THE USUAL SUSPECTS presents Life of Brian Part 2

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 from my period it's 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’ve 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 High Wycombe (must be at Daws Hill-Henrik) it was Wainrights Gentlemen on stage and Mick said to me “This is Brian.”

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 bass player 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 like it, 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 Slow Motion. The money was in

publishing in those days and what Phil realised, so how we found each

other….I tell you how how we found each other…. We sort of got talked

into doing Slow Motion, 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 London venues, you know? And that’s how Sweet were actually formed. 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 play 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 happen 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 Warrington and you can take

that…yer..and that’s

Absolutely… that is….cos they were…. cos what happened was we would turn up and there was this big new Marshall rig at the back and we thought, Bloody hell, who the hell is this? And of course it was Deep Purple. It was all self penned stuff, some of it worked on stage for them, some of it didn’t hahaha, they only did about half an hour. We went on and did our stuff and I think we did quite well on that gig.

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 Jersey tomorrow.”

Henrik: But didn’t they have Andy Scott at this point?

Frank: There was a time after Mick Stewart 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 here 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 Wardour Street, walked in. As I’m walking in there’s this little man and two women with him and I went “Brian”, and he looked at me and went “Torpey!”

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 Im 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 Germany and he wanted a

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 midday, had an amp and synth in the back of my car. I knocked on the door and I can hear shuffling in there. They are still in bed, aren’t they.

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, hahaha. Brian was suppose to come down 9 am, at 4 in the

afternoon he’s still not there. We have had every excuse you can imagine: He had to see the V.A.T. man, he had see his accountant, he had to see everybody. The phone goes every hour “I’m on my way”. He knows the session finishes at 6 o’clock. We had this little girl who ends up doing all his vocals and everything, because we had nothing else we could do and….at 6 o’clock he turns up. We said “Its too late” and he said “I knew I was too late.” The manager said “Alright, you can continue, I have nobody else booked in.” and Brian started making excuses again. He was nervous. Its called stage fright.

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)

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 Its 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 4 o’clock. I would come home say at 6 o’clock after work and ask Mick if Brian is here and Mick would say that he hasn’t turned up yet.

You’re sitting there hahaha and its 8 o’clock and finally Brian turns up.

Then its getting 12 o’clock or just after and I ll say “Its 12 o’clock and I’ve gotta go to work tomorrow I need to go to bed now and he’ll say “Alright, see you love, off you go.” Hahahaha.

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 phonecall 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 Watford and he wanted a Jimmy (Jimmy Riddle - cockney slang for a wee-Henrik), and I said “What’s the matter with ya?” 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 (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

going drive with him again Janet, he’s driving along (looking elsewhere 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 : (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 rerecordings 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 Crows, 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