Bill Curbishley

Mike Sure. Oh, I didn't know you that far back. Yeah, we were scored together, and then we we left school. We became MUDs in our teenage years. Anyway, Mike Shure was constantly on at me about going with Oh he was originally a lightened director for a comedian called Normal Wisdom. And they then got together and they they were messing around trying to create an independent label. Okay, this was Christap and your other friends. Yeah, and along with then

Stamp got together with Kit Lambert. So eventually Mike Share persuaded me. He said, listen, like music has been your life. You know, we've been powered since we're at school, Come in with us. So I went in with them. What year was that? That was seventy, so that is the year of the Timmy tour. In Who Live It leads exactly around that period. And unfortunately it wasn't long before I realized that both Chris and Kit we're suffering the

vagaries of excess drugs, different stuff, different ship. So um I had a quick learning curve in that sense, and I had to try and keep the ship afloat. And we had over the that couple of years prior to them really getting themselves in trouble, we acquired a lot of really good artists. You know. We had Jimmy Hendrix, he was brought to us by Chess Chandler from the Animals. We had Mirk bol and t Rex and thunder Clapped Nerman, and we were one of three small independent labels. Really

we had Trek Records. The only others were Chrysalist and Charisma at that time, so it was quite innovative. And we were dealing with Polydor PolyGram Polydor Records, which was mainly a German company and as far as I and R went, they didn't have much. So we did a tape lease still with them, which enabled us to give our artists, quite a very good royalty. But then we split. We had a profit split with the distributor, so we were often running. However, um Kit and Chris died really

suffering from their excesses. And I was a little bit naive in away because I thought that they were really just like banging away out cocaine and bows, but they were doing smack. And there's only it's a one way road. There's only one it takes. It takes the fire away from you, you know so. And also my great pal

Mike Sure, he suffered a car crash. He was taking some lights and stuff up to the cavern in Liverpool, which is famous of course the Beatles, and he was in the van and he hit a patch of fog on the motorway. He hit some fog and they found him the other side of the motorway and as a consequence of the car crash he became quadriplegic. However, he had a great music, suns, great mind, and he continued to work with me for several years after that, quite an number of years, but it was left to me

in a sense to steer the ship. And at that time as well, we were heavily heavily involved in the making of the movie Tommy. So I would get phone calls from Stick would Bill, can you come in and see me? They're driving me fucking mad. Why what's wrong? Well? Kit wants his money and gold bullying, and Chris I can never find. So I helped him stitch together the

the Tommy movie. I didn't really understand much about movies in those days, so I used to go off and pick the brains of friends of mine, you know, like David Putnam, Sandy Leeberson who made quite a few movies, you know, a long distance runner, all those, and I used to pick their brains. Go back, change it a bit with Stiggy, go away, come back, change it. Eventually we got a great deal on what we wanted and

we made what's a classic movie of course. Um then Chris Kit unfortunately Lee suffered probably fell down the stairs and suffered a brain hemorrhage. And Chris went off to New York and after quite a number of years, cleaned up his act a bit and went into counseling of all things. So from that moment on, I was often running on my own. Um I got a call, I took a little small office up above Pink Floyd's office.

Steve O'Rourke, who managed them, was an old mate, old mate of mine, and I took a small office up above and almost I didn't have much, you know, and I had I kept getting some calls from Pete Rudge, who at that time was with the Rolling Stones, and he said to me, Bill, will you do? Will you put together this tour of Europe for the Stones? You know, you know all the promoters, you'll get us the best deals.

I said, Peter, I can't, I'm too busy, nothing. And he kept coming and in the end I got the deal I wanted and did the did the put together the tour for them, went out on tour with them and Pete, who's always been a friend p Rudge and did the Stones tour and then it all happened. Who came to me and they said, you know we're we're

into litigation with Track Records. Would you manage us? I said, well, the only way we can do it if you're in litigation, you know, which I'm sad to here, but um, if you are in litigation, the only way to do it is to get some cash flow, and that means going out on the road and working and getting some cash

flow because it's all going to be locked up. And I should back track slightly, because the reason why I left Trade Records and them was that after we did the premiere of the Tommy movie in New York, we did it in a subway in New York. I was promised a percentage of that film, of the management percentage of which I was going to split with my pal, the boy who was paralyzed, and it was never thought. Come in. You could never get the pair of them to sign anything laments then, I mean, they were at

war with each other. You would never find them in the right state of mind to sign anything. And so as a result of that, I'm gone. You know, you're not only didn't pay me, but I was going to split it with Mike Chris. He was worth us all away through score his our pal. So you're not only sucked me, you're sucked him. And I left and he never thought I was going to leave, but I did. And that's that was the story. Okay, So who was running the management company in the label after you left?

If these two guys were such druggius they weren't able to run it. I mean Mike, sure, try it in his own way. He tried the boy but it was awfully difficult for him, and so it just collapsed really And that's when they came to me the WHO and I was in as I said, I was in that little office. I was doing the stones to her and they came to me and said, you know, would you manage just And prior to that, because it was in such a disarray, Daughtry had a solo album which I

went to Lambent Sam. I said, look, he's he's made this solo album and all the songs were written by a new young singer. Say, got a great story here, so m I said. They said, oh, we don't want don't know, We're not going to release. I said, listen, if you release it and it's successful, it will help tremendously because it will help Roger's self esteem in this whole situation because Pete was the main man, the writer,

the guitarist, he was the main man. And it was an attempt to get some sort of democracy going, you know, and and for for Roger to feel he's for it. And they said, well, if you want to do it, you can, so I said, okay, I will so I came over to Los Angeles. In those days, m c A was run by Artie mogul So this seventy three. Okay, Artie mogul Forest in the music business. He's now this He's known as a legendary crook, a big gambler, show

keep going. So I came over and the people that were running m c that m c A at that time were Mike Maitland, Lu Cook, very very honest man, and Artie mogul So. I had three I had three albums. I had the Roger Adultery solo album, the Leo Sayer album. Adam Faith had asked me to bring and an album by a band, a Dutch band called Golden ear Ring. Of course, so I played them the three albums. So they said, yeah, we love for the Daultry album and

we really liked this new kid. He eventually went to warners, but we really love this new kid. I'm not sure about the Dutch band. I said, listen, they're fantastic. Come when are you going to be in London? So they said, oh so so time. I said, listen, they're playing the Lyceum in the strand come see them because they're a great life and they're all good looking guys. I didn't tell them they were opening for somebody else. I think

it was mounting all one of those means. So comes the night of the show at the Lyceum and they're just ready to go on stage, and then it's clear the theater. It's an ira I R a bomb scare. There's a bomb in the building. Everyone out. So everyone's out and they're all in the strand and we're waiting industry and for like maybe an hour or so to get clearance. Eventually we get clearance, We go back in, earing go on stage. They played their set. There's no one there from m c A. So I own the

next morning. I said, where the funk were you? They said, where were we? We We couldn't get anywhere near that theater for the crowds. We want that band. They thought the crowds were all there for them. We want that band. And so they took the album, which was an album called Moonten had a huge hit on it called Radar Love, and then it's a driving song and the rest is history. You know that. That's so. And Roger had a successful album with his solo album Mud Not to the Distress

of Kit and Chris. But to the bewilderment I think, and I'll never forget Lambert. I saw Lambert in New York and he was wasn't compassment as and he said to me, when we're going to release the Golden Earring album? And I said, it's number five in the charts? What's wrong with you? So it was a bit of a shambles, bob, you know, And so I went forward. Then who came to me for management? Okay, just to go you quit since they said they weren't going to put out the

adultry album? Were you putting it out by yourself or as part of their bellage, part of their management? Then the Tommy movie came along after that, and that's when I quit. So all those albums came out before the time. Yeah, And coming back from New York after the premier of the Tommy Movie was when I quit. On the plane? Okay, So what was your first album with the who Oh ship? Now you're asking me who by numbers? Was still the old guys? Yeah? No, no, no, no, it was us. Okay,

that's nine four, So that was it. Am Whistle did the sleeve to it. Who by Numbers? They could have been the first one, but I was with it at the time in the studio. Through those years, I worked with him on Quadraphenia in the studios, you know, UM, and much much later UM. I produced the movie Quadraphonia that I constantly going on record, I'm just not stroking you. That's the best rock movie ever. When people talk about it, that's it because it's not only Quadrophenia. It works as

a movie. I can literally tell you where I saw it so longer, a theater in Westwood and phenomenal. Yeah, well that do you want to jump to that now because we can come back to Yeah, we'll go back to it, but let's go so so yeah. So they start, they needed to tour to get cash flow, and then eventually, Um the litigation was resolved, and as I said, Kit had a bad he felt understairs. It was sad because he came to see me like two days before that.

