GLORY DAYS
KEN SHARP: In 1966 when the Small Faces were really starting
to tour and happen, the Beatles and the Stones were pretty much
not touring in England, or off overseas, and the Small Faces were
kept constantly busy by Decca touring, doing radio, doing television,
recording...does it surprise you that you were able to sustain
it? To survive it? I know Ronnie and Steve both collapsed at one
point.
IAN MCLAGAN: See ... all the bands I was in up until there, I
could never get enough work, and to play in front of a crowd.
The Muleskinners we had to work hard, humping the gear and all,
and now, I didn't have to hump gear, all I had to do was play.
Hello! And could play every day and we did play every day. And
when we occasionally had a day off, we'd get more wrecked. We
were taking alot of pills to keep going, and smoking dope to relax,
and you can't do that for.... I did it from 1963-64 until 1985
...but when you finally got a chance to work, no one in that band
said no. It was like: "Yes!!!" We were going faster
than anyone could possibly handle. We'd take as much work as we
could possibly get.
KEN SHARP: What were gigs like that back then? Could you actually
hear? What was the audience breakdown -- more guys than girls?
IAN MCLAGAN: More girls. And sometimes you'd have guys there
kinda gettin' the needle too, because their girlfriend was lookin'
at you, but we did have guys who were there for the music, and
girls who were there for the look. More girls than guys, though.
RONNIE LANE: We was teenyboppers! We was in our late teens, it
was weird, really weird, not like anything I've experience before
or since, to have thousands of chicks screaming, and if they got
ahold of you, they'd tear you to pieces man.
JODY DENBERG: So did that mean you had to be careful who you
approached?
RONNIE LANE: Well ... not that careful!
KEN SHARP: How long would you guys play?
IAN MCLAGAN: It got shorter and shorter the bigger you became.
It's like the more famous you are, the less you have to pay for
equipment. That doesn't make any sense. Equipment -- like, we
didn't have to buy equipment, I mean I bought my guitar that time,
but.... We used to play about an hour, at the most, but then it
became forty minutes, then two twenty minute slots. We'd play
a few minutes then someone would break through the barrier and
it would get out of control and we'd have to quit.
KEN SHARP: Could you hear yourselves?
IAN MCLAGAN: You couldn't hear much, it was all screaming. We
would go on and play. Now, you go on and do the hits, but they
wouldn't even listen, they were screaming, you know, it was a
funny old scene -- it was like they were watching television.
You know, I got to straighten this out -- Paolo [Hewitt]
told this story that girls would pee themselves -- now what the
fuck is that, that's bullshit. The truth of the matter is -- we
saw this a lot -- girls down in front row would be fiddling themselves.
And it's like a kid with television -- it's like they're watching
something, no connection with it at all -- I still see this today,
it's like they're not seeing Rod so much as they're completely
separate to it, until he's within their grasp and then they grab
for 'im. And they don't even seem to grasp that you can see them
-- I mean they're in the front row! And it was overwhelming, it
wasn't the smell of pee, it was overwhelming. It's like strippers
-- now I know how they feel when there's guys out in front touching
themselves as if they can't be seen. It was ugly. It was horrible.
We were sex objects.
KENNEY JONES: You couldn't hear yourselves. Girls would sit in
front and diddle themselves. It never went away. Well, it went
away briefly because we sort of buried ourselves in the studio
a lot, and we were always playing abroad and what not. But it
haunted us. Although we had to like it, because it was a way of
showing appreciation. You couldn't knock it on the one hand, but
it became irritating on the other. Because all we wanted to do
was play to 'em, and say "listen to the music, you know,
and then scream at the end." But it never happened that way.
STEVE MARRIOTT: It was mad. It was a bunch of noise, a bunch
of screaming little girls. It wasn't like today where people actually
listen. It was just a screaming row. The P.A.'s were sort of archaic,
you could never hear. Monitors to me were people who brought the
milk round at school! You used to stick your finger in your ear
to hear yourself properly.
KEN SHARP: How about now? Does the same thing still happen? Would
you welcome it?
IAN MCLAGAN: Naahh! We never welcomed it then, it wasn't pleasant.
