Music doesn’t just resemble life, it reminds you occasionally of a certain song that seems somehow to frame your mood or your current position as you swim endlessly against the tide, it is life, it is existing, breathing in the moment, planning for the future and escaping to the glory or indeed the pain of the past and holding all the possible emotions that you are capable of in a dance of balance, of skill, precision and remembrance. Music is solitude, music is escapism, music has everything you can ask for and as Steve Harley explains across the telephone to me, “I’m a great fatalist, life is what it is, I’ve had pain, I’ve suffered as a kid, it made me who I am, you are who you are through the development of your experiences, influences and inspirations.”
The impression of being relaxed, if it was only possible for me to live up to the title of his on-line diaries from 2000-2008 perhaps then I could revel in the fact that on the other end of the line was a living legend, the rebel, a genius of both the short form song and the long exquisite masterpiece, a reader, a man who has been through pain but come out on the other side as one of Britain’s much loved musicians.
Like many musicians, artists all, if you are fortunate enough to speak to them after a gig then you take that away with you for the rest of your life, their energy hopefully enthuses you to do more with your own time on Earth, to see the popular hit in every stolen kiss on the street, to every bridge between your observations and the operatic tell-tale sign of the grandiose and the astonishing.
Perhaps in the modern age it is different, a period to which Generation X and the Baby Boomer generation have yet to truly embrace, now you can chat and become friends with heroes at the drop of a hat, it is expected, more intimate so it is believed, and yet the mystique and the allure has been eradicated, what you gain in the form of connection, you lose in the mysterious aura, the charisma has been arguably shelved. It is a point of view carried seriously by Mr. Harley as he recounts, “I had a note yesterday at our office from a man who I remember well… he was my Latin teacher and he’s got tickets for one of these acoustic shows down in Devon where he lives, he’s obviously in his 80s, he’s a lot older than me. He was my Latin teacher at grammar school for a long time and he’s just written this wonderful note to me about maybe we can have a chat after the show but you’ll be too busy with other matters and I’ve written back, saying I won’t be too busy to see you, are you kidding… I remember you very well, I love Latin, I did it for six years and still do, to this day, Latin’s everywhere. What I’m illustrating is that there are little excitements that pop into your life when you are not expecting them, and I like that.”
A Fatalist, or just a very decent human being who makes time for others and without the pomp and ceremony that goes hand in hand with the times. I had the great pleasure of meeting Steve before reviewing his gig at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton in May 2010 for Liverpool Student Media, like thousands of others I was impressed by the way he held himself, giving, open, talkative but also a performer who would not suffer the glad tidings of fools, the ones who seek to waste his time on or off stage. It was a memory that I found myself almost drowning in as I spoke to him. Immediately waving off my worries about disturbing him at home with the gentleness of a sated lion, “Not at all, I’m here to talk to you! It’s all done from my property, I’ve got an office here and I’ve got a dedicated interview line here …this phone number, it doesn’t even ring if I don’t have an interview! I’ve got a few calls to take this morning. You’re in Liverpool, aren’t you?”
It’s that initial contact, putting your mind at ease whilst letting you know with assurance that you are talking to a genuine guy, not just a magician who seems to weave songs such as Sebastian out of the ether and who can give a whole new meaning to one of the finest songs ever covered, the haunting Here Comes The Sun.
“Yes“, I reply, suddenly conscious of time. “You are coming back to the city soon and you have played here so often over the years, you’ve performed at the Philharmonic Hall, the Academy, you even played at the Neptune, but now you’re returning and coming to what is its new name, The Epstein Theatre.”
“For me, I really do have a real affinity for your city if that’s what you mean, that’s where you’re based. I love the place, you know the Palm House is a favourite pet subject for me, I helped raise funds for it, the Palm House in Sefton Park … do you know it? I’m very proud of that. It’s all been happening in that city and in my career. In 1974, they set fire to The Stadium when we were playing Sebastian!”