He wasn't in great shape, and he said, Bill, he said, you're doing a great job with them, he said, better than we did together. I said, well, thanks, Kit, you know, and he wasn't in great shape. So I gave him some money and he went away. And then two days later he had the accident. Okay, going back to the lawsuit, the word on the street is that the Who had a terrible deal, the managers were bad with money. What

was the truth there? The truth was, if you're heavy, heavy into addiction, one of the overriding things that envelopes your life is fear, fear of not having enough money to feed that drug addiction. And that was one of the problems. I'm not saying that they stole money. They thought they borrowed it, but they didn't. In the end, if you're borrowing money without any real possibility of repaying it,

that's not good. And so they were raid. In some of the other accounts we had as well, the Hendlix account some of the other artists, it was just grab it for what they needed. But with the Who, what what is true in fact is the Who will always offer promised fort of track records ten percent each as or Moon Daltry Towns in which they never got. They just didn't get it to this day, never got it

to this day. And added to that, there was some double dipping going on because um, their commission rate was really high high was it other than the colonel I don't know. Anybody's gone beyond twenty but okay exactly, so it was um they had the publishing tied up, and then it was a later day the pete discovered that everything wasn't right within his publishing the income as well, and that was it. That was the straw. Okay, So how did the litigation resolve? It resolved in the sense

that the company basically eventually went bankrupt. They had to repay the band all of the missing royalties, so they did on which they found very difficult because they don't have any money because they blown the money. Usually you can get a judgment, but you can't have any money. So what I was left to do was to renegotiate a lot of their record deals and instead of the amount that would usually go to track, you know of profits and the overage after the artist's royalty, I made

sure it went to the WHO. So eventually, over a long term, they got back as much, if not all, of what they were rowed. But they weren't treated well and it was completely unnecessary. I mean, I'm talking about the whole friend of mine from Scooter, completely unnecessary. But I knew, Bob, I knew that I was dealing with a different person, the one who was my pal. He was on heroin. He was a different person, you know.

And he was a good man. He had a good heart. Um, but it all gets distorted, you know, it all gets changed, and it was sad to see. Okay, before the drugs, were they good managers? They were good. I don't think they did lack in certain areas. I mean when I came in and started doing the touring for the band, for example, the first thing I saw was that they were into taking a guarantee but not really really looking

at the back end. So what I did with the band was I immediately changed that ship and I went into the promoters and I took suffer guarantee, but I wanted a nine deal. A lot of people give Peter Grant credit for that. I was doing it way before Grant. Okay, glad we're going on the record, because there were moth people. I even I thought it was Peter Grant. No it wasn't. I was doing nineties ten deals before Grant, head Zepplin

and so Um. I was earning them a lot more money, a lot more money, and the band especially well Pete says it in his book and Rogers always acknowledged that, you know. And it was a simple leap of faith on my part because I thought ship this band is a great, great band. They can go into overage, and I wanted to see them get the lion's share of that overage. And that's how I've proceeded with them, with them all my life, and everything is completely and absolutely transparent.

And I don't have a contract. Okay, let's got the Egypt in America was Frank Barcelona, he was it was Frank in Premier and who was in Europe? We were great friends. We didn't have an agent in Europe. Initially they put it again through their agency New Action. I did it and in those days I used to do it. Oh, I used to go I used to book them out in Europe. I used to go out with him on tour. I was met tour manager, accountant, the whole, the whole bundle.

So I used to settle after shows and do it all. Let's talk about that now. This was the days when you get paid in cash, right, because a lot of it was because you didn't trust the promoter, didn't trust them. I would want the I'd want the advance against the guarantee into our account before we ever went and then the balance in cash. Okay, so tell us some stories about trying to collect the back end. I can honestly say I never ever had a problem collecting that back end. Okay.

So that's one good thing. They at least had the money. But I have been in the offices of promoters. Weren't seen the two sets of books. They're said in the set they show to the acts. So how do you know? You know everybody stealing from everybody in this business, So how did you deal with that? Well, one of the things I've always said is I've always had a photober figures really, and so I was very quick to be

able to do deals on foot on the bounce. But also I would on a lot of those shows, I would click people in and they have people on the doors clicking them in. And in some instances I found extra extra rose. In Germany, for example, I found extra rose. You know, there was p and then instead of like there was m N O P q Q. So you know, got once they knew that you were into it, they

they stopped all that ship, you know. And ironically, when I was doing when I made that shift um and doing when ruddering me about doing the Stones to her, you know, of Europe. I think that also set a bit of a standard for me, because in my opinion, I did some great deals for them, and I don't know. I think the Stones were in a similar situation in those days. It was early early days, that's as you know. And some of those contracts and some of the promoters

were like give them the advance and ripped them. And you have to be very careful. You have to look at what the rule rent was on the hall, and I used to go through it forensically. I wanted to know how much a faultlift cast everything, because I was my my aim. It was really to get this band what I felt they deserved. And I guess if I'm proud of anything, it's Townsend said in his book, from the moment I took over, he was never in need of money. It's their money. Without them, I wouldn't be here.

You wouldn't be here, that's for sure. It's the artist comes first. I couldn't agree. What why is it called Trinifold? It was the company I just picked off the shelf, no other reason. I had a young accountant at that time. I said I need to start a management company. He said, well, he just took a company off the shelf four hundred pounds and it was Trinifold. He's got no meaning. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So you're born where I was born in London, in the East end of London,

in West Ham. Okay, So what was it like growing up there? Ah? It was great. I mean it was the East end of London. My father worked in the docks. What do you do there? Well, my father was during the Second World War. He was a chief injury near on a submarine base in Salon and they called them chief engineer artifica. Anyway, he came back after the Second World War went into the docks and he was a marine engineer in the docks. So it was ship repairs

and that's where we lived, around the docks. And then your mother worked outside the home. She did um and she sent me to school when I was four instead of five so she could go to work. And she did what she worked in various She was assistant cook, she worked in a button factory. She did anything to

keep us alive. And I was say embarrassed later in life because she altered my birth certificate to get me into school, and you can't change a two into a one, and it looked like there was a fucking hole in the paper. So I passed what they had then the day the scholarship in England called the eleven plant that then if you pass that allowed you to go onto a much more elite school, a grammar school or a technical school or whatever. So I passed that at ten

instead of eleven. So when I had to go to register to the school, I had to take this birth certificate with me. A man, was I embarrassed? I mean, you could see through it. I went down, I was dreading it and they didn't even look at the So so I went through school, all the way through school, a year younger then I really should have been. Okay, So, how many kids in the family? Six? And where are you in the hierarchy? The oldest? You're the oldest. How

much older are you than the youngest? Uh? The youngest Paul, here's eighteen years younger than me. Okay, what's your relationship with the other five? Fantastic a live No one of them is not the boy my brother who was the next one down to me, Alfie. He sadly died like ten years ago. Um, he was the next one down to me. He was great. He was a good heavyweight boxer. He was good. Then I had two sisters. One now lives in New Zealand, then my other sisters still lives

in London. And then the two youngest brothers both were soccer players, I have to say soccer soccer players. They both played at west Ham, but one of them became much much more famous than the other one. And so the elder of those two Alan, he's sixteen years younger than me. He had his first proper game in the Premier League when he was sixteen and he played in the England World Cup when he was fourteen. He was a very great player and he's known very well in England.

He had he had nineteen years as a player, played for west Ham. He played for West and Villa, Birmingham Great Teams and Brighton and then he ended up at a club Charlton, which was in the Second at the end of his playing career Second Division, and he became the coach there and took them up into the Premiership. And he had nineteen years as a manager and he's now a man of leisure. Now he's a pundit. But the other thing about it, when he became a star,

salaries were much lower. Oh yeah, he he was top of the tree as a player, and I guess he was making then three hundred pounds five hundred dollars a week. By the time he became a manager, he was making two or three million a year. So he ended up

being in the game long enough to his rewards. And his kids are growing up now and he was constantly being poached at one time to be the national manager you know, um, And he said, well at the moment now, the way it is, he said, there's four or five teams with money all the rest want you to work a miracle. He said, I've had like thirty eight years of it. I'm chilled. And he goes and does quite a bit of punditry from um. He goes to Qatar

and does it for around. I mean, you might see him over so we were in America, we'd see it's a broadcaster a college. Yeah, he's a pandit and a broadcaster for the Premier League. And a lot of it comes over here because it goes everywhere but the UK. So I know lots of friends in America have seen him pontificating after certain soccer slash woodball is getting bigger and bigger. If Army Arsan was alive, it'd turn over in his grave. I went to the World Cup with

Armored and Nessuy Hurtrican because Armored they were both manic. Well, they brought the broad Pellade in New York exactly for the Cosmos. And I went to the World Cup with the pair of them, and we went down to Barcelona for the semifinals and then into Madrid for the finals, you know, and he was always and then he started

the Cosmos, and people thought, well, what's he doing. What they didn't realize was that with the complete ethnic mixture in America, you know, you had a sport there that was appealing to them, whether they be Latin, American, Greek, this, that Italian. But more to the point, it was a sport that you had to be normal, normal higher. You didn't have to be three hundred pounds, you didn't have to be seven ft tall like basketball. It was for normal size. So that's why it took off right me

out on the street. So going back to your five siblings, did any of them ever work for you, well, my younger brother. They did actually, but I only sold that. I did a huge show in the football stadium in London, and I had my brother, the one who who's deceased healthy and the one Alan who was the soccer player.

