Kitabı oku: «A Multitude of Sins: Golden Brown, The Stranglers and Strange Little Girls», sayfa 2

John’s response to the awkward situation between us was to write more by himself. Consequently, there were far fewer co-written songs on the last two albums, Dreamtime and 10. These albums were made almost entirely with each member of the group contributing alone with the producer and engineer in the studio. Previously, Jet was the only group member who had been keen to be around the sessions for the whole time. Yet, even he started to be absent whilst 10 was being made.

I left the band for a myriad of different reasons. Since then I’ve noticed a change in my attitude to life. I now try to be more philosophical about things. And a weight does seem to have been lifted from my shoulders. There were too many rules and regulations associated with being a Strangler, and who needs any more of those in life? I’ve played with a lot more musicians since I left and my guitar playing has improved. I’m convinced that The Stranglers with me involved was past its sell-by date. I still believe that. Playing is fun again and I’m enjoying playing the old songs. Being in a band can be great fun but it’s also rather like the army. I started to feel that my contribution was not being appreciated by the others, and that it was being resented – and if I ever feel like that, it’s time to move on. Life is too short to waste time with people who don’t value you and there are an awful lot of people out there. I look back on my Stranglers days as an apprenticeship. I learnt a lot about stage skills, songwriting and the music business in general. But bands are not an ideal forum for a personality to express itself, because the collective personality always comes first.

I can think of several moments in my last years in the group that were pivotal in persuading me to take the final decision to leave. The first was following the success of ‘Golden Brown’, which in itself was a surprise to us all, coming as it did after a long period of low-charting single releases. We were on tour in France when Hugh Stanley Clarke from EMI came out to meet with us to discuss what should be the follow-up single. It’s imperative to build on any success in the charts and we all agreed with the record company that a second Top Ten single would bring us right back into the public eye. We met with Stanley Clarke before a gig and he revealed that EMI were keen to release the song ‘Tramp’ as the next single. I was quietly very happy with this, as it was a song I had written alone and presented to the band. I knew that Jet liked ‘Tramp’ but he wasn’t saying much. John immediately rejected the idea, saying that the song was too commercial. Within half an hour, he had convinced everyone in the room except me that ‘La Folie’ was the ideal follow-up single. This was a song we had written together. He had sung it in French, having written the lyrics to a musical piece of mine. It was a reference to the madness of love and was the title track of the current album. It was a beautiful song and could possibly have succeeded if sung in English, but in French it was a non-starter. Its subsequent failure to chart high enough (Number 47) put us back a long way. Later on, we did manage to retrieve the situation somewhat. I got everyone to agree to re-record the song ‘Strange Little Girl’ as the next single. It had been one of our original demos when we were looking for a record deal in 1975 and EMI had turned it down. Tony Visconti produced the whole thing for us and did a great job. ‘Strange Little Girl’ charted at Number 7 on release.

Two further incidents showed me that the others weren’t appreciating my efforts. One happened in Brussels when we were recording the album Feline. Jet and I had stayed very late at the studio one night with our engineer Steve Churchyard to finish a mix of my song ‘Souls’, and we were very pleased with what we’d done. We came to the studio the next day to find the quarter-inch tape of the mix pulled off its reel, stuffed into a large envelope and taped to the studio door with ‘THIS IS SHIT’ written on it. I got as far as packing my bags at the hotel and booking a flight home before I got a call of apology from John on behalf of Dave and himself.

The second incident concerned the making of the video for ‘Always The Sun.’ I had storyboarded the video and everybody approved the idea. We shot the video then the director and I spent a good fifty hours in an editing suite finishing it off. Upon seeing the result, the others said they hated it but didn’t explain why they had approved the idea and the storyboard earlier and also participated in the shoot for it.

