The first time I heard The Carpettes must have been around 1985. I was searching through a rack of singles in a local second-hand record shops and found a copy of their first EP, ‘Radio Wunderbar’. I didn’t know anything about them at the time but the picture sleeve looked interesting and I already knew that anything released on the Small Wonder label was worth checking out, so I bought it. When I got home and played it, I thought it was great and tried to find out more about the band, which wasn’t easy. As it turned out, they’d already split-up several years earlier so I wasn’t going to see them live, but gradually I tracked down their other singles and the two albums, ‘Frustration Paradise’ and ‘Fight Amongst Yourselves’. One of the things I liked about them was that they were never just a regular punk band and were not afraid to use different styles and sounds in their music. They also had a great talent for writing very catchy tunes and it really surprised me that they weren’t better known. Unfortunately, that’s the way it goes sometimes. In 1996, I discovered that The Carpettes would be reforming to play at the ‘Holidays in the Sun’ festival in Blackpool (a precursor to ‘Rebellion’.) I assumed that if they were back together, they’d be playing in London again at some point, so I started to get hopeful that I would finally see them live. But at the same time, it turned out that most of the interest in the band was coming from abroad, in particular Germany and Japan, so that’s where they were playing most of their gigs. In 1999, they finally did play in London, at the Hope & Anchor, but a total lack of advertising meant that I didn’t find out about it until a few weeks afterwards. Evidently, the band were also unimpressed by the lack of promotion and subsequent small audience, so it seemed very unlikely that they would play in London again. I still hopeful that they would be back one day, but after more than two decades, I was still surprised when I heard that the Carpettes would be playing at the Hope & Anchor once again, alongside The Private Dicks. This was something I was not going to miss and, to make the most of it, I got in touch with singer/guitarist Neil Thompson to set-up an interview. This was going to be great!
I arrived late in the afternoon just as the bands are soundchecking and have a brief chat with Neil. He has a few things that he still has to do, so while he sorts things out I watch The Private Dicks run through several songs (including a killer version of ‘My Little Red Book’.) When Neil returns, we go upstairs, find a table in a quiet-ish corner and I start the interrogation…
The Carpettes were formed in Sunderland during 1977. Had you been in any other bands before then?
‘Yes, we were called ‘Brown Sugar’, but we only ever did four gigs. I was on drums and Kevin was on guitar, but when The Carpettes was formed in April ’77, we swapped around. But before then, we only did four gigs as Brown Sugar. We were just playing covers of things like the Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry, but we didn’t go down very well as audiences seemed to want more technical stuff, like Wishbone Ash or whatever.’
Was there any particular event that inspired you to change over to The Carpettes and start playing your own songs?
‘The Ramones first album. I saw George one day and he asked if I had the Ramones album. I said yes and he said, alright, let’s form a band! It was as simple as that.’
Why did you decide to call the band ‘The Carpettes’?
‘Ahh, I’ve always hated the name… We were rehearsing and we had a gig coming up, but we couldn’t find a name. I just said, ‘What about The Carpets?’ Kevin and George agreed that it would do, but also decided to spell it ‘Carpettes’. I’ve never really liked that, even back then.’
You recorded some demos and then pretty quickly got involved with Pete Stennett and Small Wonder…
‘We just did the one demo and then heard that Small Wonder were advertising for new bands. I never saw the actual advert, I think George saw it in Sounds and then sent them a copy of the demo. Pete Stennett got in touch with us and said he loved it, so he got us to go down to do the first EP. I think we may have done another demo soon after that and then went down there again in March ’78 to do the ‘Small Wonder’ single. We moved down to London a little while after that, while Small Wonder were still involved with us, but eventually we went to another label so that was it with them. But we all got along well with Pete and I’m still in touch with him, now. Even when we’d signed to Beggars Banquet, I’d still go up to see him at the shop and I continued to go there right up until we moved back up north.’
The Carpettes were formed in Sunderland during 1977. Had you been in any other bands before then?
‘Yes, we were called ‘Brown Sugar’, but we only ever did four gigs. I was on drums and Kevin was on guitar, but when The Carpettes was formed in April ’77, we swapped around. But before then, we only did four gigs as Brown Sugar. We were just playing covers of things like the Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry, but we didn’t go down very well as audiences seemed to want more technical stuff, like Wishbone Ash or whatever.’
Was there any particular event that inspired you to change over to The Carpettes and start playing your own songs?
