleep. I’m sure we’ve all been there and on this occasion, in the spirit of the Brats, it seemed entirely appropriate (even if it was a bit of a wimp-out.) But after a while, I gather my thoughts and my balance, bid my farewells and head home with surprisingly few difficulties.
I am of course, looking forward to the next chapter in the saga of the Hollywood Brats, whether it be the movie, the reunion, or just another session in the pub. I’m sure any one of those options will be great !
I am of course, looking forward to the next chapter in the saga of the Hollywood Brats, whether it be the movie, the reunion, or just another session in the pub. I’m sure any one of those options will be great !