I stupidly reply that I didn’t know that, the beauty of not knowing everything is our greatest gift after all, but you still cannot but help feel stupid when someone points out the extraordinary.
“It’s legendary! It was evacuated. Then in 1975, I fell off stage by standing on some wobbly old stage lights and fell into the orchestra pit at The Empire and there’s lots of fans in that area to this day remind me of those episodes… I was there when…”
“My career’s been going 45 years and yes, you were talking about playing live, you know, it’s just one of life’s great pleasures, it’s not hardship, we travel in comfort and we stay in decent places, everyone is looked after and well-fed, we not all young punks out there, we’re having a laugh … it’s turned into a German comedy … it’s a serious business and it’s business. Once the light’s hit me, it’s performance, it’s just a genuine, 100 per cent, really wonderful experience. Once we’re off the stage, it’s business, we travel and in the trio there’s six of us on the road but the three of us have a great life. We’re pretty cultured, apart from being virtuoso musicians, I’ll be in the Walker Art Gallery that afternoon, I always go to the Walker – it’s a fantastic place, I might just pop into St. George’s Hall, where I played a couple of years ago, it was a momentous event, it was sold out, did you see it?”
After confirming that he has always been so popular that sometimes it is impossible to get a ticket, no matter how hard you try, Steve continues, “Liverpool has some fantastic venues and The Epstein is a terrific place, I mean I haven’t been there for 20 years I think, when I was last there it was called The Neptune but it’s lovely. The idea that you go up in this big old elevator… There are places that ring big bells with us on this tour and some places are bland and unmemorable and others really strike a note but as long as it’s all seated and it’s got a decent dressing room, we play. I won’t play to standing audiences, as a trio as it gets too noisy and people are drinking.”
Again it is a sign of the times that for some, performer and audience member alike, background noise has become a bugbear to them, countless are the times when you attend a show now and all you get is people continuously getting up and down from their seats as if they have hot coals in the pants, the constant need to drink beer, to talk loudly, is off putting at best, downright rude at worst and one when you are lost in the beauty of a song such as the operatic Sebastian can seriously ruin the mood. Sebastian is a firm favourite of many, a forerunner perhaps of Queen experimenting with the form a couple of years later with Bohemian Rhapsody, a feeling of absolute expression, of the sheer scale of the lyrics, if ever a song deserved to be held in the same vein of art as poetry then Sebastian would be it. It is with slight embarrassment in my voice that I share this thought with the writer of the song.
“Why should it cause any embarrassment?”, he asks with the same gentleness, but enquiring mind, that he initially answered my call.
“Even in the acoustic set, we make it sound like an orchestra because the guys can hit a button or kick a pedal and the keyboard and violin start to quadruple in power and harmony, that’s a big event! I love to do it, it’s one of those thrills for an artist when an intro starts up and you feel a ripple from the audience in the dark, you feel a ripple of warmth and pleasure and sometimes with Sebastian sometimes it will be a lot of applause just for the intro as they know what’s coming and those moments can be really precious you know as the performer has his eyes closed with that going on and you feel the warmth and the affection and you think this is all right, o.k., this will be a big performance, that’s different.
When they’re silent … we’re talking here about Liverpool, self-confident, outgoing people, we play the same show in Hastings and it’s like pulling your own teeth out for two hours and then they will finally let go for Sebastian and Make Me Smile at the end of the show, that’s o.k. too, while I prefer an audience that reacts, those that don’t, it’s not personal, it’s just the way they’ve been brought up in that town, that city, that area of the country, they are more reserved and performers get used to it. You don’t start to think this is going badly, oh this isn’t good, they don’t like me, you can’t think that, you just have to wait to the end and you go through it and perform with a slightly different attitude, that’s just the way it is, night after night. If they were all the same, it wouldn’t be the exciting job that it is.”
It seems that patience is the key to performance, however there is more to it than that, it could be argued that it is a skill learned as time goes by in life, for others it might just be part of their overall D.N.A., the ability to listen; where does it fit in with Steve Harley, formed perhaps from his time as a journalist or learning his trade and busking?
