THE USUAL SUSPECT PRODUCTIONS
presents Life of Brian, Part 2
An interview with Jan Tucker and
Frank Torpey.
Below is an almost
word for word transcript from the tapes from the evening at THE GATE on Monday
evening
Although the focus was
to be on Brian we get a great insight into the early Sweet years too.
What you don’t get is
the chat that went on before the tapes were rolling…… Perhaps another time eh.
Frank
with Ayston Tucker (pic taken at The Oaks – Feb
2002
Jan Tucker
THE USUAL SUSPECT
PRODUCTIONS presents Life of Brian, Part 2
An interview with
Jan Tucker and Frank Torpey.
For this event Frank
decided to meet up at The Gate in Northwood. Woody has joined me at The White
Horse in Chorleywood and we have picked up Jan Tucker at her house. We have
found a table, mains to plug in the tape recorder, a round of drinks, press
play and the record button simultaneously:
Woody has brought
Steve’s book with him and starts off asking a question relating to the Torpey
years in Sweet?
Frank :I have read Steve’s book and I’d say that
most from my period is about right.
Henrik: Did you go
to the same school as Mick?
Frank:
No, that’s what
he’s got there. I went to school with someone called John Neighbour;
he passed his 13+ and went to the Wilsdon School of Technology, I think it was
called, which Mick went to, so which school Mick went to before that I don’t
know. John was taken by the idea of being in a group and that’s… and he said I
know a fellow at school that I go to called Mick Tucker and we formed….that was
our first inclination to being in a band, we had no name.
Woody: You had no name?
Frank: I don’t think so; we only did one gig I think?
Henrik: How did you first meet Brian?
Frank: Right, the first real band I formed with Mick and that went its
own different ways. Years later I met Mick. I was in a band called "The
Tribe" and we were doing a gig in Greenford and Mick came along. I hadn’t
seen Mick for years eh……we were making a hell of a racket, we were a proper
R&B band, it was deafening stuff, and we were good. We actually ended up as
residents at The Marquee. In those days it meant that you would probably go on
and become a big band, not just nationwide but worldwide like The Yardbirds,
The Who and The Rolling Stones, all these bands had all been residents at The
Marquee. So we thought we were going on to do big things. Then we got really
too big for our boots and eh…..and I was at that time very full of myself and I
was up everybody’s nose and they got fed up with me and………………
Henrik,
Woody
and Jan: HA HA HA HA
Frank: They did, they did, I was like a pain in the arse you know……and
so they gave me the sack, it’s true, they gave me the sack.
(more laughter)
Henrik: How does Brian fit in here?
Frank: I tell you this, this is coming yeah? So I phoned Mick and I
said,” I’m looking for a semi pro band, can you help me out?” And he said
"Yeah. I’m with Wainrights Gentlemen and we need a guitar player”, so I
said “Any chance of doing an audition?”, and he said “No, No, No, you’ve got
the gig. You’re in” It was just like that.
So I went to an
American Air force base in
I saw this bloke and I
said “So you’re the singer?” and he said “Yes” and “How old are you? “23” he
went, and I thought to myself, “You’re going nowhere” how wrong can you be…I
hadn’t even heard him sing a word, I thought 23, too old, you’ve had it. I’m
2-3 years younger than Brian but 2 to 3 years seemed to be a big difference at
this stage.
Anyway, we… they went
on stage and started playing and they were a good little band you know, they
were doing covers and everything was going well and then they got me up to play
guitar. I did one number, perhaps two numbers, I can’t remember now. I was
playing Claptonesque blues guitar, Clapton had just come on the scene and he
was like the big thing and their guitar player was playing older fashion style
of guitar…
Henrik: Are we
talking 1966 or 67?
Frank: 67 yeah….and
then…..eh…...68.
Henrik: Summer of
love and all that…
Frank: Ahhh, I tell
you what, yer, it was brilliant, everybody went mad ya know.
Henrik: Was there a lot
of drugs around on those days or was it just coming in or…?