They were selling programs and merchandise for me. And then it was four or five weeks after that that he got his first game, my brother for West Ham Um and they played Newcastle and he scored the first goal sixteen years of age, and he made the winner. And that night they said on TV a star was born today. Of course you would never come to work for me again after course, after that. Okay, So you were a

good student. Yeah, I was a good student. I was unruly and and disciplined, but I found a lot of it easy. Okay. So you went to school and you finished what we call high school here and then and he thought of getting any more education, or you said I'm done, I'm not going to school anymore. No, I didn't know. I'm done. I had to get get out and get a living. We were a very poor family. We lived in a very poor area and it was necessary to go to work, you know. So that's what

I did. Your whole you're seventeen and you're going to work. Well, yeah, I was supposed to be seventeen, but I was really sixty, and so for me it was work. And then I went in of all things, I went into this boy Mike sure I'm telling you about who was paralyzed. We both decided we wanted to go in the merchant Navy. We wanted to see a bit of the world, and our plans were disrupted a little bit by the fact that we had to go on different boats. So the first time I ever came to America was as a

emergency seamen. When was that, oh funk that I was? That was fifty nine, Okay, fifty nine, I was seventeen. Okay, let's go. How long were you a merchant seamen? I did one long five and a half months trip, which took seven months because every time I got somewhere good, I jumped right and I was what you would call a distressed British seman. Okay, what did you actually do on the boat? A mixture of things. I was originally what you would call a comy waiter, but after that

it wasn't much else. I mean, I was scrubbing stuff. Um, look picking up ship, you know it was it sounds like hard work. It was hard work. Okay. So the first time he came to New York, do you were just on the border. You got to experience New York. No, that's what I'm saying to you. I came New York. You have a few days off. I got to Los Angeles show days off. The big slap was from Los Angeles to Tokyo. That was heavy. I remember it was really heavy. Seas Um. I didn't come back to the

ship in Tokyo. I hooked up with a girl there in Japan, and I was there for a week or two, picked up another boat, and that's when I was classed as a distressed British seman um. So I did that in a couple of places. So let's go back to the girl in Tokyo. This is a Japanese woman, of course it was. You could have bet it, you could have met it. No, she was Japanese, okay, and she didn't speak English. I don't think only a little bit.

But I'm telling you, if you get a lot for an Elvis Presley album in those days, and okay, you you ever have any contact other than that week no, okay, So now you ultimately make it back to the UK, now you are seventeen, then what do you do? Well, I did's various various work on building, science and ship you know. And yeah, so then and it wasn't that long. It was a number of years afterwards that I joined by Track Records. But I hustled around a bit, had

various jobs. Well did you what were you thinking in your head? This is going to be my whole life for I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna have a big score. Uh not really because at that age, and this is how I think about my my kids today. You know, I didn't really focus too much on the future and time. I never ever thought, I mean, to me, people of forty years of age were old of course, you know. So oh and I went to Jersey in the Channel Islands. I had a great time there. For

a year. I was working with the divers and they were widening the dock there. So they used to dive with explosives because it was a very narrow inlet into the into the docks in St Helier. So I worked with them and they were like they used to clear it, you know, detonate it. Get rid of the rock and clear it. So I had a great year there with them. Came back because in those days a lot of young people used to go. That was the place to go, the Jersey in the Channel Liners. Lots of fun, lots

of girls, lots of everything, you know. So I went back for that year, came back for like five or six months. Then I went back again for another six months and had some great times, you know. And I was a ski bum after carcind of thing. You're not making any money, but you do what you want doing what you're doing. Yes, So it traveled around a lot and it was great, okay, and then you come back and you start working with your buddy. Where is there

something else you want me to tell you? Yeah, when I was twenty one, I was arrested for a crime, okay, and it was a crime that I didn't commit. As I sit here now and everybody knows, it's a bit of a legend in the East End that I was charged with an armed robbery along with four the guys and I wasn't involved in it. Um so anyway they put me onto it. And this can only happen in nineteen sixty four. It wouldn't happen today. So they put me on an identity parade. What do you mean is

that's a line up and if somebody chooses it. So I'm in a lineup and I'm picked out by a policeman. And this policeman said he was riding along on his bicycle and he saw these guys Robin an armored vain and the guy that he saw running away was five ft eight with frizzy, bushy hair. The judge is a wonderful man. I hope he's still fucking dying from cancer. He said, Well, members of the jury, you might think

that curbishly. If he was running and stooped over, he would look five for eight and with the wind rushing in through his hair, it would look frizzy. That's ridiculous. Indeed, So there was that, And there was one other woman who said she saw somebody jumped from this land rather and she said, when she saw me in the lineup, she said maybe, But on eight previous identity parades she picked out somebody definitely, and they were all innocent people.

And that's the evidence. That is the total evidence, right, So other than the fact that two of the other guys who were charged with the robbery. They were friends of mine and known to be friends of mine, and they did commit their they were part of him. Some sentenced to fifteen years. You're a sentence. Well, let's go a little bit slower. You don't have any money. What do you do for a lawyer? You get what's called legal aids. Okay, you get public defender here, but use

your public defender. Here's a million cases. And you don't get such a good defense. You don't get such a good defense. But the QC I had was really quite good. Okay, just one more time. So they arrested you. Why because they had already arrested four other guys, and two of them were friends of mine, and I was a known associate with them, so they thought, why not him. I have to ask before this, this particular arm robbery, were

you involved in any illicit activities with those other two? No? No, but I was a known friend, and that I'm just trying to say the way you said non friend, Medis had a sinister elevance, know, and we went we went to drinking clubs and things like that, you know. So so anyway, I was a known associate. Right, So now you're in court you say you have a good public defender,

and you got fifteen years. So then what happened? I went to prison and uh so, I mean, you couldn't write all of this, It's just I went to prison. So the first prison, I went to. Second prison, I went to Hope I'm by the way. The other guys who were convicted all made statements saying that I was innocent, because they did before we do senses. Yeah, no, no, they said you were innocent. Yeah, they said I was innocent, but nobody took much regard of that. So we had

an appeal and obviously died. So did they also get fifteen years or all of them? So I then went to um one prison. Then I went to a notorious prison called Dartmoor, which is in the moors and way way in the wilderness in England. Whoever designed it must have been a total mesochist, or say this rather anyway, um I eventually I tried to escape from there. And then now from watching the movies, they say, if you escape, you know you don't get out early. That's right, So

what was going through your head? I just wanted to get out, you know, I mean, I knew I was innocent. I just wanted out and I thought, rightly or wrongly, I thought, if I get out, I can try and do something about this, prove it, or go missing. I just to me at twenty one years of age, you know. So, Um, I tried to escape with another guy and as a result of that, they sent me to a very very high security prison. Just so I know, did you actually get outside the prison wall? No? No, we had keys.

A guy made keys for us, and um, somebody must have said something because the next thing I knew was the doors smashed open. I'm taken out at five am in the morning, and I'm taken from the West Country all the way up north past Newcastle to a place called Durham. And in Durham they had a special special wing, high high security. And when I tell you, I went in there and there were twenty other prisoners and I was the shortest sentence of fifteen years, and five of

them were great train robbers. Really, yeah, okay, did you have was it like isolation or you so you so you could talk to our these people? Yeah? We we became great friends. We mixed together and we became great friends. And I then a couple of years later, and you're talking about my We were talking about my sister who lives in New Zealand. She came to visit me because she was leaving to go to New Zealand, and as

she was leaving, a little incident occurred. And the upshot of that was the next day I attacked a prison order as a result of what he said on my visit and the insults and my sister. So I attacked the prison mortar order and it was it was a nice attack, really because it wasn't that physical. I just put a whole pot of piss all over his head,

so I got them moved. But the key to the story is that during all this time I had a solicitor, a young man who was absolutely convinced by innocence, and he was fighting to try and get me released, and he came along to see me. As a result of this thing in Durham with the prison guard, they moved me to Lincoln in the Midlands, and he came to see me and he was continuously trying to get something done about my case. And then one day the governor came into my cell. I was in isolation and he

came in is the government and the runs of prison. Yeah, the governor, yeah, the chief warden. And he said, look, he said, I've just been to London. His name was Fred Owens. He said, I've just been to London. He said, I met a couple of friends of yours. I said really, he said yeah, he said, and they told me all about what had happened to you. So I said, well, okay,

what are you going to do about it? He said, well, I can't do anything really, he said, but if you stay out of trouble for three months, I'll get your moved to London so you can deal with your case and your solicitors much more easily being in London. So I said okay. So I stayed out of trouble, and true to his word, he got me moved down to London, and then I had access to my lawyer and other

people helping me on a much more daily basis. And my lawyer was at that time solicitor, was friends with a journalist and he was an independent journalist who wrote for the Times, and so he um did a story and it was front page on one of the Sunday papers. This man is innocent. So as a result of that, I got a re hearing in the in the Courts of Law with not with a jury, but with three judges, and they heard all the new evidence and everything, and they refused it. And I was going back to the

prison and I never forget this. I was going back to the prison in a vein. It was just before Christmas and I'm on Tottenham Court Road and I saw a bus and it was advertising the movie The Graduate, and I think it was Jeremy or something, and he said, this is Jeremy and he's worried about his future. And it was great. Within Over the Christmas there was a

postal strike, so nothing much was getting through. Straight after the Christmas, I was again, I've chosen at that time to be a lot on my own, because you go through cycles where you don't want to really mix too much with people. You want to chill a bit more on your own, you know. So I'm in the cell and the doors opened and the guard said you're wanted over at the parole at the parole office. I said, go fuck off. I thought it was friends of mine playing.

