Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories (5 page)

Our rider for the shows was thirteen pages long; side after side was like a brewery stocktake: beers, wines, spirits, every drink imaginable. Then, on the very last page, there was a small gap and a single line for the food order, which read ‘Salted peanuts – but not crucial’.

We always used to get through our rider, what with the thirst of the band and crew, but also all our guests who we liked to entertain at each show. During the interval for this first night in Tokyo we noticed there were a dozen bottles of very expensive champagne on top of our requested rider. We thought nothing of it, assuming that Mr Udo had sent them as a welcome gesture. We left them where they were and got stuck into the rider, quickly polishing off these vast quantities of alcohol between us. Then my tour manager, the immortal Funky Fat Fred (you’ll meet him properly later on), came in and said there was a technical fault with the miking up of the violins and that there would be a half-hour delay before we could resume. We were a little pissed off because it was such a great buzz and we didn’t want to disappoint the crowd, but it was explained to us that Japanese crowds were exquisitely well behaved in every respect and there would not be any problems as a result of the unforeseen delay. Naturally, to while away the time we turned to the only alcohol left in the dressing room that lay untouched, those mysterious dozen bottles
of champagne. There were seven of us in there and the twelve bottles went down very nicely indeed.

Eventually, the technical faults were fixed and we went back on to play
Journey
and the remainder of the show – it was
fabulous
. In the dressing room afterwards there was such a buzz – we were all talking about the symphony orchestra, the crowd, the emotions were hard to put into words. At that moment there didn’t feel like there was a high in the world to come close to it. Amazing.

Then the door opened.

It was my tour manager, chaperoning a gaggle of about ten very senior Japanese businessmen in tailored suits into the dressing room.

Now, I love the Japanese, their culture is so respectful and I love all the very particular etiquette that they observe. The Japanese ooze respect, which makes you more respectful back; I think that a lot of the Western world has lost that element of consideration whereas the Japanese have always retained it in their culture. To me it is like an incredible breath of fresh air every time I visit there. One trick I had learned from the few occasions that Yes had played over there was that when a businessman gives you his card, you don’t do what we do in Europe – namely pretend to look at it for half a second and then shove it in your pocket. You should read it very carefully in front of that person, bow and thank them. The first man gave me his card and I dutifully read it: he was the most senior executive at Japanese Airlines.

He proceeded to introduce me to all the other board members of Japanese Airlines, who all gave me their cards, bowed and paid me their respects. After much bowing and thanking, the head executive stepped forward again and said, ‘I velly much hope you enjoy show, and as a token of appleciation, we sent twelve bottres of champagne to dlink with you, Lick.’ He turned to the dozen
now-empty bottles of champagne strewn across the table and said . . .

‘Bruddy hell, they done it again!’

Our drinking wasn’t always to our benefit, naturally. Roger Hodgson, my percussion player, had a serious bladder problem; he was probably the biggest drinker by far, outrageous, but he couldn’t really hold his water much more than an hour and a half max, which was unfortunate as our set was three hours long. So he came up with this ingenious solution of hanging a bucket on his vibraphone, which he would endeavour to pee into during the loud sections of the show. Every now and then his timing wasn’t great so I’d be starting a very delicate piano piece only to hear the sound of a man pissing in a fire bucket.

In the end, the crew complained that although they didn’t mind lugging the gear, climbing up precarious lighting rigs and working eighteen-hour days, when it came to the crunch they were not paid to empty Hodgy’s pisspot. I said, ‘Well, someone’s got to do it,’ but they were having none of it; by way of making their point they drilled holes in the bottom of his bucket. So the next time he played his shoes got rather wet.

My wonderful but, sadly, late trumpet player Martin Shields was also a quite marvellous and phenomenal drinker. He was also a fabulous trumpet player. Of course, these two attributes don’t always work together too well. For one, you need firm lips for playing a trumpet and on more than one occasion when he’d sunk a load of booze he’d play like a cross between the theme tune for
Coronation Street
and a Salvation Army band. Then he’d fall asleep and start snoring.

