Peter Noone

the studio. You dropped your wife off at L a X. You live in Santa Barbara. Yeah, I live in Santa Barbara and I my wife and daughter are going. My wife's family have a house in the south of France and they like to go via Dublin, so they've dropped him off at L a X. They flying to Dublin and and to Nice and I'll join them in about two weeks now. One of the reasons I asked this is you got married when you were twenty what twenty one birthday, and you have been married to the same

woman for fifty years exactly. We had our fiftieth wedding anniversary, and the only person who showed up actually Mickey Moost's wife and and Mickey mostly was my producer. His wife and Tom Jones were the only people that we knew that is still around from our wedding. Okay, so we all know what being a rock stars like you were as famous as anybody in the world. How did you find this particular woman to marry? Um? It was very

it was. It was a strange one. I went to the Bag of Nails to see Jimi Hendrix, who was like newly in town. I think Eric Burdon had mentioned him. And I went to the Bag of Nails and there was a girl there and she was with another with her sister, and they were speaking Hebrew and obviously I can't we can wrote of Hebrew, and they were speaking Hebrew, so that I because I could speak French, and they

were French, having spent some time in Israel. And the guy who was with them said, would you dance with my sister? And were they were aware of who you were? No, absolutely no idea and the kid would snicks you know then nothing about me, And of course they knew who Johnny Halliday was, but there were no other people in their lives musically, and we we met and we spoke a little. I had schoolboy French, you know, like a

pretty good schoolboy French. And you know, we actually gave me her phone number and it was Ambassador double two six and I kept it on a card and I went away. And five months later I was in Hyde Park, which is a big park. It's like walking in Central Park. And I saw my future wife's sister and I walked over at said, who where's your sister? And she said, she's back in England. She's staying my mother's place on

Cleveland Square. That's the Ambassador double two sixties. I said, great, So I called her and she had no intent, no intention I have ever seen me again. Um. You know, she had a dentist appointment the next day and a headdressed as performance. So eventually we went out to dinner with other friends. Um, and you know, she found out I was the real real thing. Then another time, then

we separate again. I went on an American tour and we she saw me singing on the television on Top of the Pops and her sister said, look that's the guy that we that you danced with that night. It keeps calling, and you went out to dinner with Francois, and all those people actually goes, oh my goodness, I had no idea. And she makes a joke. He said he used to draw pictures of beds and wardrobes and things, and I thought he was a furniture senter, you know.

So you know, I never learned Hebrew, but my French got much much better. I only learned French because I had a good you know, you're always good at the things you have a good teacher. I had a great teacher, father Murray. And and I I went to I was I went to the evenings. I went to the Manchester School of Music because my dad thought I was. I

needed to be a musician, knowledgeable musician. And there was a library nearby, the Manchester Library, and on the second floors where I would go to do my homework because it was very quiet, and there was there was the art department. And there was a picture in one of the books of Bridgie bard Do. And I thought, I'm going to learn French so bad that I can walk up to Bridgitte bard Do one day and and and

pick her up. You know, that kind of school boy, and of course it wasn't Bridgie, but it was someone even better, which is my wife Mary, much much better. Okay, so you meet her the second time, then she goes back to France. How does it ultimately okay, well, how how it gets going is I come back to England and I say no, no, no, no no, excuse me. She moves to Spain. Her mother has a house in the Ibis in the Baliaric Islands, and I decide to rent

the place next door, which was pretty cool. And I moved into the place next door, and her mother really likes me, and I end up spending a lot of time talking to the mother, who's very interesting, not the lots of Second World War intrigue and dead husband's from the Holocaust and the great, great interesting stuff for me.

So uh, we make this friendship. And one day we're sitting on the balcony of this little apartment of mine and we hear this voice Peter Noon, Peter Noon, because there are no phones or there are no communication this that, and and I got, yeah, I'm Peter Noon, what what is it? And he goes, I'm from the British Consulate and you need to come back to England immediately, and I got what. I think, something's happened to mynd So I come come downstairs. I go, what's going on? He goes,

your record is in the charts. It's sunshine girl. I didn't even know it was out and I needed to be Everyone was looking for me to go on top of the pops on the Thursday. So, you know, it was easy in those days. You've got to the airport, you buy a ticket and you there's no tar, say there was nothing. You just went, oh, okay, I'll be back in two days. I went to England, did to the posts, went back to there, and then I said,

I got to go to New York. My my manager, Charlie Silverman, is getting married in New York and my future wife's and I don't do planes, so I go, you don't do planes. Uh, So we had to take a ship. We took the America. I think we've called the United States the fastest ship on the ocean, and it was the worst crossing. Even the captain was sick, you know, And that was she took planes ever since then. So we went to New York, married, we went to the wedding, and then we set off and went to Mexico.

And Porto Rico, and we did that show business stuff and I said, you know, let's get how about we get married? And she goes on, I'm not sure. I said, you know, you should see me on stage, but you see who I who who who I'm being some of the time. You may may not like that character. So we go to vis Baden and we're playing an American airport base in vis Baden, and she saw the show and she still wanted to get She said, okay, yeah, that could be fun to be married. You you'd be fun.

You're a gentleman. And we got married. So how long did you know her before you got married? Well, I think September to November. I mean we I've I've finally got to spend a night with her in September sixty eight and we got married in November sixty eight. So when did you that I first met her in April six I think. Okay, so April to November. Yeah, it was just that fast. It was. It was really love at first. My pot everybody gets divorced. What's the secret

to staying together? My wife has a very good sense of humor. You know, it's you know, it's really She still likes me quite a lot. You know, I am I'm amusing and I make fun of him self deprecating, which is good. You know, I say, watch out, I'm going to be naked and second stretch the lights often. You know, she likes all that kind of stuff. She's got a very good sense of humor. And she's from you know, she's from a dysfunctional type of Emily and I am as well. So we know that the family

is the most important thing. So we know that keeping the family together is the most important part of the world, of the whole thing that we've got. Now, one would assume, being a young man on the road top of the charts, that you would partake as some of the things that were going on on the road. Would that be accurate before I got married? Oh yeah, so twenty one is young. But you just saw her and you said this is

the one. Yeah, you know, I think I probably, um, I probably was looking for you know once somebody, I think Saul McCartney said, you know, you can you can have a full on life in show business. You can make show business your life, but you may want to take some time and have a life at the same time as being in show businesses, and I was really I thought, because of the nature of my childhood kind of, I thought it would be really important to concentrate on life.

My parents, um, we're very busy when I was young, so we which made me into me, you know, because they were always gone. So I became very independent, and I thought I would like to have some settling thing. Some part of me needed to be settled. That's why I live in Santa Barbara. I live on a golf course. I've never played golf in my life, and I live on a golf course because it's a settled place, you know,

it's my Okay. So you're growing up in Manchester, right in Manchester, yes, suburbs of Ventures Destruction, and I've been there a few times with some people. So in any event, your father does work for a living. My father was a trombone player who became an accountant and he was in the Royal Air Force. And part of my story is my father was in the Second World War and my mother was sent away to some village during the

Second World War and they got married. I think my mother got married on her sixteenth birthday and my sister was born five months later, and then in the fifties, all those people who had been messed up with the war, I messed up, I can't think of it would but transported away from their lives. They both went back to university. My mother went to Cambridge and my father went to Edinburgh. And this was after they were married. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this was after I know I was six or seven. Okay,

those those places are physically apart. But you went to the university of that, remember, you earned it, didn't You couldn't buy your way into a university. They chose which one you were good enough? Okay, so, but but they were ultimately separated absolutely. Who was taking care of the kids grandmothers. We lived my sister and I lived with my grandmother and that was for how long three three or four years. My mother got out a year earlier.