Frank: No, there
were lots of drugs around and lots of drugs before then, you know
Purple hearts and acid was in before
the hippy scene had started. I had a bassist
Dennis Cowen and he went on to do a lot of
stuff and then …Dennis died,
He died very young in 1974 something
like that, BUT when Dennis started taking
drugs, and I
watched this, it frightened the life out of me. I think a lot of people don’t
take drugs because they see other people taking drugs and they decide I don’t
wanna be like that, completely out of control. Not like drink, light-headed or
drunk or you can drink yourself into oblivion, but if you take a tablet, it’s
see what’s going to happen. It frightened the life out of me because I saw
other people doing it. It was not a conscious decision.
I tell you a
story about Brian. We were doing a gig somewhere and someone had some grass and
Brian goes (inhaling) taking it, nothing happens, nothing, nothing, passing it
around, Brian takes another and takes and takes another joint and says “well
this is not working”. We go on stage and we announces that we’re doing "It’s lonely out there", the b-side
of our single, when we finished it Brian says “This was our new single and now
we would like to do "Its lonely out there", the b-side of our latest single” and we had just
done it ya know…
Woody: Hahaha
Frank: No No No, we
have just done it, Brian! and he, hahahaha so we played it twice.
(Everybody laughs)
Frank: Yer, we did!
It’s true.
Frank: Why don’t you
ask Jan a question? (Followed by general chattering and laughter
round the
table. We decide to do it chronologically and finish Frank’s involvement with
Sweet first.)
Woody: What was the
name of that song again?
Frank: Its lonely
out there, the b-side to Slowmotion. The money was in publishing in
those days and what Phil realised,
so how we found each other….I tell you
how we found each other…. We sort of
got talked into doing Slowmotion, and
if you had a big hit, all the
publishers got all the money. Well, I go back a bit,
well, you know I was in the
Wainrights and one day our manager tells me that they
had a new guitar player and I was
not needed anymore, thanks for your help.
And
on top of that they decided to get
rid of one more; it was either Mick or Brian, so
one of them said, it was either Mick
or Brian can’t remember who, why don’t we
form a group?
We know what we can do with the Wainrights, we have the set list
already, and I
had nothing to lose. I was sitting at home doing nothing anyway, so that was
how Sweet were formed. And how we formed it was Brian, Mick and I needed a bass
player and it was Mick and Brian who knew Steve from a band called "The
Army", they were a fairly decent sized band, they were working in some
As it happens,
when Steve turned up he had a little Gibson GBO, 1 pickup bass and he was
playing finger style like Jack Bruce and he was like a lead singer come backing
vocalist you know.
Henrik: How was the
camaraderie in the band at the time?
Frank: Brian and Mick were the closest and there’s a
good reason for that, they had been
together for
years with The Wainrights, you know. Steve and I got on alright.
Brian and Mick
used to go out drinking together and I didn’t do that, so when the group wasn’t
together I wasn’t out socialising with them. They liked to drink. I never drank
till I joined the Sweet. Probably the worst thing about The Sweet was the
drinking and that’s for everybody whether it being Steve, Mick, Brian or Andy.
We all have our own demons, but I never actually drank till I joined the Sweet
and even then I didn’t drink that much. Brian was a good drinker. Steady, you
know. He would drink lime-bitter, pint after pint after pint. Brian would say
“I’ve got a dodgy stomach, can’t eat that much fatty food and all that.” but he
could drink all the beer in the world, hahaha. And I think everything else is
pretty well documented.
The reason I
got out of Sweet was, and I’ve always been quoted for being replaced; now I
wasn’t replaced. I left because we played all these youth clubs and I were used
to playing the Marquee and all the top clubs. So this was not a question of
money, but about the quality of the gigs. All this was down to Phil Wainman, he
had a friend called… ehem…oh cant recall his name, he had an agency out in
Southend and he said I’ve got a nice little band that will work for you, and
the trouble with this is, that what happened was the we…..we were doing youth
clubs you know…doing gigs for spotty little kids, it was hideous and that was
one of the reasons I left. I also didn’t like the stuff we were recording, I
think we were recording some pretty dire stuff, you know.
We recorded
stuff for Roger Glover and Ian Gillan you know. They were in Wainrights., I
don’t know if you knew that?
Henrik: I knew there
was a Sweet-Deep Purple link somewhere….