I mentioned earlier that John and I had fallen out in Italy. We were backstage after a gig and were swapping our impressions of the performance as we usually did. This particular set had begun with ‘Something Better Change’, an early number which John sang. After the guitar intro, John and I were jumping in the air and landing to coincide with the other instruments starting the song. It was a very dynamic beginning to the set, but we weren’t synchronizing the jump that night, and when I mentioned to John that he hadn’t been on time, he attacked me. He’s had many years of karate training and can quite easily incorporate this into a violent disagreement. He had to be restrained by several people to avoid injuring me. Later on that night, he apologized profusely but I made it clear to him that I was going to have to be very careful what I said to him in future, for fear of my own safety. It was at this point that I resolved to secure some sort of solo recording arrangement, as it was becoming clear that I couldn’t be sure how long our relationship within the band was going to last.

We wrote and recorded demos for the album 10 at John’s house in Cambridge using a small recording set-up in a barn. I would travel up there from the West Country to work for a few days. It made good sense to take a break and catch up with my own personal life and I was intending to leave when John accused me of not being totally committed to the sessions. ‘I’m going to stay here until we’ve finished everything we need to,’ he stated.

It occurred to me that it was very easy for him to continue his private life when he was working in his own backyard but, considering his outburst in Italy, I didn’t want to take any risks by discussing it with him. I did not want to provoke him and just made it clear that I had to take a break, so I left.

So where does that leave us? Rehearsing for a tour to promote 10, and looking forward to touring America, which was the market the record had been produced for. CBS had brought in Roy Thomas Baker, a larger-than-life individual, veteran of numerous Queen albums and teller of many stories about working with rock legends. CBS thought that he could groom our sound for the States, which was a market we had never exploited. Our status there was that of a cult band. We hadn’t been to the US very often, and ‘Golden Brown’ had never had a release there, the general consensus being that it fell between two stools. The Stranglers’ name meant one market, but the song itself meant another, and the marketing gurus over there couldn’t find a way to reconcile the two. The concise streaming of music on American radio left ‘Golden Brown’ out on a limb and unplayable.

Our managers and I had gone over to New York to do some advance promotion for the album. When my part in that was done, I left them there to wheel and deal whilst I returned to London to rehearse with the other three for the UK tour. Our managers then arrived back and immediately came to see us at the rehearsal studios. We were expecting news of US release dates and a touring schedule but instead they told us there were to be no American singles and, more surprisingly, no US tour. They had been unable to interest an American agent to book a tour over there. This was the point at which the thought of leaving the band became a possibility to me. I had been delaying the decision, hoping that touring America might give the group a new energy and maybe some success there. Suddenly there was a huge gap in our work diary.

So, as I have mentioned, we finished the tour with that gig at Alexandra Palace and I walked out. I didn’t even have any faith that the rest of the band would be disappointed. I didn’t want to discuss it amidst all the acrimony and recrimination. I had no idea if they were intending to carry on or not without me. David Buckley, who wrote The Stranglers’ aforementioned biography, No Mercy, told me he was very surprised that none of the band tried to persuade me to reconsider leaving and perhaps take a sabbatical instead. I guess he had a point.

As far as answering that second question – about rejoining the group – it’s as far from my mind as anything could be. Maybe if they had split up when I left, there could be some dynamic excitement about getting back together again after such a long time. But you can’t re-form a band that hasn’t split up. Good old Ian Grant, one-time manager of The Stranglers and my first manager as a solo artist, said he could get me a million quid if I got back together with them, but I don’t need a million quid. I’ve put a lot of work into where I am today, and I have no intention of nullifying all that effort by such a dumb move.

The day after the gig at Alexandra Palace, I telephoned the others to tell them what I had decided. I said I didn’t want to be a Strangler any more. Their reactions were:

JOHN: very sympathetic, said he felt I hadn’t been happy for a while. He was quite emotional.

JET: he said, ‘OK. Fine,’ was completely nonplussed and didn’t comment, which surprised me.

DAVE: he asked me, ‘Will we be having a meeting?’

We did all meet up together once more in our accountants’ offices about two months later to divide the spoils. I said that I’d like to get my amplifiers and guitars back. John said, ‘You’ve been collecting guitars for years. You shouldn’t get them all back.’

I thought of something.

‘If you hadn’t smashed so many basses on stage, you’d probably have had as many yourself.’

Jet tried to keep a straight face but collapsed into his chair with laughter.