But so, but the marriage sustained even though they were the mary sustain Yeah, they were married until they died. Yeah, they were married till death to his part. It's a family kind of tradition, I think maybe in my family. But but m because they were separated and they lived apart, that made me want to be sort of more settled somehow, you know, And I know this is like a psychiatry.

Think here we got going up. But then I I needed to be settled, and um, I found a woman who liked that kind of thing, you know, from the kibbutz to beats to a country and country place in England to Santa Barbara. Means we've always been very connected, okay, and then you didn't have a child to like, after fifteen years you have been married, correct, maybe more than that. My daughter's thirty one, so maybe twenty nine years after we met. After we've got married. Now I don't know.

I can't do the maths. And so why did you wait so long? We didn't. We were very happy not to have children, and then I think my wife decided that it would be really now we were pretty well organized once once we moved. We lived in France for a bit and it was a bit dysfunctional, and then then we moved to America and we found Santa Barbara and we go, this is probably this is probably a good time for us. We could have children and it

would we could make it work as an airport. I could go to work and we could do you know. And I was going through a lot of changes in myself so it was really good for me what you were going through. I became ambitious. I had not been ambitious for a long time. But you know what caused you to be ambitious. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed show business, you know, and hanging out with musicians. I spent too much time with actors and things like that. Who are okay? So after your hey day, were you

left with anybody? Not really? But but I never did it for money, so it never really counted. You know. I had enough money to buy a house, you know, And think part of part of the thing that happened to me was my my parents were very successful in a business, and they didn't desert us, but they gave me a massive amount of freedom. And then they their business failed and I ended up taking care of them, and a lot of the money that I made I

spent on them. I bought them a house, and I bought them a hotel, and I bought you know, if you've got a couple of alcoholic parents, it's probably not a good idea to buy them a pub. But I did that, and so so that I didn't really have a lot of money, although I had probably earned a lot of mon money. But the question did you become ambitious because your fine answers were low? No? No, I was ambitious because I I thought I went to France

and I had kind of retired. I think I was maybe twenty five, and i'd kind of retired, and I was making enough money that I could. I didn't really need to make a lot of money to live a nice style. And a friend of mine he was he was making he was the director of the midnight special and he came to stay in our house in France. Stan Harris's name was and I had a hit records in France and in a big hit record, And he goes, what are you? What are you doing here? How well

it is it? Look it's easy. I can make a record and I can put it out and I can make it. You know, it's a it's you've got to come back to America, come back to America. I said, I can't afford to come back to America, can't keep this. And he says, well, you can stay in my house. I have a house in Beverly Hills. You can live in my house until you So we couldn't resist the

opportunity to come and stay in his house. In Beverly Hills and Hanger, and within three days of staying there, we found a little apartment on Oak Coast, you know, in Beverly Hills. We moved into a farm. We had no furniture. We went Robert Rentals or something and rented all this stuff and we we seally should come here six weeks at a time. I could only come six weeks at a time my visa, and and every time I got a job, I would have to get a

visa again. So we're going backwards and forwards and packtorism forwards. And then one day we I started a band. I started a little band called the Tremble. As I got more and more, you know, I got i'd listened to the radio and saying, you know I could, I bet I could make a record. I could like it would be like Herman's Hermits Part two, you know where where if Herman's Hermits had stayed together, where what kind of music would we be doing now? And I became ambitious.

And during that period of trying to put a band together, I got a job in Pirates of Penzance, just the touring company, and I think I was really good in it. And so then I did the tour and then I did a year on Broadway. Then they asked me to do the London West End one for a year, so I did that one. Then I went to New Zealand and I found out like four years of full on work.

You know, I had insurance, I had Social Security payments, and I thought, this is like a real gig my foot, you know, because it's from from the big from Herman's hermits when I was the sort of money per person which was ridiculous, you know, the youngest person in the band, because we've got four pounds ten, we've got to pay the petrol and there's only enough for us to get chips without fish. You know. I was not the greatest manager of money to being somebody taking care of it.

I said, this is great. It's having a gig and a regular gig. And I became more and more ambitious, and people started to say the reason I got back into being Herman again was there was a club in Kitchen, Ontario called Lulu's and they would call me and they say, we want you to come and play LULUs And I said, first of all, I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not playing in a club called Lulu's, it sounded like. And he goes, well, you'd be very surprised

if you come up here. We'll pay you just to come up and have a look at it. And I go, no, I'm not interested. Just I can't see the words p noon and luluse in the same sentence. How about performing Arts center? You know that sort of nonsense. And eventually they said they call me and they said, look, we put a band together. They've learned all your songs. All you have to do is come up and show up

sing your songs and we'll pay you X dollars. And I will, Oh, that's more money than I've made in the last forty years or a long time since I've made this kind of money. So I go up there and I do a rehearsal with the band, and they're really nice guys. They're called on the air, and this kind of all strange luck things happened to me. I'm in the guitar soul of I'm into something good. I speak, we begin I always opened, I'm into something good. It's

just like a traditional thing with me. And in the guitar solo, I'm into something good. I get this thing like you are not Frederick, You're not even Peter Noon, You're this guy who sings I'm into something good. And it was such it was it overwhelmed me. It was like a I found out who I am in Lulu's and kitchen. Okay, two questions, what a what year was this? No idea? And second, what was Lulu's like it was?

It was a five thousand standing room only X came on that had become a nightclub and it was massive. And of course I went back three weeks later and five weeks later inten it became a tradition. I was one of the guys who played it, you know. It was Del Shannon and and it was all the big oldies but goodies actually played up there. And I was home and I got this. I love this. I just

loved and I really loved all my songs. I have a bit of a story and that I'm in my car in Santa Barbara at this time while I'm playing, while I'm practicing for Lulu's, and i have the window of my car open and I'm singing along to Herman's herm, It's Mrs Brown, You've got a lovely daughter. People are walking past, and I got, oh, my god, you're doing an impersonation of yourself and people can't see you and hear it, because you know, you didn't think of it.

You know, you know your own song on the radio. So I don't know the year, but probably eighty four somewhere in there. Okay, let's go back to me and Chester. So what was the business your parents ultimately started. My mother was the CFO of a company called it's called Austin Walter's and it was they made neon signs and it was hugely successful. And my father had some history in Germany. He used to fly over there a lot at night, never spend the evening there, and so he

could speak a bit of German. He'd been on a base there. And they decided to go in into another business, which was making sinks. They were in the neon business, fluorescent lighting business, and they decided that are going to use the same factory to make plastic sinks. And that failed, and that was a big, big failure and they lost. I remember they had a beautiful house in Manchester opposite a golf course and they couldn't pay the electricity bill.