I mean, they were watching something that wasn't happening --
they were watching a screen.
KEN SHARP: Did the rest of the band feel that way? Did they want
to be treated more like musicians?
IAN MCLAGAN: These were pubescent girls. They were 11-12 - 14
year old. It was unpleasant, it was overwhelming. You'd go on,
you'd say, well fuck this, they're screaming, they're fiddling
themselves, we're gonna play what we want to play. So we'd play
anything we wanna play, we'd just jam. Jam on one chord, organ
solo for ten days. Kenney and Ronnie doing this Cuban/Latin bump
thing....
KEN SHARP: What British bands really forged a relationship with
the Small Faces? Were the Beatles friends? Obviously the Who had
to be....
IAN MCLAGAN: The Who were, but you see, the Beatles were already
rock gods and we didn't bump into them.
KEN SHARP: You played with them at the NME Pollwinner's Concert
in 1966...
IAN MCLAGAN: Did we? I didn't know that. I used to hang around
with the Stones, but I didn't know them. I mean, I knew Brian
a bit, and Mick, they were the two friendliest. I didn't know
Keith in the Muleskinners days.
KENNEY JONES: Ronnie and Steve used to bump into McCartney quite
a lot in the Hippy Trippy sort of days.
KEN SHARP: Did they dig the band? Did they tell you?
IAN MCLAGAN: No. I almost met John Lennon, in the studio when
the Stones were doing "We Love You" and he and Paul
were doing background vocals. I was in the studio next door laying
down piano tracks, and John stuck his head around the door, and
I looked down at the piano, looked back up and he was gone.
KENNEY JONES: McCartney was a big, big fan. In fact, all the
Beatles were big fans. I only saw John Lennon walk through Olympic
studios once, sort of said hello and walked out. After the fact,
I'm good friends with Ringo and Paul, and see George here and
there and say hello, whatever. I've had the opportunity to play
with Paul, did the Rockestra with Paul and John Bonham, one of
the last things he did before he died. The Beatles were great
fans, they thought we were stunning, without a doubt. They gave
us a lot of encouragement, you see, because they'd had three years
head start on us. Giving mainly Steve and Ronnie advice on what
to do, how to cope. They were mixing because they used to go to
the same clubs -- I never used to go. They were quite nice, you
know.
KEN SHARP: Steve seemed to be on the fence about the Beatles
when he was asked about them in interviews.
IAN MCLAGAN: It's just like kids today are fans of either Blur
or Oasis but not both. In those days it was the Stones or the
Beatles; I was a Stones fan. And also see the Beatles got all
the push, they weren't from London, and I could see the Stones.
The Beatles came down to Station Hotel as well -- I was there
the night they came down, and it was like, "...yeah, you're
checking my band, fuck you." 'Cause the Stones hadn't made
a record yet.
KEN SHARP: But you'd heard of the Beatles?
IAN MCLAGAN: Yeah, fuck, they were great!
KEN SHARP: But did you ever work with any of the Beatles?
IAN MCLAGAN: Not then, but I've worked with George, Paul, and
Ringo. I wrote a song with George, "Far East Man." And
Paul used to come to the Faces gigs, because we did "Maybe
I'm Amazed." When I first heard that record of his, me and
Ronnie Lane were in a car going from New York to Connecticut on
a hot Sunday, and it came on the radio, and they didn't say who
it was and I said "...fuck, that's the stuff that Paul McCartney
should be doing..." and then it came on at the end and said
it was him.
KEN SHARP: How did you feel when "All or Nothing" reached
the #1 spot in 1966?
IAN MCLAGAN: I don't remember: I must have felt damned good!
I bet you'd have felt damned good if it have been you, wouldn't
you? (laughs)
KENNEY JONES: It was an amazing feeling. It was history. We had
a joint Number One with the Beatles at one point [with "Eleanor
Rigby"/"Yellow Submarine"]. I'll never forget
on "Top of the Pops," it was a joint number one, and
they had our pictures on screen together, like cut in half. Half
my face and half of Ringo's. I've still got a picture of it somewhere
-- it was fantastic.
RONNIE LANE: We was teen boppers, actually. It was fantastic!