I finally got my equipment back a year later.

CHAPTER TWO Rock ‘n’ Roll Part 1

One of the first things I can remember is my mum taking me in a pushchair on to Hampstead Heath to the Ladies’ Swimming Pond. She leaves me by the side of the pond to watch as she goes in for a dip. It’s the middle of winter and there is ice on the pond. The lifesavers have broken a hole in the ice so that the regular bathers can go for a dip. As I wait for my mum to change into her costume, I watch the hole in the ice and see a very large white fish come up close to the surface of the dark water. It’s only visible for a few seconds but that’s enough for me. My mum appears in her costume and gets ready to climb into the water. I tell her about the fish and say she shouldn’t go in, but she laughs and takes no notice. I’m horrified to see her get in the hole and swim around for a short while, oblivious to the danger. She gets out and scurries off to change, unharmed by the fish. I am very relieved that the fish hasn’t bitten my mum’s leg off.

We were lucky to be living near to the Heath, as it’s the closest thing to living in the country that you can find in London. My brothers (the eldest, Richard, and David, second eldest) and my sister (Vicky) and me were always roaming around there, and when the long summer break from school came you couldn’t keep us off it. We could play cricket all day long and even pick blackberries to take home for mum to make a pie with.

I would guess that my first gig took place when I was about 5 years old. We were living in what was known as a ‘prefab’ in Tufnell Park, north London, at the time. It was temporary housing erected after the Second World War on a bomb site, and it looked like a bungalow. I can remember being in my parents’ back garden singing to the plants when the woman next door came out and gave me some sweets over the fence in appreciation. I was a quick learner and set up a daily residency there after school. My mum was not too pleased when she found out I was milking the neighbour, so she cancelled my booking immediately.

Later on, I was able to learn from David about the power of the artist in ‘promoter relations’, when we were in the local church choir. We would sing at people’s weddings nearly every Saturday for half a crown each, and there were about ten of us in the choir. One Saturday, he told the choirmaster that we wanted a wage increase or we weren’t singing for anybody. This totally perplexed the man and he reported back to the poor bridegroom who begged us to perform. However, he was not negotiating from a position of strength, and David managed to double our wages on the spot. Like all the other choirboys I was very impressed. I used the tactic repeatedly before Stranglers gigs for pure entertainment value, managing to extract all sorts of dangerous drugs from unsuspecting promoters, who would do anything to retrieve the situation and avoid dealing with an angry audience.

The first record I owned was ‘What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?’ by Emile Ford & The Checkmates, which my Aunt Audrey and Uncle Adrian gave me one Christmas. I was delighted and played it non-stop until I could sing along to the whole song, making everyone’s life a misery. The first single I went out and bought myself was ‘Here Comes Summer’ by Jerry Keller, which I learnt and can still sing now, but you wouldn’t want me to, as it’s pretty naff.

We all went to Burghley Road Primary School. This was ten minutes’ walk from the prefab and the journey involved going over a railway bridge, the scene of many fantastic spud gun fights that I thought were tremendous. Being the youngest, there was always one sibling to go to school with or see me home, but invariably we were late home due to the spud guns. There must have been a shortage of potatoes in many homes at that time as they were really popular.

I got into trouble with my parents when I was called in to see the headmaster and asked what I wanted to do in later life. All the boys were being called in and everyone was wondering what on earth to say when it became their turn. It’s not something you spend a lot of time thinking about when you’re 10 years old and we had no idea why it was happening. Still, there would be no careers officer at my secondary school, so I suppose I should be grateful that someone was taking an interest, albeit rather early. So I found myself waiting in line outside the headmaster’s office with no ideas whatsoever. It came to my turn and I went in.

‘So, Cornwell, what do you want to do when you grow up?’

‘I want to be a singer, sir, like Cliff Richard.’

My headmaster almost fell out of his chair.

‘I see. Thank you, Cornwell, you may go now.’

When I got home, he had already contacted my parents to tell them and all hell broke loose. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. We had only been given a few minutes to consider what to say, and I thought it would be best to be truthful. Besides, train driving and fire fighting just didn’t appeal to me.