‘The Ramones first album. I saw George one day and he asked if I had the Ramones album. I said yes and he said, alright, let’s form a band! It was as simple as that.’
Why did you decide to call the band ‘The Carpettes’?
‘Ahh, I’ve always hated the name… We were rehearsing and we had a gig coming up, but we couldn’t find a name. I just said, ‘What about The Carpets?’ Kevin and George agreed that it would do, but also decided to spell it ‘Carpettes’. I’ve never really liked that, even back then.’
You recorded some demos and then pretty quickly got involved with Pete Stennett and Small Wonder…
‘We just did the one demo and then heard that Small Wonder were advertising for new bands. I never saw the actual advert, I think George saw it in Sounds and then sent them a copy of the demo. Pete Stennett got in touch with us and said he loved it, so he got us to go down to do the first EP. I think we may have done another demo soon after that and then went down there again in March ’78 to do the ‘Small Wonder’ single. We moved down to London a little while after that, while Small Wonder were still involved with us, but eventually we went to another label so that was it with them. But we all got along well with Pete and I’m still in touch with him, now. Even when we’d signed to Beggars Banquet, I’d still go up to see him at the shop and I continued to go there right up until we moved back up north.’
Was the song ‘Small Wonder’ actually about the label?
‘It wasn’t really a tribute or anything like that, although I might have had the name of the shop in mind when I wrote it. I think Pete might have thought it was. But I have to say, I don’t particularly like the way that single came out. The drums were too bassy and I think the demo version actually sounded better.’
When did you decide to move down to London?
‘We did our first Peel session in the Summer of ’78 and after that George and Kevin decided to move down to London. But after a short time Kevin left and moved back home. I spoke with George and he was thinking about knocking it on the head because we hadn’t got a drummer, but I spoke to Bob Sargeant, who had produced our Peel session, and he said that we should both move down and he’d help us find another drummer. Also, Colin Faver at the Final Solution booking agency, who were involved with Small Wonder, said that he liked us and he’d be able to get gigs for us if we moved down to London…As it turned out, neither of them actually did help us out, but it was through their encouragement that we moved down and managed to sort things out anyway.’
The band recorded a second session for John Peel quite soon after the first one, so I’m assuming he was quite a big fan…
‘I think so, but unfortunately our second session didn’t come out too good. We probably shouldn’t have done it so soon, because we hadn’t even played any gigs in between. We decided to do it so we could try out some new songs, but they weren’t really ready. So the first session was great, but the second one was a bit disappointing.’
All the same, with John Peel giving you that kind of support on the radio, I would have expected that record labels would be getting interested in the band?
‘I think we thought that way, too, but it didn’t seem to help one bit. When we first moved down to London, we got in touch with several promoters and told them we’d released two singles on Small Wonder and recorded two Peel sessions, but it didn’t help at all. The best offers we got were things like playing support for some Blues band… We’d still play these things because we just wanted to play some gigs, but it was a bit pathetic really, like we were starting from scratch again. I’ve read about a lot of bands saying that recording a Peel session really helped them on their way, but I’ve got to honest and say, even though we were grateful that he offered us the chance to do the sessions, they still didn’t help us much at all.’
‘It wasn’t really a tribute or anything like that, although I might have had the name of the shop in mind when I wrote it. I think Pete might have thought it was. But I have to say, I don’t particularly like the way that single came out. The drums were too bassy and I think the demo version actually sounded better.’
When did you decide to move down to London?
‘We did our first Peel session in the Summer of ’78 and after that George and Kevin decided to move down to London. But after a short time Kevin left and moved back home. I spoke with George and he was thinking about knocking it on the head because we hadn’t got a drummer, but I spoke to Bob Sargeant, who had produced our Peel session, and he said that we should both move down and he’d help us find another drummer. Also, Colin Faver at the Final Solution booking agency, who were involved with Small Wonder, said that he liked us and he’d be able to get gigs for us if we moved down to London…As it turned out, neither of them actually did help us out, but it was through their encouragement that we moved down and managed to sort things out anyway.’
The band recorded a second session for John Peel quite soon after the first one, so I’m assuming he was quite a big fan…
‘I think so, but unfortunately our second session didn’t come out too good. We probably shouldn’t have done it so soon, because we hadn’t even played any gigs in between. We decided to do it so we could try out some new songs, but they weren’t really ready. So the first session was great, but the second one was a bit disappointing.’
All the same, with John Peel giving you that kind of support on the radio, I would have expected that record labels would be getting interested in the band?