I said, I'm not due for parole for another light four or five years or even longer. He said, I'm telling you get changed out of your working year. You're wanted over, I said, I said, fuck off. So they then sent up the principal officer and I told him the same. So they dragged me over to the parole office in the dressed in overalls and everything, and took me in front of the parole board. So they said, we've considered your case and we've think you're suitable for parole.

I said, well, how do you work that one out? I said, I've got another five or six years to do and I don't think I've been a model prisoner. How about telling me I'm eligible for parole because I'm innocent. So the head of the parole board said to me, listen, I want you to go outside for five minutes and consider what I'm saying to you. He said, whatever, if you're out there on a working out scheme, you will be able to do much more for yourself then you

will in here. He said, go outside and think for a bit. So I came back in and he said well, I said, okay. He said, well, we're moving you to Penterville Prison, which was in North London. He said, and as of we'll move you there in two weeks time, and as of that time, you have to find a job, You go out to work, you come back every night to the prison, except that you have weekends at home. So it's kind of like a half way house. Yeah, that's where it happened. So where did I go to

get my interview? Mike? Sure track records? Okay, so what year do you get it? Go on parole? Okay? So you're in jail for how long? Six and a half years? Okay? You know this is a bad analogy, but they say in football, if you play one game, you're never the same same thing like being if you're homeless for two weeks, you're never the same. You're in jail for six and a half years. How did that change it as a person?

I think it changed me tremendously. I've got to say that for many years after that, I was fueled by anger.

We're out any doubts all. I was fueled by anger when I drink on it, and but then that dissipated after a while and when I was able to really really reflect on it all, I think in some strange ways, Although I wouldn't like to turn the clock back and do it all again, I think I gained some intangibles, intangible assets from that time, I mean, how to deal with people, how to deal with myself and to deal

with people and to deal with their adverse situations. I think that if you speak to most people that know me, I'm a very calm person. I don't get dramatic. Nothing phases me. Really, to be honest and nobody. So I think I came out of it with a lot of assets. To you think you're only calm because you went to prison. I think I learned. Yeah, I think I learned how to how to meditate on staff, how to how to

deal with it. Um ironically, I mean, as I said, you couldn't write this script because I made a movie not long after coming out about the prison I was in, starring Roger Daltrey, called mc vicar exactly, and that was the place I was in. So you know, who would have thought two years, three years later on making this movie. Of course, as they say, we're getting your story right here. But you know, in today's prison movies were the reason I mentioned it is because Roger mentions it in his books.

So I saw the movie when it came out. I sided westbod Connecticut. He mentions the whole thing about me being in prison and so on in the book. So and I'm it's nothing that I'm ashamed of, you know what I mean? Innocent? Yeah, in fact exactly, And so as they all knew, and those periods, I've got people who have been pushing me and pushing me for a few years to either bank a movie or do do a TV series around it. Um. I was quite reluctant to do any of that when my children were younger.

I didn't want to embarrass them. And you know, our cruel some children can be to others when they were in store. But now that they're adults, they're pressing me to do it. So I'm looking at seriously doing it, you know. Okay, But I have to ask, what was it like being in prison every day the same as every other day. Well, they talk about men reaping and gangs, and that wasn't any of that in those days. You there was men being raped in those days, but it

was very tough. You didn't have the ship you got today, you didn't have telephones. You've got one visit a month, that's what you got. Um, And it wasn't so so orientated. But also I was quite fortunate because I knew whatever prison I went into, I knew a few people, now you know, And as I said, I became very friendly and Durham with five of the train robbers who remained friends. Um. So I never had a problem in prison, m h. And it's a bit different in when you're in what's

called a high category, top security long term prison. It's a bit different. Okay, So why are you in prison? Before you get out? You knew? Could you envision getting out of prison at one time? And what you're gonna do? When we were in Durham, the then Home Secretary was the main called Roy Jenkins, and he he put us under armed guard with machine guns and sam bags because he said that he had heard from a good authority that the train robbers were going to blow the wall

down to escape. And I used to walk around that little yard convincing myself I would have as much good luck as I as I've had bad luck. And indeed God has been good. I've had more good luck than bad luck, and I'm very very grateful. What was your romeetic situation before, during and after prison? Before I went into prison, I was with a girl, and when I went into the prison, I said, you better forget about me. I'm dead. And I didn't see her or anybody other

than my immediate family for all those years. And when I was telling you about getting the retrial that was on a front page news, I went downstairs to the censor and I said, I don't want any letters coming through here from crazy people, right because now it's in the nose. I don't want that ship. I only want letters from all the correspondents have been corresponding with me for the last six years. And a postcard came through from this girl and she had been married during that

period and divorced, and she had two children. So I had her down to visit me, and then within a couple of months I was out and we eventually married. I adopted to two children, one of them lives here, and we married and then we had She worked with me all those years with the WHO, and we eventually divorced after twenty five years, and then sadly she died last year. Okay, two years ago. Why did you get divorced? We just grew apart, we really did, you know? We

grew apart as people. Um, But it was good before that. It was great before that. Yeah. It was good before that, and we were soul mates and we were, but she changed and I changed. Okay, so now you're working at track Records. One of the things I did do just I'm thirty one year sober, unclean, and that's when I stopped drinking whatever. And then it changed everything I think. And then in we divorced, you know, okay, I have to ask it. Did she still drink? Yeah, but she

wasn't a big drinker. Okay, So when were you always a big drinker? Oh? Yeah? And anything other than alcohol, not really. I dabbled with I dabbled with marijuana. Um, I had a little experiment with cocaine, but it wasn't my drug. My my drug was alcohol. Okay, So how did you go? Moivate you to get clean? I stopped,

But what motivated you? I had a young guy who was an accountant who started with me when I first started, and he was coming home from a party in the early hours of the morning and he killed an old lady on the crossing. And I was such a pig in those days. Nobody could tell me not to drive when I was drunk. And I stopped short and I thought, what are you going to do. If it's someone's son,

someone's daughter, you know, you don't listen to people. And I thought about it long and hard, and I stopped, and I started getting fit and training, and I got through the first Christmas because I didn't say this is forever. But I stopped, and I got through the first Christmas, and then before I knew it, I was into a second Christmas. I had a similar situation. My life was

too crazy. I was arrusted for drunk driving and then you get summary probation, which means within the two years, if you get stopped at all with any alcohol, you lose your license. This is l a. You have to have a driver's license. And you know, the name of

the game is delay. So in the window for when I was first arrested the night John Lennon uh was killed, till going to jail, going to court, like eight months later, I was stopped again on the freeway and I said, so then once it was summary, I didn't get They let me go, but I was stopped again. I said, this couldn't happen. I said, you know, I'm not gonna drive within eight hours, have a good drink. And then I was I mean, I've told this story before I one on one. I probably go on it fur the lake.

But I started to see this woman in there's the beginning of sushi, so you would go, this is West Hollywood, and okay, if I drank saki, I had to stay at her house, which was a good thing until one night she bit me. And there's a long story after that. But uh then she said she would never do it again. She did again. I said, my life is just too complicated. I'm gonna stop drinking, you know, I gotta be able to drive whatever. And I was not tending to quit forever,

just like you. And then all of a sudden, because you know, the first couple of months is hard. It's not the miss alcohol. So what you missed the lifestyle. You know, it's a lifestyle. What's relevant, it's where did she bite you? She didn't buy me where that's where we go, and she bought me bit me on the Netflix.