Frank: Well, what
happened there was that when Ian left Wainrights, Brian joined.
So there’s a
bit of continuity there, so people still talked to each other and we were with Deep
Purple on there first ever gig. We did a gig in a place called Warrington, it
was like a small gig eh…300-400 kids I suppose in the hall, right, and there
was us, another band I think was called Catch 22………and probably 4 bands on the
same bill which is a lot, but the middle band was Deep Purple.
It was the
original format of Deep Purple. They were alright, but not brilliant. We
started chatting to them and got quite pally with them.
Woody: Who’s first
gig was that? Deep Purples’ or Sweet’s first gig?
Frank: Deep Purples’ first gig was in
absolutely…
that is….cos they were…. cos what happened was we would turn up and there was
this big new
Woody: That’s a new
thing, I never knew that.
Frank: You never
knew that?
Woody: No
Henrik: Did you keep
in touch with Brian and Sweet after you left the band?
Frank :When Sweet
first had their big hits, they were doing the very early bubblegum
stuff. The very
first hit they had…..eh, they came round to my house, and Brian and Mick said
to me, what do you think of this? It was well produced so I said it isn’t bad,
and they went “Do you want to join the group?” and I said “ I cant.” “Why
not?”. “Im going on holiday to
Henrik: But didn’t
they have Andy Scott at this point?
Frank: There was a
time after Mick Steward left the band there was a small period
when, maybe 3
to 4 months before Andy joined when, cos remember all the early songs, all the
backing tracks were done by other musicians to save money, they were not done
by the Sweet. I remember Mick and Brian coming round my house asking me to come
back but I was going away on holiday. But...if I had gone back, all the Sweet
vocals wouldn’t have been like they are now, remember I didn’t sing.
Woody: Was that
Funny Funny?
Frank: I think so.
Woody: Steve
says that you didn’t sing and he doesn’t know to this day whether it was
because you
didn’t wanted to or you couldn’t.
Frank: Right, I can
do backing vocals. When I was with the Tribe we were a blues band.
With Wainrights
we were doing 4 -5 parts vocals and I wasn’t really that bothered
with vocal
harmony bands. When we formed Sweet and we did our first
rehearsal…
Henrik: You were
called Sweetshop, weren’t you?
Frank: Sweetshop,
yes. Mick thought of that at name. Mick were one for thinking up
names. When we
came round to my house we were playing Stop, In The Name Of Love, we had Brian
singing lead vocals, Mick and Steve singing backing harmonies, there was no
rehearsal, I just started playing it. I tell you what, I wish that had been
recorded. It was…..you know when you hear something and you think Jeeesus
Christ. We did it, and when we had finished it Brian said “That was brilliant.”
I actually
think the 3 part harmonies sounded better than the 4 parts later on, because
you can overproduce and put a higher one up and a higher one up and that’s
exactly what happened. The Move was the same…
Henrik: They became
ELO later on didn’t they?
Frank: Yes, The Move
came before Sweet.
Woody: I have a Roy
Wood story for you later on.
Frank: But if you
had heard Brian, Mick and Steve. The vocal blend was staggering.
It was amazing.
I started searching out new Motown coming in on import.
We tried
different things and at one gig Brian’s sister was in tears because it sounded
so good.
Henrik: Did you stay
in touch with Brian after you’d left?
Frank: No I didn’t,
it was a fairly clean break, and there was a good reason, they were
busy gigging
all the time. Funnily enough I bumped into Mick once or twice
in Eastcote by
pure chance.
Next time I saw
Brian he was not with Sweet anymore. I got the NME or the Melody Maker, and I
was looking at the advert and it had SWEET at the Marquee on Tuesday and
Wednesday night.
I jumped into
my motor, went down the M40 I was there in 20 minutes and parked on
Everybody: Hahahaha
Frank: I said “What
are you doing here? I thought you were going to be on stage?”
And he said
“I’m not in the group anymore” he then took breath and went
“You do look
well” and I looked at him and I thought “You don’t”. I didn’t say that, but he
looked terrible. We went to the bar, we had a chat. This was the start of his
bad period with the shakes and all that. We watched the group start, the band
starts up and they did…eh and I’m thinking “this doesn’t look right, put the blonde
bloke in front”. They were OK but after half an hour, I said to Brian “I’m
going home.” He said “Well keep in touch.” We exchanged phone numbers.