‘I think we thought that way, too, but it didn’t seem to help one bit. When we first moved down to London, we got in touch with several promoters and told them we’d released two singles on Small Wonder and recorded two Peel sessions, but it didn’t help at all. The best offers we got were things like playing support for some Blues band… We’d still play these things because we just wanted to play some gigs, but it was a bit pathetic really, like we were starting from scratch again. I’ve read about a lot of bands saying that recording a Peel session really helped them on their way, but I’ve got to honest and say, even though we were grateful that he offered us the chance to do the sessions, they still didn’t help us much at all.’
You eventually signed-up with Beggars Banquet in 1979, how did that come together?
‘It was George again… he got an idea that he should go to one of the Beggars Banquet shops. Not the Earls Court one, it was somewhere else, but he met Mike Stone who would later go on to set-up Clay records. Anyway, Mike took the tape and said that he’d pass it through to the bosses, Martin Mills and Nick Austin. Things went on from there… Some time later, Mike left Beggars to set-up his own label, and he wanted us to sign with him, but in the end we stuck with Beggars because they already had a good distribution deal with Warners.’
There was quite a long gap between the ‘Small Wonder’ single and your first release on Beggars, so I’m guessing you must have had quite a lot of songs available when it came to recording your first album, ‘Frustration Paradise’?
‘Yes, but we’d also dropped a lot of songs by that point. A lot of the early songs had been very basic, you know, ‘I don’t wanna go to school’ and stuff like that! We dropped all that when we started getting better at what we were doing. George especially was adamant that we should drop all of those old-style songs, although funnily enough, we’re playing one of them tonight, one we haven’t played live for years, just for a laugh…’
The album was pretty different to what other bands were doing around that time. The songs and the arrangements were pretty varied and probably not what people would expect from a punk album …
‘Yeah, and I think the second album was quite different musically as well. I mean, I loved Prog music, bands like the Groundhogs, Egg and The Soft Machine – I’m a bit like Captain Sensible when it comes to this stuff! I didn’t realise at the time, but I sort of copied a Groundhogs song when I was writing ‘Reach the Bottom’… But it was things like that that which made ‘Frustration Paradise’ sound so different.’
‘It was George again… he got an idea that he should go to one of the Beggars Banquet shops. Not the Earls Court one, it was somewhere else, but he met Mike Stone who would later go on to set-up Clay records. Anyway, Mike took the tape and said that he’d pass it through to the bosses, Martin Mills and Nick Austin. Things went on from there… Some time later, Mike left Beggars to set-up his own label, and he wanted us to sign with him, but in the end we stuck with Beggars because they already had a good distribution deal with Warners.’
There was quite a long gap between the ‘Small Wonder’ single and your first release on Beggars, so I’m guessing you must have had quite a lot of songs available when it came to recording your first album, ‘Frustration Paradise’?
‘Yes, but we’d also dropped a lot of songs by that point. A lot of the early songs had been very basic, you know, ‘I don’t wanna go to school’ and stuff like that! We dropped all that when we started getting better at what we were doing. George especially was adamant that we should drop all of those old-style songs, although funnily enough, we’re playing one of them tonight, one we haven’t played live for years, just for a laugh…’
The album was pretty different to what other bands were doing around that time. The songs and the arrangements were pretty varied and probably not what people would expect from a punk album …
‘Yeah, and I think the second album was quite different musically as well. I mean, I loved Prog music, bands like the Groundhogs, Egg and The Soft Machine – I’m a bit like Captain Sensible when it comes to this stuff! I didn’t realise at the time, but I sort of copied a Groundhogs song when I was writing ‘Reach the Bottom’… But it was things like that that which made ‘Frustration Paradise’ sound so different.’
Did the first album get a good reaction when it came out?
‘Well, it went well but we were still supporting other bands and trying to get our own following. Right after the album came out, we were given a residency at the Marquee with The Lurkers, but it turned out to be a bad move because they were trying to sound a bit more like the Rolling Stones at the time, while we were trying to sound a bit more poppy than just a regular punk band. The gigs were pretty well attended each night, but the place was full of punks so both bands went down like a lead balloon. Things like that were just frustrating.’
One of the things that sometimes gets suggested in retrospective articles is that The Carpettes were a cross between Punk and the Mod Revival bands. It’s not something that seems apparent to me…
‘Well, Beggars were always trying to get us involved with different things and at one point they wanted us to play gigs with The Merton Parkas. But we weren’t having any of that. We had to say no to Beggars Banquet a lot of times about certain things and one of those was that we didn’t want to have anything to do with the Mod Revival. I mean, I loved bands like The Chords, but I didn’t want our band to become part of something like that. We just wanted to be known for what we were doing.’