I mean, it went down big time. They financially. So now you're growing up and now, of course in England they call private schools public schools. What kind of school did you go to? I started off in a local primary school. Then I went to English Martyrs, which was a Catholic, full on Catholic school, because my grandparents thought that I'd do better if I went to a Catholic school. And from there there's there's a thing called the eleven plus and if you pass that, you get to choose

which grammar school you go to. And I thought I wanted to go to Manchester Grammar School because that was a good school. But I failed the test to get there, I think the actual personality test I failed, not the written test, and I ended up at my father's old school, which is St Bede's College, which was a full on you know, priests teaching young boys how to become men. And I did pretty good. Then I was pretty I

was one of the smartest kids there. Then I got into some fights and stuff like that, and my father sent me to Stratford Grammar School. And I arrived at Stratford Grammar School and all the work that I've been doing at the St Bede's hadn't been done yet. I was at least two years ahead of everybody in the class. So I spent all my time dreaming about music, mostly music. Didn't have any dreams about being an actor or anything

except music. I I wanted to meet Del Shannon, and I wanted to you know, I never had any idea of becoming a singer or I just how do I meet these people that's so interesting? And I'm one night I go to I'm very interested in music, and my mom my mother gets me a job as a disc jockey, and a disc jockey with a turntable. Let's say, all they've got at the club that I work at is a turntable, and you have to bring the records and you become the disc jockey based on the kind of

music you play. So I'm playing only American music, and I'm but there's a lot of space between the songs and everything. But they're pay them in money, and I'm going, you know, I'm playing Dion and I'm playing all American records and somebody holing the crickets and one one that was always requested was at the hop by Daniel and

the Juniors. And I'm a disc jockey, and I have lots and lots have a massive music collection because my parents are rich and and I'm able to buy lots of records, and I have nine jobs as well as my parents be enriched enriched. I sell programs at Old Trafford, which is Manchester United football grams. I sell the newspapers afterwards, and and I one night i'm walking, I go to a club too, because I had a lot of girls

go to this club. Some girls that I know say they go to this club and I go there and this man walks up to me and he goes, you're Peter done. Yeah, And he said, look, our singer Malcolm Lightfoot hasn't shown up tonight and we need a singer. You probably know someone about the songs that we do. So I said, well what do you do? And he goes, well, we do the heartbeat by Body Holy them and then a lot of body Holly material because they called the

heartbeats so they're they're like a body Holly. And then and they say we do this and they said they say, I know that I'll never dance again. Bobby Ryddell, I know that one. I know that one that said so I know all the songs and I get up on stage and what were you known as a singer? Okay, not not at all. I'm just known as a person who knows a lot about music from girls, you know, uh, he knows everything about music. That's what That's what that was the word that was about. And and I did.

I knew a lot more than anybody else about music. And they say after that, I do a really good job. By the way, I'm actually pretty good at that. I don't do any movements or anything like that. Malcolm Lightfoot maybe did some twisting or side and none of that. And this at the end of the show, they said, you know you would you like to join the band? And I go, yeah, okay, well what does that mean?

And said, well, we've got a gig next week at the Ermston Football Club and we're getting paid four pounds and we split it five ways. And I go, well, that's great. That's just about what I'm making selling programs on the same night, so I can have two or three gigs that that. It's all about money at that point, and of course I get in the band and immediately

my instinct is to take it over. Let's start for one second, you said earlier that your mother or father, your father was a trombone player, and he wanted you to have a music education, so you did study music when you were a kid. Yeah. I went to Manchester School of Music and most of it was just theory, you know, and I just waffled through it. That was what would happen? Would I be? I'd be in a in a in a in a classroom with people doing respigee and Old Delmo, Dolcedor and that kind of stuff.

That was kind of singing lessons. And I could see in the other room there were some other boys who had a guitar and then and I went into there one day and I said, White, what is what is it? Which class is this? He said, well, we've we've we've got a skiffle group. I go, oh what and they say, look, it's dead easy. I remember the guy saying, look, it's dead easy. If you could play a crank and you can, then you can play d and you could play every

song that you know. It's like, wow, how great is that? That's more the music that I'd like to be in, the simple beautiful, you know. And they were doing Chuck Berry kind of songs. They were doing nice, simple, beautiful songs, and I go, that's it. So I became more and more fantasy of being I became fond of that kind of music as opposed to the music that my father wanted me to do, which would be theory and classical.

And you know, he wanted me to play. He was a trombone player who wanted me to play the French horn or the corin play. That was his idea, and he never I never hate. Okay, let me ask you this, Okay, if your parents were well to do, why were you so entrepreneurial, I think you had to be. I think a lot of people in my period there were entrepreneurial called hustling in America. You know, I like the word entrepreneur better, but I think my my father would have said,

you just a hustler. You know, I would find, you know, the the job selling programs that old Trafford was. We would go and we'd sell programs before the game and at the end of the game when people came out, there was a newspaper which had the halftime results, and we would we had a van. We bought a van so that we could do this. And we were only fifteen. We couldn't drive it, so we needed to employ people to get us around so we could. So it was just everybody was in on it. All my friends at

school were doing things. And when once I was in a band, everybody in that first band, the Heartbeats, had daytime jobs. It was I was the only one who was at school and there's no income from school, and everybody had to be you know, one was a bricklayer and one was I went on jobs with Alan Wrigley, the guy who got me in the band. He was We were window cleaners. All you needed to be a window cleaner was a ladder in a bucket and a

chamois and that was it. We were making money and my parents would have paid me not to do the job. But it's just they were gone all the time. They were busy. And then how does it end with you in school? M h. I stopped going when I was fifted. As soon as I got into the music business, which I call the music business. My full time job became Pete Novak and the Heartbeats. Nothing else in the world meant anything to me. Nothing else that was that we're going to get on the radio. And we drove around

in a van and we did hundreds. I mean I've sometimes look at the dates that we used to go and people kept records of it. We worked four nights a week. Every week. We do the lunchtime at the cavern and we do the evening in Blackburn. And we were really hustling for work. We would work anywhere that there would have us. And it turned it every day. It got better being in the music. Okay, it was their cartress decision to leave school or just stopped going.

And you know, I was very busy at making making this band happen, and school I tried to leave school naturally. I went to the headmaster and I said, I've got a job. I remember, I've got a job at Carrington's, which was a as an article clerk. That was the job that I could get. I knew I could get the job, so I went and got the job. And I went to the school and said I've got a job. I want to leave school. And said, you can't leave school. The law says you can't leave school till you're sixteen.

So I went, oh, and I just stopped going. I'd sometimes show up, but every day I'd go out with Alan Wrigley cleaning windows and selling newspapers. And Alan Chadwick had this job as a bricklayer, you know, carrying bricks around, and I just stopped going to school. You know, I knew everything that they were doing. Anyway, I was, you know, once there was there was a blackboard that turned around, and there was a there was a teacher call Goldwater, Mr Goldwater her and he was a really nice guy.