So you understand where I'm coming from that because you know, lots of other people whose names remained nameless now you know they're famous answers or whatever, all stopped around that same time or just after me, you know, and we frequently see each other and they're clean and dry, and why they're still alive. They really are well. I mean, as they say, one thing, I know, you know because

l A you can. This is another thing. I ran into somebody who wanted to be reasonable with and I had had a couple of drinks and he didn't he could tell. They said, whenever I'm in a situation, I want to have all my marbles with me, and you know, I don't really have the urge anymore. And sometimes when you're a restaurant it's midnight and they've had a couple

of bottles that everybody's having a good time. But I also remember what was wigging up was exactly and I never I never do because honestly, our older wife, for my wife and friends, it never occurs to me. It's a different life. And my two kids. I've got a daughter of twenty three with this current marriage, and a boy of twenty one. And they've never seen me drunk,

which is great, right, right right. They've seen me grumpy, they've seen whatever they've seen me in mood swings, but never seen me like that, which is very very important because it's not it's not do what I say is do what I do you know. Well, that's what the other thing you mentioned about driving drunk. I went to college in Mark. This is on the dark era. That's not ad whatever. That's what we used to do. You

get drunk and we're gonna go out driving. I remember I lived in Utah sche Bump for a couple years. I remember, and that's a pretty you know, dangerous road driving back down to the canyon don the canyon. I remember one morning I woke up and I had to go out and look at my car and said, you know, is my car really here? And intact I literally went around the whole Guy said, I just can't believe I lived in Spain. And the honestly, the road around the mountain to where I lived was one car wide. He's

shaking his hits on the time hour survived. But you know, there's another side to it all as well. I mean, um, I know that some of the artists I was with some but maybe two, I don't know, one of them sort of resented it or couldn't understand it, or you know, whether there's an element of I would like to be like that in it, or little element you know, having work with I don't know whether it's worse with English people.

But up until first of all, this was before mothers against drum driving, but up until sometime in the nineties when it became kind of cool not to drink. Oh you actually get shipped. You got to a bar, hey have one, and they exactly, well it's all like bring them into the into the group, exactly, it makes them

feel better. But coming back to the the reasons as well, is that this young solicitor I was telling you about who fought for me and for me, I saw him when I was released, and I didn't see him for a while after that, and then lo and behold, it moved to San Francisco and I saw him in San Francisco in seventy three. He had two little baby girls, twins, and he came with me to the count Palace, which was the infamous night when the fake drummer Keith Moon

falls off the drum right right. And so I never saw him after that for all those years, and then I saw him two years ago. He's now a rebi in Israel. That's a crazy story. That is crazy, really crazy, okay, But he was not the person who killed somebody. That was somebody else in your office. Oh yeah, that was an account. Okay, I just want to make sure I got the story this. This is a solicitor who understand who who defended me? Right? I understand through. Okay, So

a different question. Um, you said it earlier that you were always a big music fan. Yeah, so what did that look like? Did your parents play music in the house? How did you be going? Oh? Yeah, my mom was a singer. She used to sing in pups. My dad used to drink and she used to sing, and she was a good singer, and and her her sister, my aunt. So it was music. Music. And then as a young man, Um, we were mods. So we would go out what quadraphenia

is all about. Really, we would go out on a Friday night and we'd come back Monday morning and go to work. I mean, we were industrious, the MUDs. We

weren't living off Social Security. And I would go out, go to wherever we were going, where the MUDs went, and then a lot with a couple of pals, we'd go down to what was then a notorious black area, Cable Street in Stepane, and they had all these small sabines and clubs, and that's I don't know what shebine is a word for a club, and it was all blue beat reggae, and that was it for me, you know.

And it was all about Prince baster King pleasure all those songs that were coming in and a lot of that stuff was brought in by American g ias after the Second World War, you know, and and then brought crossed through from from the Caribbean, from Jamaica. So music was very much in my blood. And then I gravitated a bit from that to jazz, became a real real aviad jazz fan, you know, all the way through. And so it was in my blood, okay, And I never realized.

Um so when you're saying about what did I gain from that? I found something that hopefully I'm reasonably good at. And I'm forever grateful for that because I found something in my life that I think I'm pretty good at. And the people I work for and I stressed for and with I feel the same. So it worked out certainly from our viewpoint. Um, you know, we only heard about it, we ultimly the movie Quadraphenia and Elite seven, but we read about the Margin rockers what was really

going on there? Well, I'm doing it. I'm working on a TV series at the moment, just going to explore the whole cultural change. Is going to be three series, the whole cultural change after the Second World War in England, and it's quite phenomenal because what happened was I went to meet some people at a C a m C. And they said, how would you sum this up? You mean like AMC movie theater. Okay, So they said, well, how would you sum this up, this thing you're talking about?

I said, Well, when I was a boy, my parents, if anyone came through the door wearing a suit, it was yes, sir, yes sir, I said, and everybody followed their father into whatever profession he was in. I said, But without generation Second World War, there was a reaction to it and instead of yes sir, we said, funk you and we wanted something more and that's what happened. So with the evolution. I remember when I was fifth in NFT eight, when I was sixteen, when we were

not we were murdered. It was all about the clothes, you know, being like a peacock wearing those clothes. We worked as hard as we could to make the money to buy the clothes. But the changes were. It was a revolution, the changes in advertising, fashion, design, music. You know what happened. You've got the invasion of English and that's incredible that you've got an invasion of English music right as a result of the Second World War, not French or German or Dutch. I mentioned one Dutch being.

But it was all English right coming to America, and everybody's saying in American right right, that was wed You noticed that exactly, we didn't see yeah, we didn't sing in English, right right. And so all of that was happening, and from there came people like Riddy Scott, Alan Parker, David Partner, movie greet movie directors, movie executive from from advertising through there. So the TV series that I'm doing embraces more than just Quadrophenia, because Couadrophenia was three days

in the life of a Mud. What we're doing is it's starts in with the wind wind rush generation coming in from the Caribbean and from Jamaica into England immigrants, and it takes us through the sixties and through the seventhies. So we go through that all those cultural changes, all that color, because after the Second World War everything was gray. So all that Color, Carnaby, street pop, arts, advertising, fashion.

Then we've got Margaret Thatcher, Industrial Strikes, Punk which came and went through to the end of it, and it takes us up to the end of the seventies maybe early eighties. Okay, did you have a scooter? No? Do you know what we had? We had a funeral hearse. We had a funeral hearse. We used to go down to Brighton where the riots were in a funeral hearse,

eight or ten of us and um, oh yeah. And when we first did the movie Quadrophenia, the first scenes we had to shoot with the riot scenes because it was very late in the year and we had to simulate summer and it was like the end of September and it was freezing down now. And I went to my youngest brother's school with two buses to big coaches and got all the kids out of there for extras for the riot scenes. Know, so we never know. We didn't have scooters. We had Okay, the others? Was the

mart tell me about the Rockers? Were the Rockers again in the first series. In the movie of Quadraphine, You've got the fantastic scene when Jimmy's in the bath and he's singing, and someone's singing in the other bath and it's Kevin, his pal. And when they come out, Ray Winston, when they come out, he looks at him and he goes, what the funk you're wearing? Because he's a rock He's a rocker. So yeah, the rockers they were in weirdly enough, their their music appealed to me as well, you know.

I mean, I can remember the first time I saw a rock around the clock, the Bill Haley movie, you know, And um, all of the rock music appealed to me to a great extent, but the dress didn't so much. The leather gear and the big bikes and to what degree with their battles between the bids and the rockers a lot. And I was involved in a lot of that, going down to Brighton and Margate and getting involved in in the fights down there. It was it was all

the time, It was there all the time. Um. And it's I guess everything we can ever talk about is in Shakespeare anyway, So it's all Romeo and Juliet in the end West Side stories, Romeo and Juliet. The modern rockers are to a great degree, you know, so um, but you get those tribes. It's all tribal. We have tribal in America right now. It is, of course, And on that subject talking about tribal you know, and and

and some of the things that happened. I mean, it was quite extraordinary for me because I was born in this working class area and I'm telling you they were pretty rigid in lots of ways, and there was a lot of discrimination. But having said that, one of my best friends was a black boy who lived next door to me. But more than that, there was this prejudice everywhere.

But for me growing up, my role models, my icons were all the black blues musicians and black athletes, you know, Joe Louis Sugar, Ray Robinson, Mohammed Ali, Cassis Clay, Mohammed Ali. So I guess I was strange in a way because I was devoid of that prejudice, but it was around me all the time. And so when you talk about tribes, you know, I fully I was bewildered a bit by America and the prejudice and the fact that someone like Cassius Clay could come back from the Olympics and not

going into a restaurant of his choice, you know. Um, But thankfully the world has changed. It was changed to a certain degree. But what do you think of brexit? Oh for funk saying, how long have you got? Okay, I haven't got an hour for brexit, but I got a few minutes from Brexit. Okay. Brexit I think is

essential for one real reason. It started off as a trade in family, just purely for commerce the EU, and it started off as a trade in family, and it's been distorted and distorted over the years to the point where the other twenty seven countries involved have lost their ability to pass their own laws to even increase interests in the banks. They're governed by Brussels. And I think it's to me it's doomed. It will not survive in the Union in my opinion the EU. Is it more

about the currency or more about the laws. Well, firstly, we as England have your own currency. We would ever have survived the two thousand and eight economic disaster without having our own currency because we were able to fluctuate the interest rates and go with with you know, currency eas in which they in Brussels refused the other countries

to the way. And what they've got now is they've got these dependent countries Portugal, Italy, Spain, you know, Greece, Greece, and what they did to Greece I think is abominable. If you read there's a finance minister who was the finance minister for Greece at the time, and they maligned him and said he was an idiot. In fact, he's a highly intelligent man, Yannis, and the way he describes what they did to them is like punitive and repugnant. So for me, Um, I would like to see us out.