Your second album, ‘Fight Amongst Yourselves’, came out in 1980 which was a time when there was a lot of trouble at gigs. Is that what the title referred to?
‘No, not really. I don’t do politics when I write songs. I like to avoid that sort of thing, but when I was writing that song… I really can’t remember what was on my mind at the time. I’d have to really think about that!
The final single released by Beggars was ‘The Last Lone Ranger’, which was quite a strange choice because it wasn’t very representative of what the band were doing…
‘Yeah, I’d agree, but again I don’t really know what was going on with Beggars by that point. We went along with it, but I think it may have been something to do with a get-out clause in our contract, that they had to release one more single as a contract-filler. But we weren’t happy with a lot of the things they decided to do. Like the artwork for the single, ‘Nothing Ever Changes’… I had some ideas for the artwork to go with that song but when I told Martin Mills about it, he told me not to worry because they’d already done it and the artwork was going to be an image of a fridge! When they started doing stuff like that, I just gave up on them. Another problem was that, even though they were still distributing that last single, Warners had fallen out with us because they thought they’d be able to get ‘Johnny Won’t Hurt You’ into the charts. They’d already had a number one with Gary Numan and success with other things, but it didn’t work with us and we only got to something like 117. So when that single came out, I don’t think they really bothered to even try and get it in the shops.’
‘Well, it went well but we were still supporting other bands and trying to get our own following. Right after the album came out, we were given a residency at the Marquee with The Lurkers, but it turned out to be a bad move because they were trying to sound a bit more like the Rolling Stones at the time, while we were trying to sound a bit more poppy than just a regular punk band. The gigs were pretty well attended each night, but the place was full of punks so both bands went down like a lead balloon. Things like that were just frustrating.’
One of the things that sometimes gets suggested in retrospective articles is that The Carpettes were a cross between Punk and the Mod Revival bands. It’s not something that seems apparent to me…
‘Well, Beggars were always trying to get us involved with different things and at one point they wanted us to play gigs with The Merton Parkas. But we weren’t having any of that. We had to say no to Beggars Banquet a lot of times about certain things and one of those was that we didn’t want to have anything to do with the Mod Revival. I mean, I loved bands like The Chords, but I didn’t want our band to become part of something like that. We just wanted to be known for what we were doing.’
Your second album, ‘Fight Amongst Yourselves’, came out in 1980 which was a time when there was a lot of trouble at gigs. Is that what the title referred to?
‘No, not really. I don’t do politics when I write songs. I like to avoid that sort of thing, but when I was writing that song… I really can’t remember what was on my mind at the time. I’d have to really think about that!
The final single released by Beggars was ‘The Last Lone Ranger’, which was quite a strange choice because it wasn’t very representative of what the band were doing…
‘Yeah, I’d agree, but again I don’t really know what was going on with Beggars by that point. We went along with it, but I think it may have been something to do with a get-out clause in our contract, that they had to release one more single as a contract-filler. But we weren’t happy with a lot of the things they decided to do. Like the artwork for the single, ‘Nothing Ever Changes’… I had some ideas for the artwork to go with that song but when I told Martin Mills about it, he told me not to worry because they’d already done it and the artwork was going to be an image of a fridge! When they started doing stuff like that, I just gave up on them. Another problem was that, even though they were still distributing that last single, Warners had fallen out with us because they thought they’d be able to get ‘Johnny Won’t Hurt You’ into the charts. They’d already had a number one with Gary Numan and success with other things, but it didn’t work with us and we only got to something like 117. So when that single came out, I don’t think they really bothered to even try and get it in the shops.’
You included a cover of The Damned song, ‘Fan Club’ on the b-side of that single. Was there any particular reason for that?
‘We used to do a lot of covers in our time, but usually only live. We actually recorded that at the same time as ‘Nothing Ever Changes’ but we’d already decided to use a live track on the b-side, so we still had our version of ‘Fan Club’ to be used on something else, later on. The only other cover that we released was The 101’ers’ song, ‘Keys to Your Heart’, which was on the ‘Johnny Won’t Hurt You’ double single. But live, we often used to play ‘Suzy is a Headbanger’ by the Ramones and we sometimes played ‘Wild Thing’ by The Troggs. Going right back to when we first started, we even used to play things like ‘Do Wa Diddy Diddy’ , ‘Leader of the Gang’ and a few Punk covers like ‘Anarchy in the UK’, just to try and get the audiences interested.’