And I feel bad when I tell the story, but I had written on the back of the the blackboard that he turned around, a U H two is a wanker. And we waited for the whole of the lesson. He kept kept rubbing it out because everybody knew that it was going to happen. And eventually, like in a movie, he turned it around and he turned around to the classroom.

He said, noon, come and see me after the after the class, and everyone was like, he must recognize the handwriting or something, right, How did you know it was me? Why do you think it was me? I think so? Why do you think it was me? He said, You're the only one who has done chemistry. You didn't do it at this school. You know, they hadn't got up. I had no idea that nobody else in the class had done chemistry, so it was obvious. So I was

a little bit smarter than everybody else. But I was also lazy, you know, because I would just make it work. I'd do my homework on the boss. So what did your parents say about this? They were really busy. My parents said it was it was kind of significant that many working class people on the up and up in England were really busy. But lots of my friends lived

with their grandparents and ate with that. You know. I would go home from school and eat my grandmother's not and it was great living at my grandmother's because they were old and they were deaf. I mean they were probably in their fifties, but they were old and they were deaf, and they went to sleep at nine o'clock, so you could make as much noise as you want. You could have girls sleep downstairs and they would never know.

I mean, it was just the perfect So your older sister and it was just the two of your Then what path did she follow? She got married when she was very young to a really nice guy and moved to Liverpool. They lived in Liverpool, and eventually my parents moved to the near them in Liverpool's part of my mystery thing is people in Liverpool think I'm from Liverpool because my parents lived there, but people in Manchester, no,

I'm from Manchester, but say I'm from Liverpool. So it's just my accent is somewhere in between the two places. Maybe St Helen's okay, So you're out on the road. Is Pete Novak with with the band? At what point do the Beatles? Of course the Beatles were successful in UK law before they were successful in America. Well, well there were, they were underground successful for a long time. There were this band that I remember being with. My friends would say, you know, Shane Fenton and the Fentons,

just like a happening band. But you know there's that Beatles thing going on. That's that's different. And what happened was that without me and Alan Wrigley, this bass player from the Heartbeats, we we here, we're rehearsing and we hear another band. You know, every kid in Reefed House had a guitar, you know that, every kid, And if they didn't have a guitar, they were playing music as loud as they possibly could on whatever piece of equipment

they had. But we could hear this live guitar somewhere and it was August, and we actually walk across the field. It's called Abbotsford Park now, but it was then it was a field and we climb overheage and in another field and on stage the Beatles going one two one two tests, you know, so we stick around, we go that's the Beatles. Look, oh look, the drama's got a riser like he thinks he's someone really posh, you know.

We you know, our bands do put in the and and the opening act is Brian Poole and the Tremelows, who were sensational. They're absolutely sensational. You did. Nobody can follow them. The Beatles come on and Alan Wrigley after during the first songs as to me, we're fucked. That's it.

That was the end of it. That's it. He realized that he was net Any aspiration he ever had to be in the music business was just you know, he'd seen what the future was right there and it wasn't a little van driving around playing shadows and Buddy Holly songs. I was inspired. It was totally inspiration to be. I said that I don't want to challenge them I think I could have a version. You know, they're going to

want to peep. Know, nobody's going to want to be like the Beatles, but we could be like something completely different than them, you know, as you know, every band had to be different in those days just to get a job. If you just showed up and did Beatles the same songs as the Beatles, they'd say, well, we'll have the Beatles instead of you. So we we grew from there. We we we started to do less of the It made us. It inspired us to get other songs from outside, so we do my Boy Lollipop, Mrs Brown,

You've got a lovely daughter. We started to add different kind of material to the show so that people would think it was more more entertaining because one one thing that I remember vividly about the Beatles on stage at that show is August the six nine was they loved each other. You could see they just loved being in this thing, and they kept looking at each other and smiling, and they were inside jokes and it was so inspirational to me. Sat can you imagine these guys have got

everything going from this before they were really writers. I think they weren't really songwriters. They were just this group of guys who really loved each other's energy and played off each other, and I got and that's probably what my dad had had in his Big Bend, you know that there was this sort of union and camaraderie amongst all the players, so that that was inspirational to me.

And and luckily a couple of the people who ended up in Herman's Hermit much later had also seen that show and almost been inspired to like work a little bit harder on being not better but different. You know. Okay, so you're the business guy in the band and you're doing all these shows four nights a week. What's the next step? What it really was miraculous. We do we do all of my stories. I'm the luckiest guy in the world, you know when when people ask you and

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. We play this gig like I think it was a bombs on Ferry Cross the Mersey. They would take the ship out whatever was the ferry at nighttime. They would take it three miles out to see where. Wait, so you're saying the song Ferry Across the Mersey is about an actual ferry, and the whole thing No, he's saying to the ferry, ferry across the Mersey, not very across the Mersey, ferry across the Mersey to the land. But I always but

I thought it was hypothetical. I remember when with you, but there was some specific parties that he was singing about. No, he was singing, ferry across the Mersey to the place that I love. Because he's from Birkenhead, Oh, which is in Cheshire. It's not even in Livapool. Ferry cross the Mersey to the plant. So anyway, that's so, there is a ferry and you can rent it. I think you still probably can. But they've had a tunnel for fifty years.

You don't need a ferry anymore. So so so we're on this ferry and my friends, people who I don't even know. My manager, Harvey Lisberg, is at dinner with his parents and this woman who's and he says, he's asked the question, Harvey Lisberg, He's asked the question, what do you want to do when you get your degree? Business degree? He said, you know, I think I'd like to be like Brian Epstein. I'd like to find a group and manage them and travel all around the world

and make hundreds of millions of pounds. And she said and he and she says, you know, I saw this kid on the ferry the other night at you know, alf Albert Goldberg's bar Mitzvah, and the kid is really good. You should check him out. So we were I think we were called Herman and the Hermits. By now Herman and the Hermits, he's called herman Um. So he finds out that we're playing this nightclub and really, you know under people down the bottom of the it was called

the Seller, the Cave, the Seller in Bolton. And he comes and sees us there and he says, I'd like to be a manager. So I said, well, let's have a meeting. Come back to my mom's house. My my mom lived in this fabulous house. And this manager, Harvey Ellisburg, who is going to be our managers it comes to the house and he goes, oh, that's a lovely piano, and I go, you want ago you know when my my mother had this unbelievable expensive grand piano and uh, he sits down and he plays what did I say

by Jerry Lewis? I said, we don't want you to be on match. We want you to be in the band, and he goes, no, no, I don't want to be in the band. You know, I'm too ugly something like that. So but I'd like to manage it. Some of my parents meet him and they go, yeah, okay, you can manage it, but well, you know, so he immediately becomes our manager. Then I'm not the manager anymore, which is really refreshing because he has much more connecting, much more

connected than I am. And he suddenly we're getting we have a hundred dates on the book, and now we're looking to replace people in the bend with better people because now we can offer them more money. Everybody was in it for money. I asked Keith Hopwood, how Keith hop would who was the guitar player? Who who created that? Mrs Browne got a lovely looked daughter sound. I say, would you be in the band and he goes well. I said why did why did you join the band

and when did you join them? And he said, well, I joined the band when I saw how many dates had booked, And so we we we instantly start to get very much more busier in Herman and the hermitson and we start to play the Cavern regularly. You know, we become regulars at the Junior Cavern in the evening. We moved into the upper upper echelons, which is like nighttime at the Cavern, which was a big, big, big deal.