“Not really, you just learn from experience. At first, I would have been terrified at playing, we were lucky at first, the first Cockney Rebel took off very quickly, we didn’t really pay our dues, we broke very quickly out of London and Aylesbury and suddenly we were selling out the Liverpool Empire. It didn’t take long, maybe that went against me at the time, but I’ve paid my dues since I think!”
For someone who is constantly touring, who will entertain the crowds with a beautiful, almost brazen smile on his face, surely, I ask, would you not have changed any of that period, released five more albums say, or would you have kept it the way it all panned out? It is in the reply that the thought of fatalism first surfaces.
“I’m a great fatalist, life is what it is, I’ve had pain, I’ve suffered as a kid, it made me who I am, you are who you are through the development of your experiences, influences and inspirations. I mean, I wouldn’t swap anything, I had a note yesterday at our office from a man who I remember well – he was my Latin teacher and he’s got tickets for one of these acoustic shows down in Devon where he lives, he’s obviously in his 80s, he’s a lot older than me. He was my Latin teacher at grammar school for a long time and he’s just written this wonderful note to me about maybe we can have a chat after the show but you’ll be too busy with other matters and I’ve written back, saying I won’t be too busy to see you. What I’m illustrating is that there are little excitement’s that pop into your life when you are not expecting them, and I like that. If you’re not in, you can’t win and I’m in, I’m a betting man as well. I follow horse racing very closely and that’s all right, I win, I lose -I don’t care, it’s a shrug, I won’t win enough to change my life, that’s not why I do it, but I will never lose enough to make me swear and scream.
I’m a great fatalist and I’ll make an album when I’m good and ready, people want one but how many people, you know, this is the question. The cost is this amount, it’s a lot of money, there’s musicians – they aren’t cheap, I don’t pay them cheap money, I pay them well because they deserve it and the studios are not cheap. To make an album for me is a bigger investment and it takes two or three years to get it back. I’m not saying that I mind that, I can afford it but also there’s the inspiration or lack of and I don’t regret not making an album a year like we did in the 70s, it’s not like that anymore.
I did a masterclass up at L.I.P.A. a couple of years ago and my friend’s Jim son- Mackenzie- is there now and we are going to give Mackenzie a 25 minute slot at The Epstein. We’ve never had a support act because I play a long show and we have an interval but I’m going to put Mackenzie up there for 25 minutes, he’s very talented, he’s a very good guitarist and he’s writing very interesting songs, so I’m going to try and give him a break.”
I have always been struck by Steve Harley’s generosity but this is unexpected, but then as I as ponder upon it, I realise that it just him, the rebel perhaps, the man who can make a piece of operatic Pop feel as if it has been penned by an orchestra, who readily gives up his time to talk to people.
“Well hey, you know, we’ll still do a long show with an interval! I will be proud to introduce him. I tell you what Ian, I love young people, I’ve got two of them – mine are 36 and 33 and they both have a baby now, my son’s baby is three years old and my daughter’s baby is three days old – a brand new baby!”
It is in the nature of the man that the conversations turns to more homely matters for a while, we talk of being a grandfather and the responsibilities entailed, both having something in common as I had become a grandfather myself only recently to a young girl called Ella. We chat about disabilities, and all the while it is more than affable, it is that generous nature once more coming through, interested in what you have to say. Finally and with a touch of realisation that it is not me that deserves to be spoken of but the man who will standing on stage at the Epstein Theatre on March 2nd, I bring the conversation round to his reading of The Beatles’ track Here Comes The Sun, arguably one of the most beautiful songs recorded by the Liverpool band and certainly one of George Harrison’s more sublime lyrical observations. Was it hard to reconcile such a piece of music and read it in his own way?