There's nothing more that a young kid can want -- get a hit record,
and that kind of thing. Whew! The teen bopper thing became quite
enormous really, because after the hit record we never heard ourselves
again on stage -- it was all screaming all the time, you know.
I thought it was great, but it wasn't good for the music.
KEN SHARP: Don Arden gets this reputation as being this gangster
-- things like that. Do you think this reputation was deserved?
IAN MCLAGAN: Well, like I say in my book, you've got to give
Don Arden credit where credit was due. He was a great manager
and did alot for the band. He was a great manager in the old school,
like Tom Parker. In the same way, you never knew where the money
was, and you never got the money. Bills got paid, you got fed,
and you worked hard. Our parents realized -- we were getting paid
every week, but where's the money? I mean, all these hit records,
concerts.... So behind our backs they actually had a meeting with
him. He fobbed them off, threw a red herring in front of 'em,
and said: (gangster voice) "...well, people in show business
spend money, and they've spend theirs." And they said "...well,
that's not good enough." And he said: "...and by the
way they're all on heroin." And it shut 'em all up, didn't
it? When they were all done crying, they left. Then they were
attacking us after that. We weren't on heroin! Well, that was
when we left him, very soon after that.
KENT BENJAMIN: How did you come to be on Immediate Records? The
Small Faces were one of the first and most prestigious signings
to Stones' manager Andrew Oldham's new label, Immediate?
RONNIE LANE: Steve knew Andrew, and he knew The Stones as well,
and I suppose he went to him, and anyway, we signed up with Andrew.
After Decca Records, ooohhh!, it was like heaven, you know, and
everything was laid on -- we could have as much studio time as
we wanted. Of course, we never made any money from Immediate Records.
I don't know who did....
STEVE MARRIOTT: Me and Ronnie did a bit of teamwork on the shopping
for a new manager and agent. We flitted around to a few different
things. First we went to Chris Blackwell of Island. He pointed
out that he wouldn't have the time to give to us, and said "Whoever
takes you on is going to have to give you nigh onto 100% of their
time, and I'd love to do it, but I can't. I can't run this company,
keep Stevie (Winwood) happy with his new band Traffic and all
this kind of thing. I wouldn't be able to give you that time."
Andrew said he could, and did.
KENT BENJAMIN: Your music changed from being a raw, screamin'
soul-based r'n'b band, to being a more thoughtful and psychedelic
band when you signed to Immediate; how did that change come about?
RONNIE LANE: Well, we was more thoughtful, and psychedelic, Kent!
(laughs). We was more thoughtful and psychedelic. I got spiked
at this party with the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein. This guy
came out with a plate with cut up oranges on it, and he passed
them out to his guests. And I thought, well, this is a bit funny
ain't it? Funny party ain't it? But I'll have a bit of orange,
and I took it same as everybody else did...BUT...about an hour
later things started to happen, you know? And I didn't know what
I'd been given, or if I'd been given anything...or what was happening?
It was quite horrific at the time...but then it turned into something
that was Quite Beautiful!
STEVE MARRIOTT: When we were with Decca we were in the studio
for, well, you were told to make an album in three days. So you
did that. With Immediate, they were our managers and our record
company, so it suited their purposes as managers to have us in
the studio as a record company as long as possible, so that's
what happened there. Basically all we done was set out to experiment
in the studio a little more, 'cos in those days, you didn't have
all the electronic gadgetry you've got now, and it was still a
time of experimentation. We used to have tape loops running 'round
the back of fucking chairs and back onto the machine to get the
desired effect. It was great, 'cos you had to experiment, there
was no gadget that done it for you. So that's what we did, we
just set out to experiment. I suppose it could look like we set
out to become album artist, but no, not at all. All we did was
live in the studio for a year or two.
KENNEY JONES: What happened was that we were given more studio
time to do what we wanted. Andrew Oldham would just encourage
us to stay and play and do what we want, so we did. We had a lot
more time to just experiment.
KEN SHARP: What about the TV show where Steve apparently stole
the tapes and ran off down the road with them?
IAN MCLAGAN: I thought that happened in Italy. We'd been messed
around and hung up. I vaguely remember that. We were cheeky lads.