So we're moving along and I think ultimately we were the only band left in Manchester who isn't signed to a label. I think it's really as simple as that. Who came from me and Chester in that era, The Hollies, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the mind Benders, the Dakotas, Billy Ja c you know, everybody, everybody else from Manchester who was in our league, the twenty pounds and up league has gone. So we're the top of

the leftovers. And we have this idea. We've seen Mickey Most this is again the luckiest guy in the world. We go to see the Everly Brothers and the bill was the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones and Mickey Most and and Susan Morem or some some unknown girl singer who had and it's my party version. And during the show, h Nicky Most comes out on stage

and he kneels. He's like a fifties guy because the Everly Brothers are fifty and it's all teddy boys in the audience, and he wins the teddy Boys because he's got a guitar with no strings. It's got a guitar with no strings. But we you can't tell from the audience. But even though he's got no strings on the guitar, he has the balls to kneel down during the guitar solo, you know, I mean when we're completely and of course

all the teddy boys love him. And the Stones come out and they are dying the death of all deaths. You go, oh my god, they're like mods, they're not at all, and they do come on by the chuck Berry come on and the audience t'lly go, oh well, they're all right, and they're forgiven. And at the end of the show, at the end of the show of the Stones and the Everly Brothers and Bold Didly come

out and they get on a bus. But Mickey most comes out and he opens the hood of his car, puts his guitar in it, opens the door for his girlfriend, puts her in the car, waves us as if he's the star of the show, and gets in there. It's a Porsche that's why I put the guitar on the front. We've never seen anybody with no engine in the car before. We've never seen a Porsche before. God, that is the coolest guy who is here is some South African guy.

And but his name comes up in ideas for producers because he's got this record out called I'm Crying by the Animals like I don't don't knock, And it's like this great singer that we know him from the animals. We know what they can do, but we didn't know

anybody who could record him. So now we go, how do you get to Mickey Most We've got my sister call Insane Herman and the Hermits, you know, and hanging up, and Harvellist book says, I'll send him a plane ticket to Manchester, which in those days is like unheard of, you know. I mean it's two hundred miles, took seven hours to drive it. We'll send him a plane ticket, and we booked him a night in the Midland Hotel, which is the Posh Hotel right by the station, and

and we'll drive. We'll get a driver, we'll get a nice car roven up. We'll borrow your dad's Rover ninety and we'll pick him up at the hotel and we'll take him to see you at the club in Bolton down the stairs. And what we'll do is we get all the girls to scream. We'll play the audience to a plan. So when when you do a song, of course that happened. All of that happened. But the girls

all screamed in the wrong place, you know. They never scream where you think they they're just going so but he liked the band, No, he didn't like the band. He liked Peter Noon. Let's talk in the third person, and he wanted to get rid of the band and make records without the band. And now we're a band. This is a band. These are my friends. We we've built this monster together, you know. And he goes, okay, well, come to the studio and let's let's try and do something.

So we've got a couple of songs. Awful. Now I listen to them. I'm embarrassed that that we had no we had no idea what we were doing. And we make a session and at the end of the session he says, look, the only way I can work with you guys, is if you get rid of him. And him and we play and we said we can't get rid of him. He says, okay, so he will not be the lead guitar player. He will become the rhythm guitar player, and that drama you get get a drummer

who can play in time. So it's like it's the most horrible moment for me because we're now we're going to have to get rid of these boys that have been my mates, my bandmates, you know, the union of a band, and we're all loving each other, but the music thing is that happening. So luckily Harvey Lisberg once again and we get lucky. There's another band in Manchester that's on the up and up called the Whalers and Big Wally and the Whalers, and we want just the Whalers.

We don't want Big Wally because he's too big. And we signed to the two guys from the from the Whalers joined Herman and Herman's Herman and the Hermits, and we change our name April the first, we change our name from Herman and the Hermits to Herman's Hermits and manager. We don't have my mom's phone number anymore. We've got you know, I used to say, you know, Herman's Herman and the Hermits bookings, Ermste because my mom had a phone. It was in the hall down the stairs, you know.

And it's suddenly we became like this big time thing. And Mickey most sent within days of us putting together this new band, he sends us a demo, a Carol King demo of I'm into something good. And he said, come and come and record that and do that other song that you played, that other rubbish song. Learned that again with the new guys, and come in the studio and we'll make a record. And we listened to it, and you know, it's we actually thought we were making

a surf recording. We didn't even know a surf record well, but you know, we we thought that we needed the surf sound. And Mickey knew this piano player, a session piano player who was a Roger Webb his name was, and he had a band called Roger Webb Trio, which were pretty he was pretty famous. And he sat in that studio and we were kids, you know, I think I was fifty sixteen maybe, and all the Hermits was sixteen seventeen in there. You know, we were really teenagers.

A real boy band, and he sat with us and we rehearsed it with him like a hundred times, and we finally we we took a run at it, and the vocal that I did at the run became the lead vocal. That was the one that that we kept, you know, and then we just over everything was over. The mickey would mix down to one track and then put stuff. You know, we had two track machine and it makes it all down to all the drums and

all the instruments on one track. Then we throw more stuff on it and the background vocals and then put some hand clapses all over the place. But it just captured who we were. You know. When I listened to the record, now I go, well, that is just that's exactly somebody made a recording with exactly what was going on. Okay, let's slow down for a couple of seconds. Lizberg, is your manager? Does he make you sign a contract? You know, I don't know. We couldn't sign contract. We were all

under age and you had to be twenty one. And what was his percentage? Ten percent? I think maybe because he had a partner. We didn't We didn't care about that. We just wanted to know what being important down the line. Yeah, tell the story of how it ultimately became Herman and the hermits Um. Well, we were playing. We used to rehearse in a pub in outskirts of Manchester, near Derek Lecambye, where he was a guitar player. There was a pub there and they let us rehearse there, and the publican

let us use He had a microphone. And we're Americans, tell us what a public it is. The owner of the pub, the landlord of the pub is there and he lets us use his stage and his microphone. It has a microphone and a speaker, and so it was easy, and you could rehearse until five thirty. So none of us went to school anymore, and we'd go there and rehearse when the pub closed at three o'clock till five

thirty when they opened again. None of us were eighteen, so we're there and we were doing Boddy Holly songs and I would wear when it's so ridiculous that I am the luckiest man in the world. So I put these horn room glasses on. I had horn room glasses already and I put them on, and we do a body Holly song so people would know anybody who knew Buddy Holly would go, oh yeah, we're a little things you see and do, And I could mimic him like

I thought I was doing a brilliant job. But we nish that would be the day, And and the guy who owns the pub, the publican, comes and he says, who the bloody ell was that? And I look at him, You're stupid, can't it's Buddy Holly. You were Boddy Holly because you don't look anything like Buddy Holly. You look like Herman from the Bullwinkle Show. And everybody, like all the future the heartbeats all thought that was the funniest thing that ever heard because it was Sherman and Professor Peabody.