I had discovered Cliff quite recently and he could do no wrong. It may be hard to believe but back then he was a rock ‘n’ roll rebel. Eighteen years old, leather-jacketed and the star of a feature film called Serious Charge about a priest being accused of homosexual advances by a young tearaway. I was given Cliff Sings, his first studio album, the next Christmas. It had eight titles on each side, four rockers followed by four ballads. I must point out that this was when his backing band was called The Drifters, before the name change to The Shadows. Cliff had released a string of rock ‘n’ roll classics, starting with ‘Move It’ (which had been written on a London bus by Ian Samwell), progressing through ‘High Class Baby’/ ‘My Feet Hit The Ground’, ‘Living Loving Doll’, and ‘Mean Streak’/’Never Mind’.

I was extremely disappointed with ‘Living Doll’, it being a ballad, but the B-side was the superb ‘Apron Strings’, and was the reason for buying ‘Living Doll’. ‘Travelling Light’ followed, again a ballad, but again amply supported by ‘Dynamite’ on the other side. Many people now don’t realize how hip Cliff was when he first started, being the UK’s answer to Elvis Presley. He’d just released two EPs from a live concert, called ‘Cliff No. 1’ and ‘Cliff No.2’, on which the girls’ screams were so loud it was difficult to hear what was being played. He hit Number 1 in the charts with ‘Living Doll’ and ‘Travelling Light’, which made him the top artist in the UK in 1959, but by then my interest was waning as his sound became more and more manicured. I liked a couple of songs on the EP from his second film Expresso Bongo, particularly ‘The Shrine On The Second Floor’, but I’d already started looking around for other music to interest me. At the time, Elvis seemed much too obvious to pay attention to, and then I discovered The Everly Brothers. What great writers these people were, with fantastic melodies to sing along to and great lyrics as well.

I was about twelve when I met Richard Thompson at my new school, William Ellis. He was into music as much as I was and he could play amazing guitar. He lived a few minutes away from me and we were able to get together nearly every day to share our passion. I would visit him at his parents’ house after school, and find him playing along to sheet music of Charlie Christian material. We would also introduce each other to new artists we had discovered – I can remember being blown away by the Stones’ version of Buddy Holly’s ‘Not Fade Away’ when he first played it to me. It was at about this time that Richard suggested putting a band together. I couldn’t play guitar but he was willing to teach me bass. A bass only had four strings and they were easier to find with one’s fingers. I bought a homemade electric bass for £5 from a friend at William Ellis and Richard started giving me lessons. The neck was the size of a milk carton, which made it very difficult to play, but when I graduated to a Hofner violin bass – like Paul McCartney – which I had saved up for, I started making progress.

Richard’s father was a top detective at West End Central police station in London’s Soho, which just happened to be where the top music stores were, on Denmark Street. These stores were robbed on a regular basis and booty would turn up at the station and have to be disposed of after months of not being claimed by anybody. So Richard got hold of some great equipment for our fledgling band, which was loosely called Emil And The Detectives. We had an enigmatic lead guitarist called Elvis, plus another guitarist friend of Richard’s called Malcolm.

Remarkably, one of the first gigs we did was supporting Helen Shapiro at the Ionic Cinema in Golders Green. Our set was composed of rhythm and blues classics like ‘Smokestack Lightnin’. It was at about this time that we recruited a new drummer from school. His name was Nick Jones whose father was Max, the editor and jazz critic at Melody Maker. Nick had modelled himself on Keith Moon’s drumming style and he fitted in very well. He had a fantastic drum kit.

Richard’s elder sister Perri was a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, the social secretary at Hornsey College of Art, so pretty soon we were getting gigs at some of their parties. One was held on a boat moored at Eel Pie Island on the Thames. Richard’s dad and mine had been recruited to drive our equipment down to the gig in their cars but there was no room left for us, so we had to make our own way down by Tube. Nick was pissed off because he had dressed up in his Who gear, complete with black sneakers with white arrows on them, and felt very self-conscious.