I do remember once we were in Paris and the cameramen were drunk,
and they were bumping into each other and laughing. They were
puttin' dents in me organ. So we did walk out of it. I think we
did a promotion tour in Italy and they were fuckin' us around.
We did a take for the TV show and we wanted to hear it, so we
took the tape and walked right out. Actually Steve didn't take
it, it was Andrew Oldham.
KEN SHARP: I wanted to ask if you have any recollections of some
of the cool videos of the Small Faces they showed in the Grenada
TV special, My Generation: The Small Faces, which was just
tremendous? What about that "Itchycoo Park" that was
shot on the beach?
KENNEY JONES: That was great fun, that. The "Itchycoo Park"
on the beach was when Immediate was shooting a promotional film
-- don't forget that in those days it was virtually unheard of
to do a video. The word "video" wasn't there. It was
for a promo film to take around Europe when we were on tour. I'll
never forget I was driving Andrew Oldham's little mini around
the beach all day -- I fell in love with it. We were all fucking
around in the sand and having a great deal of fun.
KEN SHARP: Was that video of "Itchycoo Park" in the
park shot in the real park?
KENNEY JONES: No. It was just in a park that was convenient,
Chiswick park I think, because we all lived near there, and it
was convenient to shoot there.
KEN SHARP: One of my favorite videos is the video for "Get
Yourself Together" where you're all dressed as cops chasing
Steve down the street, which I'd never seen before the Grenada
documentary. Was that a lot of fun to do?
KENNEY JONES: Yeah, funnily enough. I have vague memories of
doing it, but can barely remember it, oddly enough.
KEN SHARP: What about the "Lazy Sunday" video, where
was that done?
KENNEY JONES: That was done in my mother and father's house in
the East End. t was shot at my mother's house, where they knock
on the door, and then they go through, and they go out to the
sort of outside loo, in back of the yard. The woman that played
in it, and was holding her fist up, was my next door neighbor.
JODY DENBERG: The Small Faces did a package tour of Australia
with The Who. What did you do to bring the wrath of the Australian
government down on you?
STEVE MARRIOTT: Well, it was a bad rap. We did a press conference,
and I put out my cigarette the only place you could, which was
on the floor, so they'd pick on that. But there was no ashtrays!
They called us Dirty Old Englishmen. I was seen to scratch behind
my ears, but I'd caught mange off my dogs; I didn't know....so
there was all this sort of bad rap. By the time we got to New
Zealand, we'd just about had it with the lot of them.
RONNIE LANE: Well in actual fact, we didn't do anything that
bad. The Australians back in the Sixties didn't like the English,
and the press decided we were good-for-nothing type people, and
they really slagged us off and said alot of things we'd done that
we really didn't do. In the end, we decided we might as well do
some of the things we'd been blamed for. We never did get around
to some of....well, a couple of televisions did get thrown in
the swimming pool, but what's that between nationalities. We obviously
can't blame Keith Moon because he's deceased, and can't answer
back.
STEVE MARRIOTT: The Australian trip was a total disaster. It
was fun -- Midgets On Maneuvers. It was fun and we had a lot of
laughs on it, but we came away owing money -- smashing up rooms
and stuff like that. In Wellington it was my 21st birthday, and
they gave me the only suite in the hotel, which was really nice
of them. Me and Keith Moon and Wiggy (John Walford, The Who's
road manager, called Wiggy because he was completely bald and
wore a wig) destroyed the place. I'll tell you how it started.
EMI had given me a little portable record player as a birthday
present, so I'd gone and bought a bunch of great records that
you can get over there, because they're so far behind you could
still get stuff you couldn't get in England. I started playing
it and it fed back into itself and made a terrible humming sound
that you couldn't get rid of, so I threw it over the balcony.
And Wiggy went down and got it and I threw it over again, and
before you knew it, there were chairs, TV's, settees, everything
was over the balcony and through the windows -- mirrors, everything,
the whole fucking deal. There was quite an audience watching it
all come down. It was ridiculous, I was hurting with laughter,
it was so funny at the time -- pissed as newts. We'd be lying
on the floor gasping for breath, and someone would see something
that wasn't broken, and then break it and sling it over the balcony
and it would start again.