I would like to see us trade in with the rest of the world and free of those sheckles, because I consider of the EU is corrupt. It really is.

It's a corrupt machine. There's been many books written. One body X finance minister who's a woman who is um half argentinean half American and she was a head of head of funds there and what she So we're better off out of it, Okay, So what about I mean, I know in our world, I had experience with Richard Griffith's manager, and I've been with his partner at a gig and we were getting together the next day and

I emailed hearing I didn't hear back from him. I texted her email Richard, and he got back to immediately said, I know, I thought you were in I think he was an Amsterdam with one d okay whatever. They said, No, we took the private jet home. I'm home already, and it's like at twelve o'clock at night. Because of all the relaxation under the EU, they don't have all the customs and all that other stuff. Now in your world there's a direct you know, interference customs wise. Yeah, I

guess so, but it will ease. I mean, my daughter said to me, dead dead when if we leave, will I be able to go clubbing in Germany? I said, you do you think Canadians and Americans don't go clubbing in Germany? Do you think they turn them away when they've got their money in their hand? Come on, So it's all about money, Bob. Everything that happens in this world is driven by money. The wars that we look

at that so fucking awful. Money. Money. Money. Just to go one step further, there are a lot of European companies who have built factories and held up propped up a lot of low income communities in England, and those companies will go, won't there? Be fewer jobs. No, not really. I think that's a lot of it is scare mongering. I think we're going to find markets. I don't. I'm not saying it won't be tough in the beginning, but you see, you've got a lot of young people who

don't remember it before that. I can remember what we were before we joined the EU. Digor never wanted us there anyway, he said, we're in island, We're not landlocked. We shouldn't be in Europe. Don't start me, under Gaul. I remember, I mean without America, we wouldn't be a free nation. Of course, I'm telling you. And I remembered the Gal and I think it might have been Foster, that is, who was then the American ambassador, and the Gore said to him, I want every American military personnel

out of France within six months. So he said, does that include the ones that are buried here? Okay, let's jump back, you nourball, you've got a track records. What's happening at track Records? When you get there? When I get there, they, as I said, I was quite naive. I didn't realize what they were into, et cetera. On how much the drugs were part of their life. But I started learning incredibly quickly, and it wasn't long before

I was taking the band out on the road. And then I went to Lambert Stamp with the old contracts and I said, listen, these don't look great to me. I think I could do these better. Well, they couldn't be bothered, you know. They said, well, if you think so, I see what I can. So I took them out on one tour, and I think I made them in those days could have easily been five or six hundred

thousand pounds more. So in essence, Lamber and Stamp made a lot more, and I got a little bit of a bonus, a little bit of a bonus, but I thought I've proved something here, and and I went forward on that basis, you know. And then what happened was the more and more I did with the band, the more and more I suppose we became family. You know. It was a bit slower with Pete than Roger. Roger was always my champion, always, especially once I did his solo album. But Pete is slow to take two people.

But eventually he came round, and now we're really really bonded, you like let's talk about Pete and Roger. How do they get along? Well, someone asked me that the other day, and I said, they're a little bit like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I'm not telling you who's Elizabeth. It's a it's a love hate thing in a sense, I mean all it is. It's not love hate, that's wrong, it's love irritability. They were just like having a brother

and since, yeah, they irritate each other. Okay, Now, whatever happened with Speedy Keeen Thunderclap Newman. I was a huge fan of that initial album, Hollywood Dream Speedy. I gave him the title ironically because I got it now because I just come home Previous Convictions that was his album, and boted I got it. And we were great friends and I spent time with them, and Speedy was a good, great friend. And Speedy was with a girl, Janet, who

used to work with us in track records. She eventually married Asthlete Right Janet Astley Right, don't no. Lesley was one of the She was one of the family that Pete married into. Her name was Jen Jen. It'll come to me in a minute, but anyway, she ended up marrying Phil Daniels from the movie. Okay, now, um, how about Jimmy McCullough, who ultimately went to play with Wings. He went to Wings, Jimmy and his brother they were on track. I got on great with them. You know,

he was phenomenal, little Jimmy. They were they were great guitarist. So we had so much great talent coming through our hands. You know, it was phenomenal. Really in those days it was so vibrant. Who owns all those masters? Now, because of the debts and the money that was missing, we sold all the masters to PolyGram in order to pay the artists there ortists. Okay, Now, also in seventy two, I think at the end of seventy two, and you know,

Pete produced something in the course, I know that. And then but he put out a solo album who came first? Now that wasn't available on CD until right go sometimes like now that wasn't that on track records? Though? That was on track records absolutely, So how did that get excluded from the deal with Poley Graham? It was When

you say excluded in what way? It was? Wounds it today they do, Oh yeah, just like when I took an album much much later that Pete did called Empty Glass, and I did a deal with Doug Morris Echo, much to the chagrin and Mo Austin and and Jerry Mars soon chasing me. Um. There's a little story involved there where I really felt that Doug Morris was so hungry

for it. He just started at CO and I thought, this is a guy who's going to die for this album, which he did, and he's He often says the two albums that set him on his career were Pete towns As Empty Glass and Stevie Nick Solo. Listen I Empty Glass. I just put it the other day. You know, a little is enough in the title track, unbelievable, especially Empty Glass when I used to drink. He likes a mess. You know, I hold an empty glass. Okay, but let's

go back. You're still with m C. A quadrophenia comes out with m C and m C A. This is a question you may may not be able to answer. Roger and Pete. What do they prefer a quadrophenia or Tommy. That's very difficult for me to answer for them. But because there obviously for Peter as a writer, they relate to two different periods of his thinking. And I often say that Tommy is the hippie opera and Quadrophenia is the industrial opera. UM. In their own ways, they've had

several incarnations, you know. UM Tommy was was the stage production and the movie. Ironically, the movie came first UM and Quadrophenia. Incredibly, I still can't believe it, but we celebrated the fourties anniversary of the movie Quadrophenia earlier this year. All of the cast turned up Sting Ray Winston, all of them. We had a great night, raised money for charity, and it's still being shown on TV. HOWU. It's just insane. Now, that's a movie that you know, it's not deated whatsoever.

Certainly it's a period movie to begin with. But yeah, but the only thing that stated, Bob are the uniforms, the dilemma, the problems, the whole core of the film are the same your kids, My kids. They get to their teenage years and they're faced with a minefield and they've got to walk across that minefield and it's full of ship. You know, it's full of all kinds of real big problems, whether it be what we deal with with teenagers with cancer, is they come through their teenage

years and don't get anything like that. You praise God. There's other stuff out there on the streets, the drugs and everything. So the teenage years are a minefield, and every teenager thinks his problems are unique. He won't go to Dead Willie because dad says, I know all about that. I went through that you couldn't have done. They go to their peer group to look for answers, and the answers I'm afraid and not with the peer group. So so um yeah, I think that in Tommy is a

metaphor deft, dumb and blind. It's a metaphor of uh, you're you know, being not having your senses. They're are reawakening, etcetera, etcetera. Quadrophenia is totally different. Quadrophenias are coming in of Age movie A Journey, And so for me, if I had to have a choice, my choice it's quadrophenia. I can't say about Pete and Roger. I mean, you've got great songs in Birth. Well, the only thing is switching give

us a little bit. When I was in college, we used to have a thing name a better album than Who's Next from beginning to end and all that stuff is held up. But how did you end up switching from mc A to Warner Brothers with who? Um? I think that was the advent of it, that we didn't switch really until I did the Townsend deal with Glass And on that subject you're talking about when you were at college. I made a movie two years ago called The Railway Man, and it's a true story about a

guy who was a Japanese prisoner of war. And it's basically a movie about forgiveness. It's a true story and he's tortured terribly by the Japanese and he was on the Death Railroad railroad, you know, the Burma Railroad. So it starts Colin Firth and Nicole Kimmon. You should go see. It's a good movie. I'm very proud of it. Anyway, during location, Colin Firth said to me, listen. He said a lot of these musicians, he said, they collect things,

don't They said, there's this guy who collects ferraris. I said, no, that's Nick Mason pink Floyd. So I said, um, I said, you know a lot of them clicked things. I said, you collect anything, which I knew he did, he said, because my partner told me. He said, well, I suppose you could say. He said, I'd collect guitars. I said, can you play them? He said, well yeah. After a fashion, he said all right, he said cards on the table. He said, my favorite album of all time is Quadrophenia.

I said, Colin, don't give me that ship. Tell me a song from it. He told me every song on Quadrophenia. So I said, well, where did you get into that? He said when I was at university. I said, okay. So I went home the next day, so I phone Pete. I said, Pete, you don't have a guitar, do you that I could give Colin Firth. You know I'm making this movie with him. He said yeah, he said I do. Actually, he said, I've got the guitar that I wrote Quadrophenia on.