During your time with Beggars, did you get to do much touring, either in the UK or in the rest of Europe?
‘No, again, not really. That was another problem that we had with Beggars. It seemed that they couldn’t set-up anything suitable for us. They were adamant that Punk was dead, so they wanted us to tour with Wishbone Ash. The thing was, Claire Hammill was singing for them at the time and she was married to one of the bosses at Beggars. But we turned that down and in the end we got a tour with The Inmates. They were a great band and I’m still friendly with them, but whether that tour did any good for us is debatable. That was the only proper UK tour that we ever did, but during 1980 we went over and played in Italy three times. We were quite popular over there because Warners had good distribution in Europe. We also played in Holland once, which went really well. George even thought about moving over there at one point because the thing is, if they like you over there, the band can really take off. But right after we came back from the last Italian tour, Beggars decided to drop us, so that was that.
The Carpettes split up in June 1981, was that entirely due to being dropped by Beggars or were there any other reasons?
‘As I said, we came back from Italy after a really successful tour and we really thought we were on our way up, at last. But then, literally within days of getting back, we received a letter saying they were going to stop paying us. They said we could stay with the label, but we thought that would be ridiculous because we’d have no money and we didn’t want to sign-on or anything like that. Then, a few days later, we got a letter from our drummer, Tim, saying that he was moving back to Oxford to take over his Dad’s business! We managed to find a new drummer, Simon Smith, who had been in the Merton Parkas, but unbeknown to me and George, he had also just joined another band called Mood Six and he didn’t tell us about them. We rehearsed with him and even played three gigs, before he suddenly went off with Mood Six! We were without a drummer again and we had a few gigs already set-up, so luckily we were able to get Tim back to do them with us, but otherwise we didn’t have a drummer. We had made a new demo with Simon and sent it to Mike Stone, but he told us that he’d just signed Discharge and thought that Punk was now going to go in that direction… And he was right, because that whole ‘UK82’ scene became really popular, but for us, without a drummer and without a record deal, that was that.’
‘We used to do a lot of covers in our time, but usually only live. We actually recorded that at the same time as ‘Nothing Ever Changes’ but we’d already decided to use a live track on the b-side, so we still had our version of ‘Fan Club’ to be used on something else, later on. The only other cover that we released was The 101’ers’ song, ‘Keys to Your Heart’, which was on the ‘Johnny Won’t Hurt You’ double single. But live, we often used to play ‘Suzy is a Headbanger’ by the Ramones and we sometimes played ‘Wild Thing’ by The Troggs. Going right back to when we first started, we even used to play things like ‘Do Wa Diddy Diddy’ , ‘Leader of the Gang’ and a few Punk covers like ‘Anarchy in the UK’, just to try and get the audiences interested.’
During your time with Beggars, did you get to do much touring, either in the UK or in the rest of Europe?
‘No, again, not really. That was another problem that we had with Beggars. It seemed that they couldn’t set-up anything suitable for us. They were adamant that Punk was dead, so they wanted us to tour with Wishbone Ash. The thing was, Claire Hammill was singing for them at the time and she was married to one of the bosses at Beggars. But we turned that down and in the end we got a tour with The Inmates. They were a great band and I’m still friendly with them, but whether that tour did any good for us is debatable. That was the only proper UK tour that we ever did, but during 1980 we went over and played in Italy three times. We were quite popular over there because Warners had good distribution in Europe. We also played in Holland once, which went really well. George even thought about moving over there at one point because the thing is, if they like you over there, the band can really take off. But right after we came back from the last Italian tour, Beggars decided to drop us, so that was that.
The Carpettes split up in June 1981, was that entirely due to being dropped by Beggars or were there any other reasons?
‘As I said, we came back from Italy after a really successful tour and we really thought we were on our way up, at last. But then, literally within days of getting back, we received a letter saying they were going to stop paying us. They said we could stay with the label, but we thought that would be ridiculous because we’d have no money and we didn’t want to sign-on or anything like that. Then, a few days later, we got a letter from our drummer, Tim, saying that he was moving back to Oxford to take over his Dad’s business! We managed to find a new drummer, Simon Smith, who had been in the Merton Parkas, but unbeknown to me and George, he had also just joined another band called Mood Six and he didn’t tell us about them. We rehearsed with him and even played three gigs, before he suddenly went off with Mood Six! We were without a drummer again and we had a few gigs already set-up, so luckily we were able to get Tim back to do them with us, but otherwise we didn’t have a drummer. We had made a new demo with Simon and sent it to Mike Stone, but he told us that he’d just signed Discharge and thought that Punk was now going to go in that direction… And he was right, because that whole ‘UK82’ scene became really popular, but for us, without a drummer and without a record deal, that was that.’