“Not a bit”, he answers with sheer honesty unfolding itself down the phone, “I was listening to the fabs – or whoever else played on it, I was listening to it in the back of a London cab on my way into Abbey Road where we were recording Love Is A Prima Donna – the album and it came on the cabbie’s radio and I was listening very carefully to it and I thought George is in his back garden one summer’s afternoon with Eric Clapton and came up with this melody (SH humming tune) – very laid back, ethereal, summer-like revelry.
Then I thought- hang on, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter and I was thinking Apocalypse – I was thinking nuclear fallout, acid rain, Apocalypse because this is 1975/76! So, I went in and said to the guys I’m going to do a cover of that, and they said why, what’s up, have we run out of songs? I said no but I want to do this. The first thing I said to the drummer was I need it in 16/4time on the right cymbal – and he goes’ chugga-changa 16 to the bar and then we started, I shut my eyes and started playing the guitar and I thought about and thought about it and then I told them to shut up, I’m saying stop, stop, stop because I was thinking. I was producing it in my head as Stewart was doing the drums and then I said let’s have these accents and that’s my Apocalypse – the accents – all those hard-hitting, thrashing accents.”
It may a story that is known, after all anything even vaguely connected with The Beatles does seem to generate its own press, and even must have listened to the song a thousand times or more but I would certainly never would have thought of that song in that particular context now though, like the obvious mark of greatness in a Lowry painting, it cannot be ignored.
Steve continues, “I don’t know to this day what George Harrison thought of it. I never met him. I often see Paul McCartney, now and again I bump into Paul and I will not ask him because he won’t know anyway but I never did find out what George thought, not that he needed the money! It was a big hit and he didn’t need the money but I hope he listened and thought it was….well, you see Ian, I know of 130 plus covers of Make Me Smile, only three or four of them are really clever and original, many are replicas of the original, it’s pointless, why bother? So I hope he would have heard it and at least he might have thought, Harley’s had a good crack here. Everyone sings it, there are hundreds of covers and Harley said …duff, duff duff!
The Beatles were a phenomenon that I’m not going to see in my lifetime again, I don’t think anyone will to be honest. How on earth when Lennon met McCartney and the next week, McCartney came along with his little friend George, I mean, it’s too silly! It’s beyond reason!
They say miracles only happen in the Bible but in musical terms, in social terms and historical terms that’s as close as you’ll get. The three of them met and when they eventually settled on who was the busiest session drummer in the north west and top man Ringo – a drummer who influenced every drummer today, they found him- it’s all too daft and then what you’ve basically got is this combination of genius.”
It is not often I am struck for words, in my own world I am lost in thought, words, the crossing over of generations that have bought much to the world since the start of the 1950s, an explosion of sound and yet the only phrase I can utter is a simple one, that this is all a perfect storm. Thankfully Steve agree with me.”Isn’t it? You’ve got it. I was writing an 800-word essay appreciation on Rubber Soul for a collection that’s being written and put together for this year by Brian Southall and Brian writes proper good stuff and he trained with me as a reporter. Brian’s doing this collection and he’s gone to a lot of musicians to write a piece about their favourite Beatles’ album and I went straight for Rubber Soul because that’s when they grew up, that’s when the boys became men and it was such a thrill to write 800 words, I could have written 8000 on one album, the depth of talent in there is almost indescribable. The only way I could write it was eventually I started about eight times and I called him up and said I’m going to write this as a stream of consciousness, I’m going to write this record runs itself in front of me and he said yes, do anything you want!”
It is that moment that I realise there was a whole avenue of conversation I could have had with Steve but time is the perpetual wolf, snarling, growling in anticipation should you linger too long in the woods, admiring the flowers and paying no heed to the lit eyes betraying hunger. I make thanks, he made me smile throughout but then I would have expected nothing less, for the music of Steve Harley has always had that effect on the multitude. I can only offer my thanks for his time, and in true fashion he replies, “It’s been an absolute pleasure, it’s great to hear your voice again, come and say hello backstage.”
Steve Harley will be performing at the Epstein Theatre on March 2nd. For other dates and venues, please go to Steve Harley’s home page.
Ian D. Hall