We had a good
time but it was the first time I saw Brian for a long time and he looked like
an old man, you know.
Henrik: Didn’t you
do some recordings together?
Frank : Yes, we
stayed in touch. Brian was working in
recording deal.
This is about 1987 I think. Drum machines had just come in,
I bought one,
everybody doing Dance used these machines. Anyway, I bought this machine,
analogue was on its way out and digital mode was coming in and becoming
affordable. I also bought a digital synth. Now, who did this song called Jump?
Henrik: Van Halen.
Frank: Van Halen,
that’s right and they must have had one like this. I had written a little
song called I
Cant Stand It, it wasn’t a bad little tune. It was the first song I had ever
written on a synth. Brian said to me “We have to do something.” Fine.
So I phoned him
up at 10 in the morning and he’s still in bed. He lived in Maple Cross in a
council flat. I went over there at
Henrik,
Woody
And Jan:
Hahahahahaha
Frank: Still in bed,
they got out of bed and tried to make themselves look presentable.
I then go in, I
plug in the equipment and Brian starts singing along with me (Frank starts
singing)“I just cant stand what you’re doing to me, I just cant stand it….his
girlfriend at the time Denise, went “You’ve gotta do it.”
It took me two
months to get him in the studio.
Everybody:
Hahahahahaha
Frank: Two months,
haha. Brian was supposed to come down
he’s still not
there. We have had every excuse you can imagine: He had to see the V.A.T. man,
he had to see his accountant, he had to see everybody. The phone goes every
hour “I’m on my way”. He knows the session finishes at
Henrik: Jan, how did
you meet Brian?
Jan :Brian came round our house. That’s the
first time I met Brian.
Frank : Did he come
on to you?
Jan :Yes, he did hahahaha.
(Eruption of laughter around the
table)
After a few moments
and we have composed ourselves and wiped up the spilled drinks on the table
before us, the interview continues.
Jan : He did, because he said to Mick, “Is this
your nanny?” And Mick answered “No
It’s my
girlfriend.” And Brian asks “Has she got a sister?”
Everybody:
HAHAHAHA
Jan :It was typical of Brian, haha. That was
the first time I met him. It must have been
in 1987. Brian
was touring and so was Mick with Andy.
Henrik: I find this
really interesting. Andy and Mick were touring together and Brian was
doing his own
version of Sweet, BC Sweet , New Sweet or whatever they were called at the
time. Still Mick and Brian got on very well together.
Jan : Yes, out of all of them I would say
the two of them were the closest.
Henrik: Did they see each other a lot?
Jan : Yes, Brian used to come over a lot.
Henrik : Did you go
down to Brian’s place?
Jan :We went to his flat to pick him up
once, but we didn’t actually go in, but he
came round to
our place a lot. What would happen was that Brian would ring saying that he
would be round for
You’re sitting
there hahaha and its
Then its
getting
Frank: (Laughing) Go
to bed and I’ll come up and give you a big kiss.
Everybody:HAHAHAHAHA
Jan : And eventually Brian will go home, and
Mick will come up to bed saying
“Brian has gone”
but then we will get this phone call and its Jean saying “Have you seen Brian?”
turns out that Brian had turned the car round, gone into the avenue, stopped
the car deciding to have a cigarette and fallen asleep, and woken up about 5 or
6 in the morning Hahahahaha.
There was a few
times when he tried to get out of the drive and he couldn’t, and we were
watching him from the window going backwards and forwards Hahahahaha.
Henrik : I must
admit it’s a narrow drive you’ve got.
Jan :I’m so used to it.
Frank :And Brian didn’t drink at this point. A
lot of people forget about that.
Jan :Yes, he wasn’t drinking alcohol then.
Frank :He phoned me up one day and said he had
fallen out with one of his girlfriends
and he said “I
could just go and buy myself a bottle of whiskey.” Well, you could hear it in
his voice, and I think that he wanted to come over, but I didn’t want him in my
house, it may sound miserable and mean but I didn’t want him in my house with a
young family and all that stuff, you know?