One particular night in America with the English Rock Ensemble, Martin had had an absolute skinful. How he even stayed standing was beyond me. You always knew how far gone
Martin was from the amount of vibrato in his playing. Unfortunately, on this particular evening there was a
lot
of vibrato. He still sounded great, though, and he always looked the dog’s bollocks, draped in a white satin suit. The band looked impressive too – we lined up in a very unusual way with the drummer at one end of the stage, effectively with everyone in a straight line and me on a rostrum behind them. It was very dramatic.

The very last part of the title track, ‘Journey . . .’, finished on a top ‘D’ for Martin, which was technically pretty impressive. It’s a good note, top-of-the-range stuff. Now, Martin could hit this note no problem when he hadn’t had a drink; like I said, he was a quality trumpet player. However, he was so remarkably drunk this night I thought there was no way he was going to get this note.

Martin didn’t share my pessimism.

He thought he could do it.

As the note approached, I looked at him and he was totally focused on reaching this top ‘D’.

It came to the final chord and I saw his cheeks tighten and he went for it . . .

. . . He hit the top ‘D’ . . .

. . . And shat himself violently.

I watched in stunned amazement as the rear of Martin’s pristine white suit turned into what could only be described as an Ordnance Survey map of a sewage farm in Watford. To put it politely, it stank.

The band very quickly cottoned on to what had happened and without a word between them they all moved away, up to the other end of the stage by the drummer, leaving Martin all on his own. The audience were completely bewildered as to why the band were cramming themselves into one corner of the stage while the trumpet player stood alone on the opposite side. I had to say something.

‘I expect you are all wondering why the band are all down there. It’s because Martin has shit himself.’

The crowd all started laughing because – obviously – they thought it was a joke. Martin was horrified, however. He turned around to face me and said, ‘Oh, don’t tell them that!’ – in the process revealing the full extent of the stains on his white suit. The audience let out a communal ‘Urgh!!!’

With my own rampant drinking through the 1970s and 1980s, I did not escape without my own fair share of embarrassing drink-induced incidents. So pour yourself a glass and let me tell you about two particularly memorable moments.

The year is 1973. I was still in Yes – just – but had already released my first solo album,
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
, which was critically lambasted on its initial release. The music press had slated it and no one else seemed interested. This frosty media reception obviously made it very hard to maintain a good profile and promotion on the record – the music journos had made their minds up and they slaughtered it.

So when my record-company A&R man of the time, Tony Burdfield from A&M, burst into the room and said, ‘Rick, I’ve got you on
The Old Grey Whistle Test
,’ this was very big news. For starters, this was to be my first major television appearance. It was filmed down at the BBC – you recorded the music quite early in the afternoon and then headed off for a break, before coming back to do the interview live with the renowned presenter, ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris.

I’d got a band together and we were well prepared. On the day, we performed immaculate renditions of ‘Catherine Howard’ and ‘Catherine Parr’ after which the production staff told me I wasn’t needed until much later that night. So off I trotted to the now-defunct BBC bar. I was a serial drinker at this point, but I knew this
Whistle Test
interview was really important so I resolved
not to get drunk. The
Whistle Test
never had huge viewing figures but as a programme it was taken very seriously. This was my chance to reignite interest in
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
, so I couldn’t take any chances.

Unfortunately, in the bar I met up with an old friend who was also a serial drinker. Suffice to say, despite my best intentions, when the production girl came to get me, I’d been drinking heavily for five hours and I was completely paralytic. I must have downed half a bottle of Scotch and several bottles of wine. I can recall this girl apologising for the delay in getting me to the studio for the live interview, at which point I stood up . . . but not for long, as my legs had gone.