I started going to gigs as well as playing them around this time. Richard and I went to the Astoria in Finsbury Park to see Chuck Berry play. The line-up was awesome. The Nashville Teens opened, and they were due to hit Number 1 that week with ‘Tobacco Road’. Next onstage were The Moody Blues, who had just been at the top spot with ‘Go Now’. Following them were The Swinging Blue Jeans, but we had been spoilt by the support acts and so the audience booed their set, which they cut short. Then Chuck Berry hit the stage and I loved it. It was an incredible line-up and at the time I thought every gig was going to be this good.

It’s a cliché that your schooldays are the best days of your life, but few people would agree. Mine approached perfection though, due to the fact that it took me about five minutes to walk to William Ellis from home. It was situated on the edge of Hampstead Heath, next to not one, but two, girls’ schools – one of which was a convent! Not that I had much idea about girls when I was a teenager and even less of an idea about what to do with them if they could be approached. The closest my school got to contact was a combined dance class each Friday afternoon with Parliament Hill Girls’ School, which sixth formers were allowed to attend, but I never went.

Due to the proximity of my school, I could get up at 8:30 each morning and still be there in time for assembly at 9. I went home for lunch and never experienced the infamous school dinners. It also meant that I could be home by 3:45 after our last lesson finished. I can see with hindsight that the overall result of this was that I never became part of a gang of mates at school. I didn’t have an extended journey to and from the school like a lot of the boys did, those daily jaunts during which camaraderie had a chance to develop. I think the most profound thing that happened to me whilst I was at school was the moment I arrived one morning wearing long trousers. More than any other event or personal experience, I really felt at that point that I’d grown up.

William Ellis School’s insignia is an oak tree, under which is the scrolled motto ‘Rather Use Than Fame’. We took great trouble to change it at every opportunity to ‘Rather Uxx Than xxme’ with the quick touch of a marker pen. There were houses to which we were all assigned, but this side of school life never took hold of me, and the loyalties to the house, which I’m sure assume importance at boarding school, never materialized.

One thing we did have an abundance of was teacher personalities. Our headmaster, Mr Baxter, was an affable, good-natured man who was more inclined to think well of someone than not. He lived locally, walked to school, and must have slept soundly most nights, happy in the knowledge that he nurtured a healthy atmosphere at school in which the majority of pupils obtained the best results from their work under his well-oiled academic umbrella. In fact, in my final year over 90% of the students secured places at universities.

Mr Armit (nicknamed Armpit) was the vice principal and our imaginations ran riot over which vices he was principal of. His subject was mathematics and he ruled with an iron will, which actually led to a surprising respect being generated amongst his classes. Of all the teachers, I think he had the balance of authority, discipline and kid gloves just about right.

Mr Wren was a Divinity teacher and had an extremely absent upper lip, which gave him the appearance of constantly whispering to himself. In fact, several of my class mates had great difficulty deciphering what he was saying, and looks of bewilderment would spread around the class as he opened his Bible at a designated place and expected us to follow suit. He had an obsession with fresh air and would have Ackerman, a lazy pupil, opening and closing a window for several minutes until he was satisfied at the angle of aperture through which the wonderful air of Hampstead Heath could enter and waft into our lungs.

Mr Marsh taught French and had a good sense of humour, so I enjoyed French lessons and looked forward to them. He would set translations to be done during class, which he would supervise with his glasses perched well down on his nose, so that he could keep a beady eye on us all while he marked papers. Marsh stopped me in the corridor after my ‘A’ levels had started, to tell me how disappointed he was not to find me in his French class.

Mr Browne taught English and I have the feeling that he and Marsh were friends, as they were similar souls. Browne also expressed dismay to me on learning that I was not to be one of his ‘A’ level students. Under pressure from parents and other teachers, I had been streamed into Science rather than the Arts, and I hadn’t thought to object. This streaming took place after ‘O’ levels at the age of sixteen, and unless you had a strong desire to pursue a particular career path, you could easily be directed by your elders.