But he thought he thought it was Herman and Professor Peabody. So that was kind of part of the joke that he was so stupid he didn't recognize the body Holly song. And he also got the name Sherman and Professor Peabody wrong. You know, you look like Herman from that Herman from the Ankle Show. And everybody laughs, similar to your laft there, And he says, what are you look laughing at? You can call yourself the Bloody Hermits. So that man, who we don't know who he isn't forgotten. It's I've been

dead for fifty years. He named the band Herman and the Bloody Hermits, and we immediately we said, that's the that's a great name for this operation because it's completely

different from anybody else. You know, it's all Beatles and searchers and movie titles, and you know, everybody's going a little bit more sophisticated than Herman and the Hermits, and that we The drummer was the drummer then was called Steve Titterington, and his We could rehearse his place as well after the public could go to his place because his sister was a cop a constable, and you could make as much noise as you wanted until any time

you wanted. And it was important to the band to be able to rehearse a lot because we were useless. We needed to rehearse every song many many times. And we went home there and we told his mother that we've we've we've going to change the name to Herman and the Hermits. And she made suits for the Hermits out of sacks, potatoes, sacks, and I said, I'm I'm Herman, I'm going to wear this blue suit and okay, and

they when we did we did a gig. There was a there was a guy called Jimmy Saville who was a manager of the Plaza in Manchester who liked Herman and the Hermits. He thought ultimately he was a big presenter and got in trouble after his death. Yeah, he was probably a horrible man. But we we was the manager of probably many many people in the wrestling business in those days who became managers of ballrooms were probably not nice people. But we we didn't care whether we didn't.

We didn't have like a stress test to see if we could work with people. They had a job and we would take it, you know. It was that part of the career. And then he we did a lunchtime show and the Hermits, the new Hermits, showed up in these sack things with their little white English legs hanging out of the bottom. It's just a potato sack, fifty six pound bag of potato sack with the neck cut out and the hands, but the guitars and and the Steve tit Twington's ass was worn out from sitting on

the drum school in the the things. So that lasted for one day, but we kept the name Herman and the Hermits, and we once we played that gig in the plaza, people liked the name, you know, the girls who came to see us. I remember, like at the cavern, we we'd always wherever we played, there would always be somebody that we knew sitting at the front and the cavern there was always a girl called Margaret and she was there right from every time Hermit's Hermits played at

the cavern, Margaret would be right at the front. We never spoke to her, which she we didn't know how to deal with fans. She we didn't know about groupie's or we knew was our sisters. And in my case, my sister had like a plastic you know, Sister Agnes statue implanted in her forehead and went to Catholic schools and confession and you know, no sex before marriage. So

that we thought all girls were like our sisters. We didn't know any ravers or group year or that we treated fans like they were are on par with our sister, you know, because we thought all girls would like to be protected and behave well with girls. And we grew this band into It was always Margaret and bit I did. We'd go back to the cabin and there'll be seven girls at the front, and then the ten never boys, never like Herman Hermits. Then at the beginning they didn't

like us because we didn't play rock and roll. We played kind of pop. So that was a bit romantic, you know, the different talking about So we were romantic. Can't into something good? And when you have playback, do you say this is a hit or you say, well, this is a record we made? Well that one we did? We didn't, haven't we we It was just flying. We had no idea what we were doing. We just this is how you make a record. We had no idea, We had no knowledge of how he made a record.

We would completely naive. And he didn't like the record. He took it home and he decided on the way home that he was not going to release it even and it was thinking of ways to tell us that. He was sorry, lads, it just didn't work. But he played it to Chris Most, his wife, Chris Most, and she said it's a number one, and he was, you're joking, I got a remix it. She just don't remix it, leave it exactly like it is. It's a number one.

I'm telling you, Mickey, it's a number one. It's like you know, when you play the House of the Rising Son, you said it's too long. I told you that was a number one. Just this is a number one. Put it out and against his you know, because Mickey liked Mickey loved to claim that he was the song picker of the century, and he probably was, but but he didn't. He didn't think I'm Into Something Good was a hit.

And when it was a hit, um, he claimed it like, you know, I knew it was a hit, and my dad could have sung it and it would have been a hit. But I think it was. It was a really good recording of a really good song, and it capture and all that sort of energy of those sixteen year old boys. Okay, so how long after you cut it was it released? It came out August, the seven before we probably made it July, so two weeks after we made it, two weeks after was that the only

song you recorded that? And the B side, the b side was what Your Hand in Mind, which was the song that we'd failed the audition with the first time. Now, worked it. The record comes out the UK instant here instant,

I mean quite instant. Interestingly, we're we're playing in the club where the manager discovered us, discovered us in Bolton, and it's opposite a sewing machine factory, out of business machine factory, and we're changing in the kitchen and Jimmy Saville has a radio show It got five thirty that with this Jimmy saddle clown voice and this is Erman's Ermits and he plays I mean something. You know, it

was the greatest. Still I can still be in that kitchen to hear myself on the radio, and I remember thinking, I'm with Del Shannon. Now those people who were on the radio. I'm one of those people. Now I'm not just a kid in a band anymore that's got a bit of success. And we're up to thirty pounds at night. This is like I'm with those the Beatles and the delve Shafts always Del Shannon. Why but you know, I'm

within this new league. And we didn't even know that it was going to be a hit, you know, just the fact that we didn't know that you couldn't you couldn't have a hit if it never got played on the radio that we knew being on the radio was a hit. Okay, at what point did you realize and how long did it take for it really to be a hit? It jumped out of the box. By the next Thursday, we were on Top of the Pops and we went to Top of which was in Manchester. You know,

if you got in the charts. I think he came in at number thirty or something the first week. You know, I think it started selling instantly because it got played a very quickly. And I remember the songs that it was the Kinks You Really Got Me and that one a rag Doll and pretty Woman. There was some pretty Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison. We're all in this heavy rotation and we were now in the same league as like the Four Season and Royal Orbison. Okay, the it

was always in Manchester at the beginning. Really yeah, So we go on, we go on Top of the Pups and and it was like Roy Orbison and the Beatles and the Four Seasons and Supremes. And when when you go on Top of the Pups, you go on the first time and if the record goes up the next week, you go back again. So for the next five or six weeks every Thursday, we're at Dickinson Road in Manchester doing Top of the Pups with our heroes and not knowing how to deal with our heroes. Like this Royal orbicer.