I staggered to the door, my head was throbbing and I was just thinking,
I’ve blown it
. The programme director, Mike Appleton, came over to me and immediately realised I was completely pissed. With admirably quick thinking, he said, ‘Right, Bob’s very good and he’s going to keep this interview short – he’s just going to ask you three questions, Rick. Keep your answers short. He’s going to ask you how long it took to record the album, then who played on the album and finally if you are likely to tour the record.’

As he was talking to me, I was plodding through his words in my brain, processing them syllable by syllable in drunken slow motion . . .
Right, how long it took to record the album? . . . It took nearly a year . . . Who played on the album? . . . Right, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe . . . And are we likely to tour? . . . Unlikely because of commitments with Yes . . . We’re all right here, Rick, you can do this . . .

Whispering Bob Harris sat me down in front of the camera and started to ask the questions, just like I’d been told.

‘Well, Rick, tell me, who played on the album?’

‘A year.’

Bob just looked at me and quickly decided to plough on.

‘Er, right. So how long did it take you to record this album, Rick?’

‘No, we probably won’t be touring it, because of Yes commitments.’

Again, a brief silence before the final question.

‘Right . . . and tell me, are you likely to tour the record?’

‘Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe.’

At this point, the camera panned back in a near-panic and it was all over.

In the end, they cleverly used two of my replies but re-edited it to save my blushes.

Or, perhaps, theirs.

I was delighted to find out some years later that this particular edition of
Whistle Test
had actually enjoyed some of the programme’s best-ever viewing figures, way more than the normal ratings. There was a reason for this and, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t my odd, drunken interview.

The same night, the highly controversial Andy Warhol film
Blue Movie
was due to be broadcast on BBC1. There had been uproar about this film. Mary Whitehouse was in a state and it was in all the papers and on radio. People were up in arms about whether the BBC should be showing this apparently morally degrading film. Of course, all this actually meant was that
everyone
knew about it and
everyone
wanted to watch it. It was television’s must-see movie of the year.

The Warhol film was due on just after 11 p.m., so most people were planning to leave the pub before closing time and head home to watch it, myself included. I got back to my house in Gerrards Cross and switched on the telly, only to be met by an announcement that the BBC were no longer able to show the Warhol film. Now, this was in the days long before a thousand satellite channels – you had BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. That was your lot. It was too late to go back to the pub, so I resigned
myself to staying in and flicked over to ITV to see what was on there. That was rubbish so, in desperation, I tuned in to BBC2. Across the nation, millions of disappointed people were doing exactly the same thing at the same time, flicking on to BBC2.

And what did the nation find on that oft-ignored channel?

Yes, my stupendous, drunken interview with Whispering Bob Harris on
The Old Grey Whistle Test
.

The following week,
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
flew up the charts and went on to sell millions of copies all over the world. I’ve got Andy Warhol to thank for that.

And so we come to my second example of the drink causing a stink. Good old Radio Solent. The early days of commercial radio were as limited in many ways as the formative times in television. While your TV set only picked up three channels, your choice of radio listening was only slightly more expansive. There just weren’t that many commercial stations about. You had your local BBC stations but commercial ones were few and far between. For an artist like me, who at that time was considered prog rock and unfashionable, getting radio was always difficult. Most progrock shows were either on late at night or didn’t exist at all. Strangely, this made prog-rock followers even more elitist about their music but from an artist’s point of view it meant a lot of hard work travelling around to these fledgling commercial radios doing interviews and trying to increase your radio air-time somehow.

Down in Portsmouth, they had Radio Solent.

I’m banned from there, you know.

Over something and nothing, a few naughty words, a few glasses of port and brandy.

They banned me for life.

A guy called Dave Christian ran the station. He’d previously been a Radio Luxembourg stalwart and he was a really nice guy.
They had a midnight rock show and kindly invited me to go on there to talk about and play some tracks from my 1975 solo epic
The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
. That record is a whole other chapter, but let me tell you about Radio Solent first.