The band would eventually reform in 1996, but were you playing in any other bands inbetween times?
‘I’ve always been playing music…I was in a covers-band at one point, playing old rock’n’roll songs. I’ve always loved Fifties rock’n’roll so that was a lot of fun. But I was also in a band called The Only Alternative, which got together in 1983 and carried on until 1986, although we still get together to play a gig every so often, even if it isn’t all of the original line-up…’
What prompted you and George to eventually reform The Carpettes in 1996?
‘It was Mark Brennan from The Business who persuaded us to reform and play some gigs. He phoned to tell me that he was going to be releasing a CD on the Captain Oi label, compiling our two albums. I called George to let him know about it and then a few weeks after that, Mark called me again to say that there was a big Punk festival being organised over in Blackpool with lots of older bands getting back together to play it. He wanted to know if we would consider putting The Carpettes together again to play there? So I called George again, to tell him all about it, and I don’t think he could believe that all of this stuff was going on. But when we talked about it, we both thought it would be fun to do, so that’s how it came about. We had to find another drummer to do it, so this time we asked my brother, Paul, and he’s been with the band ever since.’
When you reformed, were you surprised that there was still quite a lot of interest in The Carpettes, particularly abroad?
‘Yes, especially places like Germany and Japan. We were offered some gigs in Japan and when we went there, we couldn’t believe it. After we played the first gig, we came off-stage and were towelling ourselves down, then we looked outside and there were all these Japanese people queuing up with our albums under their arms, waiting to get them signed! All we could think was, what’s going on here? It was like a whole different world, but it was fantastic.’
The band also went on to record a new album, ‘Fair Play to ‘Em’, which was released in 2002 on the Japanese ‘Waveform’ label. It also includes one of my all-time favourite Carpettes songs, ‘No Respect’.
‘I have to be honest with you, I’m not very keen on that album and I never play it these days. It’s okay, but it didn’t come out as well as we wanted it to be. But we do still play a couple of the songs from that album, ‘No Respect’ and ‘It Doesn’t Matter’, live. In fact we’re starting the set with ‘No Respect’ tonight… I don’t think we were planning to do a new album, but when we were in Japan a record label came to see us and said that they wanted to release a new single. Then another record label got in touch with George at the end of the tour and said that they wanted to release an album. So we made arrangements to write and record some new material and they eventually released it, along with a single. I can’t remember the exact details, but it was hard work at the time. We recorded it in the North-East, some of the songs were old ones that we’d never released before and a couple of them were brand new, but it just didn’t seem to come together the way we wanted.’
‘I’ve always been playing music…I was in a covers-band at one point, playing old rock’n’roll songs. I’ve always loved Fifties rock’n’roll so that was a lot of fun. But I was also in a band called The Only Alternative, which got together in 1983 and carried on until 1986, although we still get together to play a gig every so often, even if it isn’t all of the original line-up…’
What prompted you and George to eventually reform The Carpettes in 1996?
‘It was Mark Brennan from The Business who persuaded us to reform and play some gigs. He phoned to tell me that he was going to be releasing a CD on the Captain Oi label, compiling our two albums. I called George to let him know about it and then a few weeks after that, Mark called me again to say that there was a big Punk festival being organised over in Blackpool with lots of older bands getting back together to play it. He wanted to know if we would consider putting The Carpettes together again to play there? So I called George again, to tell him all about it, and I don’t think he could believe that all of this stuff was going on. But when we talked about it, we both thought it would be fun to do, so that’s how it came about. We had to find another drummer to do it, so this time we asked my brother, Paul, and he’s been with the band ever since.’
When you reformed, were you surprised that there was still quite a lot of interest in The Carpettes, particularly abroad?
‘Yes, especially places like Germany and Japan. We were offered some gigs in Japan and when we went there, we couldn’t believe it. After we played the first gig, we came off-stage and were towelling ourselves down, then we looked outside and there were all these Japanese people queuing up with our albums under their arms, waiting to get them signed! All we could think was, what’s going on here? It was like a whole different world, but it was fantastic.’