Henrik: You once
told me he was a bad driver, Frank. Do you remember?
Frank : Right, this is what happened. He had this
little XR3 and he was looking for
another car. We
drove around the back of
(Cockney slang
for a wee-Henrik), and I said “Whas the matter withya?” So he stopped the car
and got out and did a Jimmy, now I had to get somewhere that afternoon, and
he’s driving like an old woman (Frank mimes driving with his nose against the
windscreen) (Jan laughs). “Do you think I can drive back?” You know….but he
wouldn’t let me, he was a case….
Jan :Mick drove with him once, and he rang me
up at work and said “I’m never gonna
drive with him
again Janet, he’s driving along (looking everywhere but on the road)
Hahaha
Frank : Oh Jesus, a nightmare.
Jan : And then he started looking for his
cassettes.(Jan, pretending driving whilst
looking for
cassettes)
Frank : Yes , that’s what he was like, you know,
“Fast forward there.” (Frank pretending
being Brian
sorting out his cassettes whilst driving, paying no attention to on coming
traffic)
Henrik: Steve once
told me that when they went for the reunion in 1988, Brian managed
to crash and write off the rented car.
Jan :They went to see Chapman.
Henrik :Right
Jan :He managed to crash it, then he
managed to get lost, so they were all sitting
there waiting
for him…
Henrik :How much do
you know about that time in Los Angeles 1988?
Jan :They all went to see Mike Chapman and he
was trying to work
with them
again, but Brian didn’t …….yes Brian had an accident
and he went
missing and they went out looking for him but nobody knew where he was. He
turned up in the end hahaha.
Frank : (laughing) Oh God, dear..oh…..
Henrik :How long
were they away for? One week two weeks?
Jan :Eh…., it wasn’t that long, I would say
two weeks.
Henrik :They did
re-recordings of Action I think and…..eh…….. Ballroom Blitz??......
I think, come
on Woody, help me.
Woody: It wouldn’t surprise
me the slightest.
Henrik :But I don’t
think they recorded any new songs.
Jan :Not as far as I know.
Henrik :But Brian
couldn’t sing that well…
Woody :Chapman
looked at Andy and said “You need to lose some weight”,
Then he looked
at Steve and said “You need to lose a lot more weight.”
And finally he
looked at Mick “You’re alright.”
Jan :Yes, he was quite happy for Michael to
stay over and work in America.
He said to
Michael that I can get you a lot of work but…
Henrik :It’s such a shame,
I’ve heard that they were offered a lot of money if they could
get their act
together.
Frank : I can tell you that they were offered a lot
of money in 1992, and the big
stumbling block
was Andy. I have got this from Brian. Brian phoned me up and said “We have been
offered some money to get the band back together again and he said to me “Your
name was mentioned more than once.”, meaning me, so obviously Brian was against
Andy going back with the band, and I think Mick was as well around this time. It
came to nothing as we know, but if I had been offered the chance I would have
said “Yes”. The band had come full circle from the bubblegum - Phil Wainman
era, they came of age when they did Action and all that stuff, but at that time
the band was falling apart with each other.
Henrik :Steve blames
the drugs as well in his book, in fact he says at the end that it’s not
necessary to
take drugs to make good music
Frank : You
shouldn’t really take anything else but water, tea or coffee when you make
music. You
should do it stone cold sober, and when you’re finished you should go to the
pub then.
Then the
discussion moves onto Rod Stewart and Jim Morrison recording music under the
influence of drugs and alcohol etc. Frank decides to ask us what sort of music
we like and a general music discussion takes place and bands from Beautiful
South, Queen, The Who, Tamla stuff, Van Morrison, Eagles, Ozzy, Pink Floyd,
Counting Crowes, rap music etc all gets a mention.
Frank is
interested in new music and he mentions some American bands that we have never
heard about and we totally digress from what we actually started talking about.
Frank : I tell you
one thing, we can probably all meet on one track and that is Action
that Sweet did,
I think it’s a great song.
We all agree.
The Pub bell rings and it’s time to go home. Woody also has a very long journey
home. A good job we’re all good boys and girls that never touch alcohol and
drugs.
Woody and Henrik
April 2003