I said what, he said, I've got the said you're not going to give that. You won't give that way? He said, yeah, yeah, I will for it for you for him, So he signs it. I'll go back on location. I said to him, Colin, we need to see you tonight. Andy and I over at the hotel. Got to have a talk with you. He said, it's not about this mustache. Is it you had a mustache in the movie. So I said no, but come over the hotel. So he came over the hotel. So I gave him the guitar.

He said, what's that? I said, open it? He said ship He said for Gibson. I said, it's more than that. I said, it's it's the guitar. The townsend wrote Quadrophenia on he went. He said that means more to me than you, Oscar I got for the King's speech. You know, music sitting in the Sheridan Gibson okay, So how do you are? How does the band okay moon dies? Did you see that coming? Well, we always saw it coming,

but even so when it happens, it's a shock. And the day that it happened is quite peculiar in a way, because I went to PolyGram and the guy who was the MP deer PolyGram at that time in England was a man called Fred high On. He was from Holland and he was the original manager of Golden ear Ring and let's how I got the Golden ear Ring thing. And he was always a raven her fan. And I went to PolyGram and they agreed to give me the

money to produce the movie Quadrophenia. M mcvickor and I did them that year, back to back, and I came back to the office. I got there and my x or I said to me, sit down. She said Moon's dead. I said, what she said, Moon's dead? Fuck? You know. And it was so hard to assimilate and to take in because I was told by that doctor who gave him those pills him and never in pills. They were pills to combat shakes and detis and epilepsy if you're because he was trying to come off the brose. And

I was told there were no side effects. But I suppose if you take twenty three of anything, that's going to be side effects. Um. So I've often said, you know that if if Moon Moon's death was inevitable, then John it was Yours was unnecessary. Okay, a little deeper, you know, it was unnecessary because with John we all knew he had a little bit of a hard thing, but it was always played down. He was very flippant about it. Nobody ever thought it was anything more than

something you just took a pillful, you know. So yeah, but but coming back to Moon, Um, even though you expect these things, and I don't know if Moon would have would have if he would ever have made old bones. He just wasn't that type of character to make old bones. You know, how can you envisage an old Keith Moon?

I don't know. What I do know is if Moon has had any discipline whatsoever, he could have been one of our greatest character actors because he could sit with you well, but he could sit with you and within ten minutes he would have of all your idiosyncrasies, all your body language. He was a great mimic, fantastic, but no discipline. Well, one other thing, you know, remember I saw the band performed Tommy at Fillmore East. This is

six and I've never seen a drummer like Moon. You know, he almost it would take two people to replicate him. It was just unbelievable the way his arms moved. Well, he's dynamic and he's so unorthodox, you know. And my tour manager, Rex King, he came to see us play at the Hammersmith Odeon with John Bonham and as they came out, Bonham said to him, We've just seen the best band on the planet, the best band on the planet,

and I've had artists through my career. You know. I was twenty six years with Robert Plant and fourteen of those years Jimmy Page was with us and superlative musicians. Yes, but when the Who are on, the Who are on. I remember a headline we had we had from one concert and it said, yes, Zeppelin, Zeppelin and the rest of the good, but they can't kiss you good night like the Who. Well, I just remember when they had the Madison Square Garden concert after nine eleven and the

Who just blew everybody else off the stage. Were that nine eleven? Things quite interesting because funnily enough they were Pete and Roger were in my office. So I got a phone call from Weinstein. So he said, what the Who did the nine eleven thing? I said, Harvey, we're not a cabaret action. I said, if we come and do that, I want forty five minutes. He said, at least, he said, you've got it. You got it, He said, no problem. He said, but if the Who come on,

all the other artists will come on. So I said, he said, where do you want to play on the bill? I said anywhere. I just want that fifty minutes back anywhere. And that day was fucking magic and I'll never forget Elton John Old Power, but he came into that dressing room to the boys and he were I've never seen anything like it. And for me, I've been with them forty nine years. The most moving experience I've had was that we did nine eleven. And we've had some amazing stuff,

but we did nine eleven. And then some time after that, we went to Washington for the Kennedy Awards, and Dave Grohl spoke about how they were responsible for him being in the music business, and we had all the other artists up there would do songs, you know whatever, and then right at the last song, I could hear require on that last song, and the curtain opened and it was all the police and firemen from New York. Fuck

the feeling. I can't describe to you what I felt like, because to return that and to say there, thank you was something else. You know. It was just such a moving experience. And I'm not given to goose bumps or stuff, but I'm telling you that was a moment. I you know, I can feel it over here and I can't add anything to that. So I'll go to a more minor point. Why did it end with you? And plant? I was

with him twenty six years. We encouraged him to come down to London and to get out from the Midlands with all the old cronies. I think during that period he was with me, we made some great albums Palms, that album, Feed the Nations best solo album, incredible record, Fate of Nations twenty nine, Palms, the two other albums I gave him the title for Now and Zen and No One. Zen was huge, and then he did the album with Addison Krause, right, that was still when he

was you were managing him, yeah, oh yeah. So then what happened. It came down in a way to a point, a principle on my part, and the only way I can really really explaining it to you is that we're deal in different currencies. And my currency is that I believe that the real wealth in life is what you've got, is what you've got after they take away the money, what you've got left, and that's family, friends and principles. And I've always lived that way. And he deals in

a different currency. And if he's got any regrets now, then he has to be honest with himself. But for both those guys, I would like to think that I did a really good job. And Jimmy bumped into a friend of mine, an agent, a few months ago, and he said, has Bill so Rod said, oh, he's great, he said, send him my love. He said, tell him. I've only just started realizing how much he really did for us. But it's okay. But with Robert, I said

to him, it's going to come a time. And I don't want to sound him modest here, but yet there's going to come a time when you're going to realize you've lost your best friend. I said, because I would have stood in front of a train for you, but not anymore. And it was about a point of principle. And I don't wish him any ill. I wish him every success. But there's a thing about artists, Bob, not

all of them, but the majority percent of them. They don't have any friends from the past, very few of them. What happens is they choose a career that takes them away from their childhood and teenage friends, and so they go on a different journey. And while they're on that journey, they lose a sense of loyalty. And what takes over and becomes more important to them is where's my album in the chance this week, etcetera, etcetera, and they lose

their real sense of friendship and loyalty. And I'm big on that. I'm sorry, I'm just really big on it. And so that's what you find with lots of artists, and we a lot most of us run away with the idea of thinking that arts because they're artists, they're nice and good people. They're not. They're not. Listen. I've met some of the greatest artists in the world. I want to mention them, and they're just unbelievably narcissistic means of them. And it's like, you know, they're exceptions who

you know live up to them. But no, the other thing about an artist, they'll funk over anybody for themselves exactly. There are number one. So when you take out on board, and I'm a personal manager and I give a bit more than some other managers, they may get a contract and they put it in their desk and that's it. I don't live like that. I don't have a contract with the who I haven't had one for forty nine years. If they want to leave me tomorrow they're dissatisfied, they

can go. I don't want to go through any litigation. I just want to be paid for what I've done. But it becomes a friendship. Judas Priest have been with me thirty seven years. Again, it's a friendship. You give, you become friends. You give the it and I give to them a promise. That's what I do. So and I've got friends right back to my school days. I still go see them in the East End. We're mates. Sadly every year ago there's one less. But you know,

how about all these old people. I mean, obviously you're very successful financially. Do these people your family members ever come to you for money? Well? My other what my brothers, sisters and people we're brothers and sisters are friends both. Yeah, and how do you feel about that? I'm okay, okay, you know what money is. Tell me, money is a means to end. Money is a means for you to help the people you love enjoy their life. And if you can do that, that's all it is. It's a commodity.

That's funny because Cliff Bernstein said something very similar to me, like, you know, be able to help people's lives, you know, at the same time, So okay, yea, So Pete says he can't play live anymore. Well, before that, who say we're retiring? I remember making it too, Yeah, I remember making said of my Nakamiti tape deck, you know, and then they keep coming back. What's up with that? Well in two that's when he said, he said, I want to be with my kids. I don't want tour in him.

A couple of years ago we played Hyde Park and Tom mzer Ardino, he was the promoter of the Cotton Bowl. On that last tour, he said, I've got a T shirt for you. He gave me. It was the Who's Fair. But so Pete didn't want to do it. So from A two two I think it was a tight. We didn't do that interestingly enough. And that's when I picked up. Someone said to me, you're interested in Judas Priest. I said, yeah, they're good, Lfe Ben. Where are they down in Texas?

They want to see you? So I went down there. And so you know, we had all those years where they didn't her, which as have said loss in a way, but um, and now it's turned full circle and Pezz the one who wants to tour. He's really enjoying it and he wants to tour. And I guess it's in all of our minds that, you know, if life's a three week holiday, we're on the third week and this Wednesday.