The band also went on to record a new album, ‘Fair Play to ‘Em’, which was released in 2002 on the Japanese ‘Waveform’ label. It also includes one of my all-time favourite Carpettes songs, ‘No Respect’.
‘I have to be honest with you, I’m not very keen on that album and I never play it these days. It’s okay, but it didn’t come out as well as we wanted it to be. But we do still play a couple of the songs from that album, ‘No Respect’ and ‘It Doesn’t Matter’, live. In fact we’re starting the set with ‘No Respect’ tonight… I don’t think we were planning to do a new album, but when we were in Japan a record label came to see us and said that they wanted to release a new single. Then another record label got in touch with George at the end of the tour and said that they wanted to release an album. So we made arrangements to write and record some new material and they eventually released it, along with a single. I can’t remember the exact details, but it was hard work at the time. We recorded it in the North-East, some of the songs were old ones that we’d never released before and a couple of them were brand new, but it just didn’t seem to come together the way we wanted.’
Another album was recorded and released in 2005, but by then you had left the band…
‘ No, I didn’t actually leave the band… It’s a long story and I don’t really want to go into it, but George had lined-up a tour of Germany and me and Paul realised that if we did it, we were going to be losing money. So we said we were happy to play but only if we were going to be bringing back a bit of money or at least breaking even. We ended-up arguing about it and George eventually got two other people to go with him and play those dates in Germany. They also went on to make another album, but that was nothing to do with me and Paul.’
So how and when did you and Paul become part of The Carpettes again?
‘I was still living in London at that time, but I moved back up North in 2016. A couple of years after that, my brother was involved with a festival and he asked me if I’d like to get together with him and do some Carpettes and Only Alternative songs. So we did that and afterwards we decided that we should have two different projects going at the same time, one that’s just doing the Only Alternative songs and another that’s just doing The Carpettes songs, which is what it is tonight.
Last year, you posted something on Facebook about finding some old recordings of songs that had never been completed and you were hinting that you might try and resurrect them for future release…
‘Oh, yeah, that’s still something I’m planning to do. I definitely want to do that, but what’s been holding me back is that I was offered some free studio time to do it, but when I turned up, the place only had an electronic drum-set and not a real kit. I did try to put something together, but it just didn’t work-out, so I’m intending to go back to square one and do it with a proper drum-kit. But I will do it as soon as soon as I get the chance. There are four songs from 1978 and I’ll probably just release them myself, on a CD, unless anyone else is interested. We’ll see…’
‘ No, I didn’t actually leave the band… It’s a long story and I don’t really want to go into it, but George had lined-up a tour of Germany and me and Paul realised that if we did it, we were going to be losing money. So we said we were happy to play but only if we were going to be bringing back a bit of money or at least breaking even. We ended-up arguing about it and George eventually got two other people to go with him and play those dates in Germany. They also went on to make another album, but that was nothing to do with me and Paul.’
So how and when did you and Paul become part of The Carpettes again?
‘I was still living in London at that time, but I moved back up North in 2016. A couple of years after that, my brother was involved with a festival and he asked me if I’d like to get together with him and do some Carpettes and Only Alternative songs. So we did that and afterwards we decided that we should have two different projects going at the same time, one that’s just doing the Only Alternative songs and another that’s just doing The Carpettes songs, which is what it is tonight.
Last year, you posted something on Facebook about finding some old recordings of songs that had never been completed and you were hinting that you might try and resurrect them for future release…
‘Oh, yeah, that’s still something I’m planning to do. I definitely want to do that, but what’s been holding me back is that I was offered some free studio time to do it, but when I turned up, the place only had an electronic drum-set and not a real kit. I did try to put something together, but it just didn’t work-out, so I’m intending to go back to square one and do it with a proper drum-kit. But I will do it as soon as soon as I get the chance. There are four songs from 1978 and I’ll probably just release them myself, on a CD, unless anyone else is interested. We’ll see…’
Do you have any other plans for The Carpettes at the moment?
‘Well, these days we just get back together when we get offered a gig, really. I don’t go out looking for gigs. This one tonight, it’s taken years for us to do it. A promoter kept asking us to play at the Hope & Anchor again but I kept turning it down, until another promoter, Brad, got in touch and eventually I said, go on then, we’ll do it. The thing was, the last time we played in London was in 1999, here at the Hope & Anchor, but it turned out that it wasn’t very well advertised and, on the night, it wasn’t very busy. So, nowadays, if anybody gets in touch and asks if we want to play, we’ll consider it if we’re available. But I keep myself busy. I do a Fifties radio show and a few other things, so I’m a busy man!’