That's Royal orbicon. We even look this George Kennedy, the guy who played are you know, We're like in heaven. This is the greatest thing that could ever happen to a fan of music. We're now in the room with the big guys, and did you think, okay, this is the beginning and we're gonna sail through or this is one and done. My I think we thought that we just let raise the level of interest. It's interesting that we were pretty well matt balanced. We thought we've just

raised our level of interest. Now we'll be able to get three hundred pounds a night. So now that are to something good? As it hit? How much roadwork are you doing? We did? It's interesting. I saw an article. Um uh, every night we've worked every night. Our managers and agents sent us to work. There's a there's an

interview with Elvis Presley. I didn't. I interviewed Elvis Presley and I met him in Hawaii, and the newspaper in Hawaii, said, which I recently found because of the Internet, says, Peter Noon meets his all time idol Elvis Presley, who is on a film shoot Hawaiian Love Hawaiian Style in the and Peter is one of Herman's Hermits and they're on a three hundred and sixty day world tour. You know, we were on a three hundred sixty but in we

did three hundred and sixty concerts and made records. Okay, So when you did a show, how long was the show different? We'd like to do longer, but you only a lot of shows. You only got twenty minutes. Like we did a tour in England with with Dusty Springfield instantly like we had a number one record. We're on tour with Dusty Springfield and I think we did we closed the first half or something and did four songs. Okay, how long after half do something good? Are you back

in the studio? Probably before Christmas? You know, we need, we need another thing go So we go in and we've got another Carol Kink song that Mickey also doesn't like, but we think he's always wrong, and it's called show Me Girl, and it turned it isn't a number one record, and we go on that. We go on top of the Pops for the first time as he gets in the charts, and the guy who's announcing us say, do

you think Herman's Hermits are a one hit wonder? And of course, me being having all the Irish energy, I wanted to kill him. I still have a resentment I wanted to go and I've got I'm going to prove him wrong. So we go back to the studio and Mickey goes, let's do let's do silhouettes. It's a shore fire here. And next time you go on top of the Pops, you play the piano. Don't be like Herman standing in front of Bend. You'd be like one of the band and it will be everyone will be impressed,

like Alan Price, right, it's good. You know all these but you know it looks cool. You'll be cool. It's a cool song. I'm gonna go, well, we we do it, you know we don't do don't do it? And he no, no, no, let's get it. Let's get fi Flick Thick got any ideas going to do silhouss and Flick is a studio guitarist. Yeah, Vick Flick is a famous guitar. He played the James Bond theme and he played that boy Da Da Da in Hard Days Night, so he's famous. Two people in

the music business in England. So it's Flick Flick and he goes, yeah, how about this and he goes and we're like, we're obvious a number. It's a bloody number one. It doesn't need any fairy dust, you know, let's go. And so we put that one out next and it is. It's like a top two win England and hit in America. And we've also done I Can't You Hear My Heartbeat thing, which is also sitting around and we've somehow in early nine, on one of those days off, we've been in the

studio and made our first album the record company. But how long did it take to make the album? Three hours? Everybody had three hours in the three hours to make the whole album. Yeah, but remember I had I'm Into something good already made and so two of the twelve tracks were done. So the other ten tracks are all whatever we had in our show that hadn't been recorded. Remember, you had to go and look for songs. That's why it's all good fun because we had to do songs

that people other people didn't do. You know, you couldn't do Rollover Beethoven or any Chuck Berry song because they somebody had already done them as well as they could possibly be done. So we would we did. We cut I'll Never Dance Again, which was from early Pete Novak, and the Heart because we cut Heartbeat, which was early Pete Novak, songs that we knew that we loved. We wouldn't record anything that we didn't love. So strange in the studio, how much did the b N play? Where

did studio musicians play? At the beginning, the band played on everything, but bit by bit as we got busier and busier, it was really a time to learn to learn a new Mickey find as on and say learn this, and they was nobody would be as quick as like Jimmy Page would be there. You have any idea why the albums came out in MGM in America. I think what happened was we we had to deal with the m I for the World and E M I didn't pick up the option, and neither did and they didn't

for the Day Club five. Strangely enough, we were also in the m I band who were dropped. So we took advantage of that and we made a separate deal. I think I think MGM signed the Animals first, and then we were part of that deal. And I'm not really sure about that because it's it doesn't really interest me to know how it happened. I only want my point of view, you know, because everybody starts talking about the money and stuff like that. I don't care about that, Okay. Now.

On the first album was also Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter? Yeah, how did that come together? Well? Well, that was one of the songs that we used to do at the Cavin to be different from nobody will do My Boy Lollipop, So we'll do my Boy Lollipop, nobody will do Mrs Brown. I used to dress up in my school uniform with the short trousers and walk out and do Mrs Brown you gotta leave a daughter, as if I was that person in the song, which I still do, by the way, but not the short trousers.

But it made sense to us too, and of course we recorded it because I think when when Mickey heard it, it's okay, okay, when it wasn't his idea when it when it later when it became his great idea. But at the time he said, we put it on side two, track three. No one will ever get that far. I mean he actually said, those are the exact words. One. I've listened all the way through anyway, and it was hidden there, and of course it became a smash. Well.

I just remember being in America. I bought the album with a red cover and it said featuring arm into something Good. And then Mrs Brown became a hit. They put all sticker all the ones that featuring Mrs Brown, which in America was even bigger hit into something So okay, the train leaves the station of the Hermit's Hermit saw the singles, Which ones are your favorites? I love, I Love, I'm into something good, I like silhouettes, and I like

there's a kind of hush all over the world. It just seems to buy by the time, by the time we did, there's a kind of hush and all over the world, which is there's the end of the run of Hermit's Hermits. None of the Hermits are playing instruments on those records. It's now John Paul Jones is playing bass and is conducting the orchestra, and it's all the greatest musicians in England who show up and play as well as they can, as well as John Paul Jones

can make them. But Mickey mose is still the producer and always Yeah, he made every Hermit term. It's okay. So in this time you have this runoff hits. How many You're on the road all the time? All the time, we were NonStop. We even did a pantomime in the December, you know, because you could do a Christmas show in England and the Hermits played sailors and I was a Laddin or Dick Whittington or something some crazy play Christmas pantomime. I mean we even found time to do stuff like

that for no money. Let's you go back. Isn't it true that when you were younger before the Herman's Hermit Sarah, you should we did some television, Yeah, all of which was you know, just when I was at the School of Music, a television independent television station opened around the corner from the School of Music in the downtown Manchester. It's called Grenada Television and they were creating new It

was the other channel. There was a BBC and there was this new channel, Independent television, and they were One day some guy comes over to the to the School of Music and he said, we're looking for a kid who can play the piano in the background in a Christmas Christmas E think, so I can play the Holly and the Ivy, you know, the Holley and d I v I could play. I play there better than anybody. And so I got the job as kid playing a thing.

And because I got that job, then I was the kid to go to we know a kid who was at the School of music who can't do this? And eventually I found myself on Coronation Street, which is the number one biggest, biggest TV show in England and still running even though I'm not in it. It's still running. Were you in it? Very little? But I got paid good money and I used all that money to finance the band. You know, but you had no dream of being an actor. Now I wasn't very good at it,

to tell you the truth. I never fancied myself as an actor. I think it takes a lot more memory skills and I have it spent me all. I'd spend all day learning my one line. Okay, so you're on the road with the band. Yeah, you knew each other in uh from me and Chester. Did everybody still get along if you're working that much? We didn't know anybody.