But what about his hearing issue? About what? I don't know if you're saying that as a joke, but Pete farm famously said he had tonight is and he couldn't play, etcetera. And then he played acoustic guitar behind plastic you know, whatever he did, he had the tonitus and he was getting a lot of pain from it. But there are lots of meds now today that can lessen that, you know, and he's finding that. Okay, Pete. One of the problems we've got is Roger uses ear monitors and Pete uses

stage monitors, you know. And I, I mean, I listened to this ship and I think, am I really live in here in the real world? Or is this the afterworld? Because sometimes they'll come off stage and Roger was saying, funking on the stage, I can't fucking hear anything, And I said, you told me that have the fucking silver dome in right right right, you know. So they're all getting different sales up there on stage. Um, And I

can't do anything about that. I said to them, Look, I can do everything for you to help you with what happens off the stage. I cannot do anything about what's on that stage. I can't be where Pete is when you're playing a song or where you are get your ship together. You know you should be able to do it. Okay, So moon dies, they play with different drummers, then Entwhistle dies just before the tour, they continued to work. Is the motivation? What is the motivation for them? If

it's in your blood, it's in your blood. I don't know that you're going to go and do anything else. Pete's got lots of sides to him. He's just finished the book Age of Anxiety. He's a constant worker. But what else are you going to do? You know, if you're given that gift, and it is a gift, what else are you going to do? So you do carry on. It's got to be the same with Jagger and Richards. They they don't need the money. But I've often believed that God works in mysterious ways, and in a lot

of ways he's fair. So what he does is he takes someone like these artists and he gives them a special gift. He gives them a little bit extra more than you, all right, But at the other end he leaves something off unless where we fit in. Okay, how did the deal with c S I come together? Oh? That was I forget who who actually rang me in the first place? It was Jack what's his name, Jack Rossman? Jack slipped my mind at the moment, but it was. It was either Brookheim or somebody who was who was

a raven Houfen and they were looking for somebody. But somebody, as is usual, somebody who's an underling who never ever probably got credit for it, said hey, listen to this stuff, you know. And it was the synthesizer songs. And it was amazing, wasn't it. Because so many people started coming to concerts and saying, oh, at least the people who do see it, you know. So that's how it came about. Okay, but you know, they get the guy's name now. But

he was from CBS. Okay, But that was he. He was one of the first artists of his era, Jack Sussman. He was one of the first from his era to license these songs. So was he reluctant for a credibility did he say, hey, you know, if you're Peter three, I'll make the deal. No, he came round to it. I remember years ago. I went back and I said him, Pete. It was with the advent of mobile phones, you know. I said, Pete, I've got a fantastic deal for you with a T and T for going mobile, the song

co Mobile. I said, I've got a great deal for you. He said, Now, I'm not selling songs to that. I'm not doing any of that. No, no, no. And then a couple of years later he did a complete turn around and they were picking up whose songs for all kinds of I did a deal as well. I mean, she worked these artists out. Bob. I did a deal with GM Motors for rock and roll, right for led Zepplin right. So, and it was a huge, huge amount of money, I'm telling you so. Um. First thing, first

it was ken million, wasn't it more than that? Okay, more than that. So I'm on the road with Robert Plant and we're going to go to the jail. And by the way, as part of the deal, I said to them, can you give Robert Plant an escalade in every city? So he picks up an escalade. When he after he's done it, he drops it back at the airport. We're going to get to Detroit. So I said to him, when you get to Detroit, you've got to come to the factory and sign people's albums, you know, I said,

the workers. He said, yeah, yeah, okay. So we go to the factory and he's great. He's signing all their albums. And then the CEO came down, who was a little bit to me. The typical American maverick flies his own plane, you know whatever, right, you know, So he says, Mr Plant, He said, how are you enjoying the escalade? So Plant, he looked at him and he went, I like the fall better. I went, what he said? He's so the

guy looked at him. He couldn't believe it. So when we get outside, I said, are you for fucking real? I said, you've had all that money, You've got this. He said yeah, he said, but you know, he said, that commercial for the escalator it's on TV too much. I said, what do you mean it's on TV too much? That's what they paid for and that's why your kettital has gone through the roof. So we get home, he phoned me A few weeks afterwards, he said, Bill, he

said that guy GM. I said, yeah. He said, do you think you can phone him up and see if you can get us to escaladors one for me and one for my son. I said, no, I fucking can't tell me to go to forward exactly exactly. Work it out, Okay, So that the actus ever get jealous of one another, they don't have your time? Yeah, how do you manage that? I think that it's difficult. I think that that was one of the problems with Robert plant Um. I think that he resented any time I spent with the who.

I tried to juggle it as best as possible, but I think he resented that a bit. But I was forever jumping off one to the other. Um and I'll go there. Pete Townsend is the complete complete artist. He writes everything, he sings it, he gives you a demo. It's phenomenal. The Scoop albums. Yeah, he's the real deal. A lot of the others need to partner with someone, and I'm not potting them down. They're great artists. But you know, for me, Elton John, I love him. We're friends.

The songs he wrote with Bernie Special songs, Jagger Knees, Richards plant needed page. That's all I can say. So there is a little bit jellously because Townsend is the complete deal. He writes it all complete musician. Okay, So what is it you do as a manager that makes you so great? But it must be something because you're you're actually talking about There are some managers were traffic cups. They deal with the incoming. Then there's some managers were visionaries,

and you've put out some visionary thing. So are you the type of guy who says, listen, I have a plan, we're going to do this or that, or you're fielding calls or what is it doing? I do a lot of that stuff, but I often joke and say what I do really really well is I do the unnecessary for the ungrateful. But but yeah, I do I plan

with them. Um. But if I had to say to someone, now, what are the essentials for management, I'd say, never be afraid to say no, never be afraid to make a mistake, Try as hard as you can to make more successful moves than unsuccessful. So at least it's like, well how many goals did they score? You know? So that your your average, because everybody makes mistakes, everybody, and so you have to sit between it. And if you've got four artists,

it's much easier. Well maybe it's not asked John Reid and people like that who have had solo artists, but it's usually a lot easier with a solo artist because you're answering one person with one set of problems than it is with three or four. And if those three or four of really forceful characters like Daughtry Towns in the Moon were and then and Whistle was in his own right he could be quite forceful, then you're juggle in. It's difficult. So I don't know really how I've totally

managed it. It's um okay, Well that's managing the people. How many of the ideas will you say, oh, let's play within an orchestra, or oh let's do an album, or this is the way the yard should be. A contribute quite a bit to that, but I mean it's to give Rogery's dew. It was his idea to come with the orchestra because it used the orchestra only solo stuff and it sounded so great. I mean he recorded this the concert from Bethel and it was great, and when he put it to Pete, Pete was quite skeptical.

Now Pete sort of loves it. Not only is it great and sounds great, but it's easy for him. He's finding it easy up there, you know. So And and for me it was a good move on Roger's part because he he gave it another dimension, the who music. Um what I think that if I've got a forte, I think it's in projects, in coming up with projects, you know. Um, like with the Quadrophenia movie, going back all the way back again. There that guy Frank Roddon. He never made a movie. He had made a couple

of TV movies and one of them was great. It was this true story about a deaf and dumb girl who was raped. She she kills the killer, and we gave him I was so impressed with him. We gave him the Quadrophenia film to do. I think he made a masterpiece. He came over here and he made a movie for Fox called The Lords of Discipline, great book. They ripped the fucking film to pieces. He came back

so disillusion he said, I'm never making another film. And he did a TV series which was huge in England called r V the same pet didn't mean much in the rest of the world, and then he did Master Chef, So we don't need a benefit for Frank, right. So what are you most proud of in your career? I guess I can't really pick out a concert because there's

been so many superb and superlative concerts. But if I had to pick out a concert, I'd have to fall on the side of that of nine eleven for the emotion, just a sheer emotion of it, although we've had such wonderful concerts. But proud, Yeah, the Kennedy Award. But I'm proud that I've got two people who trusted me with their lives, because that's how I look at it. When an artist comes to me, they're putting a life in my hands because there are artistic endeavors and their dreams

are their life. And that's what I'm proud of that I've managed to manage. I hope I managed to do a good job for them. And you're gonna do it till you drop. Yeah, because I wouldn't say I want to do it at the same rate and pace. Because I enjoyed doing projects as opposed to the band thing now. Pete laughed the other day because I said to him, well, I don't fancy going down to the pig and whistle and listen to another young band's problems. I want to do projects. I want to do films. I want to

do this. I want to do it. But it will always be music. Um so yeah, I mean. And it's about realizing dreams, isn't it. My two My two kids. My daughter she's just come out from university. She got a great degree in English lit and creative writing. She wants to go into publishing novels. My boys termed professional as a golfer. Um, it's allowing being able to help

people hopefully realize their dreams. And if the who had dreams when I first met them, and I know they did, then I think I've helped them get there and realize a lot of them. Well, Bill, this has been fantastic. We could go out for like five hours. We've really got the essence of who you are. Thanks so much for doing this, and well, it's been a pleasure to be here. And what we've managed to do this afternoon is to turn crumpy old Bob into nice Bob. Hey, listen,

I our side away personality til next time. If Bob Wes