Do you still keep in touch with George or any of the other former members of the original band?
‘Oh yeah. We lost touch for a long time after he did the tour in Germany and released that album in America, but these days we meet up and go drinking at least once a week at the local club. He’s lived up-North since the band split in 1981. But I don’t think he’d want to play in the band again… He didn’t exactly say so, but I think the thing was, once he turned 60 he thought, that’s it. He talks about that, saying if you’re over 60, you shouldn’t be in a band… apart from The Damned! He still likes The Damned, so they can carry on as long as they want! And I can see where he’s coming from… The Damned have always been a bit different, but always fantastic. It’s not like watching four old fat blokes onstage, they can still sound great and put-on a great show. But I don’t think that he wants to do The Carpettes anymore and that’s fair enough.’
‘Well, these days we just get back together when we get offered a gig, really. I don’t go out looking for gigs. This one tonight, it’s taken years for us to do it. A promoter kept asking us to play at the Hope & Anchor again but I kept turning it down, until another promoter, Brad, got in touch and eventually I said, go on then, we’ll do it. The thing was, the last time we played in London was in 1999, here at the Hope & Anchor, but it turned out that it wasn’t very well advertised and, on the night, it wasn’t very busy. So, nowadays, if anybody gets in touch and asks if we want to play, we’ll consider it if we’re available. But I keep myself busy. I do a Fifties radio show and a few other things, so I’m a busy man!’
Do you still keep in touch with George or any of the other former members of the original band?
‘Oh yeah. We lost touch for a long time after he did the tour in Germany and released that album in America, but these days we meet up and go drinking at least once a week at the local club. He’s lived up-North since the band split in 1981. But I don’t think he’d want to play in the band again… He didn’t exactly say so, but I think the thing was, once he turned 60 he thought, that’s it. He talks about that, saying if you’re over 60, you shouldn’t be in a band… apart from The Damned! He still likes The Damned, so they can carry on as long as they want! And I can see where he’s coming from… The Damned have always been a bit different, but always fantastic. It’s not like watching four old fat blokes onstage, they can still sound great and put-on a great show. But I don’t think that he wants to do The Carpettes anymore and that’s fair enough.’
As the pub gets busier, the noise levels increase and make it more difficult to do the interview, so we finish-up and get back to the venue for the start of the gig. Opening the show tonight are The Bleach Boys, a punk band that formed in 1976, released their first single in 1978 and have been around (off and on) ever since. I’ve seen them before and have never been particularly impressed but tonight, they actually sound rather good. I’m not sure if it’s down to a new line-up (there’s definitely some different band members from when I last saw them) or the better PA sound at this Hope & Anchor, but I enjoyed this set and I’ll be keen to check them out again. It was a great way to start the evening and warmed-up the audience perfectly. Next onstage are The Public Dicks who I’ve not seen before but, having heard their recent ‘Live at the Wild at Heart’ album, I was really looking forward to seeing them. Again, they’re a band who were around in the late Seventies, releasing their first single ‘She Said Go’ in 1979, and have remained sporadically-active over the ensuing years, releasing several retrospective compilations as well as occasional new music. Tonight, they sound really good and the audience react with plenty of enthusiasm. Their singer, Gavin, is a great frontman who quickly grabs your attention, while the rest of the band keep the energy levels high throughout the set. Musically, I suppose you could say that they lean more towards new wave or powerpop than straightforward punk rock, but when they have so many genuinely catchy songs, you’re going to enjoy them and that’s all that matters. They play ‘Little version that I heard during their soundcheck. They keep their best-known song, ‘She Said Go’, until the end of the set and it proves to be a fine way to finish. I hope I get a chance to see this band again, soon. Finally, it’s time for The Carpettes and the packed-audience greets them with lots of anticipation. As disclosed earlier, they start their gig with ‘No Respect’ and it sounds even better than the recorded version. Their set is a good mix of songs from their two original albums and various tracks from their singles, as well as a few songs that appeared on the ‘Fair Play To ‘Em’ album in 2002. They played 15 songs in total, but they really did seem to fly-past, including great tracks like ‘How About Me and You’, ‘It Doesn’t Matter’, and a blistering version of ‘Small Wonder’. I’m so glad that I finally got to see them and even if this isn’t the original line-up, the band did more than justice to all of the songs and I can only recommend that you see them if and when you get the chance. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting with fingers-crossed, hoping that they don’t keep me waiting so long before they return to London again.
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