Anyway, we were sort of lying there wondering what to do. When
we came to, we could see what we had done -- all the French doors
were gone, every window, there's nothing in the room 'cos it's
all on the pavement. I think Ronnie and Pete (Townshend) were
there to begin with, and Pete said to Ronnie: "This ends
in the nick," and they split and left the three of us to
do it -- me Moony and Wiggy. We were the culprits, I'm afraid.
So I had a great idea -- "Let's say someone's broken into
our room and complain about it." So that's what we did, and
the police were there interviewing us and all that. So Keith Moon
rings up the reception and says: "Look, what kind of security
do you have? Our room's been broken into and vandalized, and we
paid good money for these." The police came and like, Wiggy
was seen carrying an armchair and throwing it over. He's got a
bald head, and there's this wig hanging by the bed, and they're
talking to him: "Do you know a bald man?" and he'd say
"No." It was simple as that, and we got out of it. I
thought "great", the next night would be cool. They
spent all day refurnishing this place, putting in new French windows
and everything. Come the evening, Keith comes up and says "They
done a great job" and immediately put an ashtray through
the French windows. And off it goes again, furniture over the
balcony again, see. We didn't get away with it again, not a chance.
The second time it was like "Oh, God, we can't get away with
it," so instead, Keith put on his bravado, which was always
funny to watch. We were drinking champagne, still celebrating
twenty-one, and the manager came up in his dressing gown. It was
late, about three in the morning, and he said: "I know it
was you this time. Who has done this?" And Keith put the
manager's tie in his drink and said "I did it." Like,
whatcha gonna do about it? "Moon's the name." So I think
he took most of the rap for that, which he should have done really.
The party got the army round. They sent the police in first day,
and we got them drunk in the room listening to Booker T. We were
wearing their helmets and still smashing the place up. So they
brought the Army in, and we had a man outside each door with a
rifle! And if we opened the door, it was like "Get back in
your room." And that was the story!
RONNIE LANE: We got on the airplane early one morning, we'd been
up raving the night before and I fell asleep on the plane. But
an Australian support band was also on the plane, and they'd brought
aboard a couple of cans of beer. Or, as they call them in Australia,
"a couple of tubes of beer, sport." They started drinking
them, and in those days it was illegal to drink on planes. So,
a couple of stewardesses took a very dim view of this, knowing
it was "...that confounded English tour that was going on..."
and what she'd read in the papers, so she refused to serve us
any coffee. I woke up with Paul Jones (ex-Mannfred Mann singer/solo
artist) who was a very proper schoolboy -- not one of us geezers
from the East End -- very loudly demanding his coffee. The stewardess
burst into tears, and went up to the pilot and reported this whole
incident. The pilot had also read the papers about what a lot
of scalawags we were, and the pilot made an unscheduled landing
at an airport. When we landed, there were all these police and
television cameras there, and we were carted off. The television
cameras was on the plane, so I said to everyone "...go out
with your hands on your head, and it'll look like the plane was
hijacked -- it'll look really good on TV...," so we did!
STEVE MARRIOTT: I think Paul Jones was our spokesman 'cos he
spoke the better, correct English. "It didn't really have
anything to do with us" he was saying, and we were making
raspberries behind him. Terrible slags we were -- terrible liars.
I think they let us do one more show, then we were deported. The
police saw us out of their country! New Zealand was enjoyable.
We got to the airport and Pete Townshend immediately smashed one
press guy's camera -- throws it. Oh, here we go again! But they
kind of understood, because I don't think they're too keen on
Australians, either.
JODY DENBERG: So that's where you met Pete Townshend on that tour.
Quite an auspicious beginning!
RONNIE LANE: Yeah, and it was a religious thing, too. I was reading
a couple of Sufi books, and he was reading this book about this
guy called Meher Baba, that had this thing called Sufism Reoriented.
So I started to learn about Baba, and he seemed like an alright
guy, and Pete and I had fun. So the song "The Stone"
(a.k.a. "Evolution") came directly from Meher Baba's
teachings.