Mr Smith hailed from Scotland and took over Mr Browne’s English class. He was very entertaining and would take great pleasure in awarding lines instead of detentions, which he would deliver in the following manner: ‘I must endeavour to remember not to show disrespect to dear, kind, exceedingly fair Mr Smith during his English classes, which I have the honour of attending, and, in my ignorance, I probably do not appreciate … fully.’

The rest of the class would groan and applaud during this recitation, which some poor unfortunate would have to copy down and then repeat back to make sure it had all been correctly recorded. It was normally Ackerman who hadn’t taken it down correctly, which would lead to the whole sketch being repeated and the number of lines doubled.

Doctor Prinz was an Austrian music teacher who was genuinely intimidating and could be quite frightening. Everyone dreaded his music classes except those who showed talent for an instrument. These fortunate few were favoured by Herr Doctor and sat permanently self-satisfied at the front, as Prinz meted out his terror on the rest of us, generally with a ruler in his hands, which he would alternately use as a baton and/or a palm slapper. The music classes were held in a newly-constructed annexe to the main school building, nicknamed Colditz, which added to our anxieties as we filed into his room’s chilly atmosphere. It is surprising that, given such an introduction to music, I should find myself occupied with it for so much of my life. I remember one Prinz class in which we were cross-examined by him as to why we weren’t learning an instrument. My parents had expressed to him an interest in my taking up the clarinet and Prinz interrogated me.

‘Vy do you not vant to learn ze clarinet? Mark my vords, in your future lives, you vill all regret not taking more interest in my classes.’

Aggie Clough was the Botany mistress and took great interest in me due to my ability to accurately draw most things that were put in front of me. This led to some teachers sitting for me for sketches to appear in our school newspaper, which I remember as a strange experience. It was as if there had been a weird reversal of roles, as I was the one with the power, asking them to sit still or turn in a certain way. Aggie Clough retired whilst I was still at William Ellis, and I was sad to see her go, as she really encouraged my interest in Botany. This was rewarded with an A grade both at ‘A’ and ‘S’ levels. She then tried very hard to get me to apply to study mycology (mushrooms and toadstools) at Wye College, Kent, which would have led, no doubt, to a completely different life to the one I’m writing about now.

Mr Pond taught Zoology and would pontificate on the subject, rather as if he were lecturing a group of army cadets. On the subject of sex he was particularly po-faced:

‘Just remember to get as much practice in as you can before you get around to procreating.’

Mr Barker’s subject was Latin and Mrs Malaprop would have been proud of him. He roared in and out of school on his motorbike and taught like an angry lion. Our Latin class was usually the last of the day, and after putting the fear of God into us for forty minutes, we would wait and watch by the windows until we could hear him roar off, signalling that it was safe enough for us to leave the building ourselves. Barker was a crack shot with the blackboard duster and we were surprised at Ackerman’s ability to survive so many direct hits. That said, we were in awe of Barker. We secretly admired him and the power he had over the whole school.

Mr Harris was the youngest of my teachers and I’m indebted to him, not for his expertise in teaching Chemistry, but for his awakening in me a love of cinema. All boys studying for their ‘O’ levels had to attend General Studies classes in an attempt to widen their knowledge and appreciation of culture. Amongst the choices on offer, Harris took one on contemporary cinema. At the end of the first class, he recommended Viridiana by Luis Buñuel, which was being shown at the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead. Curious, I went along to see it and was won over immediately. In fact, I cried with rage at the end of the film, which portrays a beautiful young nun providing refuge to beggars and cripples, only to be horribly raped by them at the end of a drunken dinner she treats them to. Harris was surprised that someone had bothered to go see the film, and we developed a rapport that I was sad to leave behind when he, and then I, left the school.

Harris was extremely easy to bait. Once in the hot summer weather, he berated us for our lack of respect towards the school uniform when we turned up for class without ties. Our response was for each of us to attend his next class wearing a different but gaudy tie. He was put out by this, but was also unable to keep a straight face. He would leave us busy building a chemical garden and return to find frothing vats close to explosion after inappropriate cocktails of chemicals had been mixed in his absence. Later, he won respect from us all when it became school gossip that he was having a thing with the very attractive young French language assistant, Mademoiselle Roux, whom the whole school was in love with, including me.