We didn't know each other, but the guys in the band didn't know each other before we were But you know that's right history when you're okay, but you knew each other before you were biggest I met, Yeah, you have that relationship now you're big, you're on the road. Is everybody still getting them all? Well? I think I think probably my biggest failing was not realizing that I could very easily be hurting somebody's feelings without having the

knowledge that was even doing it. Like, for example, would do the Royal Command performance and the Queen would only meet one person, but she met all the Beatles. So if you were Carl Green's mom watching the Royal Command performance and you've seen the Beatles all ship, Hello, Ringo a lot, Paul, Hello Georgia, you you say to your son, how come you didn't meet the queen? How come he gets to meet all the queens? And how come he gets to be in the dressing room with Andy Williams?

Do you know what I mean? And I didn't know any of that was going on. I thought we were all mates and that it was the natural thing, you know, you and I'm the youngest member, and I'm now the spokesman because you know what the lead singer. What I didn't know to tell them was, you know, the lead singer is usually the person that the cameras on all the time because he's singing, and during the guitar solo, they'll show the guitar, not the player. And I didn't

know to tell them that. I thought that they would just magically understand everything that goes on in the world like I didn't, and it was very naive of me, and I really regret it, and I'm still friends with a couple of them, but I can understand why they probably very quickly grew to hate me. Hey it's a bad word, you know, not be very fond of my activities. And what happened was we were all from Manchester. I was living with my grandmother, and we became famous and

I immediately moved to London. I got a little muse flat, you know, for fifteen pounds a week, which was easy. I could afford that. I didn't need anybody to sign the credit agreement or anything. And I bought a posh car and I got a driver and I was off and they were in. They were still living with their moms and dads. Who does he think he is? And I didn't know any of that was going on. I didn't know. I just was so full of myself that

I didn't ever think of other people's feelings. So i've that's probably a lot of the tension in the band was because I didn't know that there was any tension. But you moved to London. They theoretically could have moved to London themselves. They had the same amount of money that you were making, right, Yeah, we were all we sharing everything equally. Yeah, everything, every cent was shared equally, and that theoretically, you know, if you want of the boys,

you can't step out. It's like when Paul McCartney starts dating the doctor's daughter, the posh doctor's daughter, he's kind of out of the thing. You know, it's not in the van anymore with the lads. They're all getting in the van going back to to Manchester to their moms and dads or whatever was going on. I don't really know. And I'm catching the lift off the Stones Where are you guys going tonight? Are we're going back to London? Can I come with you? Because I'm so naive that

I don't know that that isn't appropriate. Constantly I do it and I'm looking back and I go, how embarrassed. And So the Beatles are doing a TV show in Manchester. I'm not on the TV show, but I'm there because it's in the studio where the people at the gate know me from being in Coronation Street. So the Beatles are there. I drive in with my driver waved to the guy at the gate, Arry whatever his name is. He waves me in. The Beatles are in the in the dressing rooms. I sit in the cafeteria and they

come and sit down at the table. I start talking to them as if I know them. Ah, because I'm sixteen and they think I'm some kid from Coronation Street. But they're the Beatles. And now I'm so stupid, stupidity really, but it's kind of comedy stupid that I see Paul McCartney sitting talking to George Martin in the dressing room with the door slightly open, and I walk in and

join in the conversation. Hello, what's what's up, you know what you do, and and and Paul, who is the kindest, you know, because I'm just this kid herman and I I say, I say, and he goes, well, are we're talking about compression? Do you know anything about compression? I know what what's compression? And Paul starts up, well, you know, and this is exactly how it went. You havent heard of, you know, Fats Domino. How when he sings the track go, it gets it loses some of that, and then we

start singing again. You lose the track and then the track comes louder in between the first Oh yeah, I know exactly what he talks about. Well that's compression. And we're discussing how to defeat the compression. Ah yeah, and I'm going to and they're they're doing people who have recorded the Beatles songs. And George Martin says, looks at me like like I'm a an adult and says, which Beatles song have you recorded? Which means get out and

record any Beatles song I haven't. Just just you know, okay, thank you? Like but you didn't realize you were big? No I didn't. I didn't. He was so Paul McCartney was so kind and well mannered and included me in the conversation as it cares what I think about compression. But he's just a gentleman, you know. And so was George. You could have said please get out, but he didn't. He said, well, which which beatles songs have you recorded? Non? Okay?

Leave kind of just okay. So and lots of that happened to me all my all my time in herme and Sermis, I would always get myself into situations that I didn't really realize made me look stupid until years later I look back and I go you asked the Stones what they're doing after the show and they to get rid of you. They said, oh, we're going back to London, and you said the words can I come with you? They said all right, And and they had this big American car and there was there wasn't a

seat for me. And even though it's a big car, so they're the driver called REDGI King who had a hammer. There was a left hand drive and they sat me in the middle next to this crazy redg King in the middle with Brian who was also a little guy. He was a little guy like Brian Jodge was a

little guy. Like me. So we could sit in the front seat of that big American car with the seat the middle thing up, and this Ridge king as we drove past cars on the free on the motorway, he would lean out of the window and bash their rear view mirror off right, And this is like this kid from Mentis to his life, been a Catholic school and everything I got. This is the greatest thing I've never been. This is incredible, this is these are the greatest people

I've ever met in my life. This is this is. I wish Herman's Hermits were more like this, you know, not so nice and staying with their mom's. I wish they would get a hammer bash old people's rear view mirrors off as they drove past. And that was my new liago. I live in London. Now I'm going to live in London and be like them. So when did you find out that there was resembling from the guys

in the band? You know in the seventies, you know, in the early set when we when we all decided to what happened was we did a Royal command performance and we decided that we were going to be a

cabaret band. The American record thing. It was a disaster, you know, because we would run into a situation where are being teenagers, we didn't know how to deal with it because we've never had to deal with so somebody said, you didn't get the check, so we'd say, well, if they're not going to give us the money, we're not going to give them the record, which is what they want. But we didn't know that we wanted we we want. We didn't know that they didn't want our records enough

to give us the money. Say so is the money thing came and and then what happened was that that I was kind of nonchalant about the financial part of it, but the grudge part I wasn't going to let let go of and we're not going to give them any more music until until we get all the money and we want it nothing. So meanwhile, what happened was we started to make really good records for the rest of the world, like we had My Sentimental Friend and Sunshine

Girl and Something's Happening. They were all big, big records all around the world, not in America because they were not released, and we thought that that would tease them into putting it out. Look at that number one in Australia. They put it out in a minute. That's they'll give us the money just to get their hands on that.

They didn't care. They just wore onto the next we you know, the monkeys had come along or something and we were just like over there and all these were good exact so, and I realized at the time that we that we'd stepped into this cabaret world, which was really good for me because I'm kind of a cabaret person, do you know what I mean? I can tap did did he? Did he? And I can you know, and

I can play with the audience. And I talked them into we've got a choreographer, and we ended up doing a royal command performance for the Queen and doing song Broadway hits, you know, like name, you Don't Do, Don't Do Do Do do It do Name, and the hermits had to not have guitars and had to become male dancers. Think about it, Oh, I am thinking about but I saw it as I finally saw it about a year ago,

so resentments. So at the end of that, we all decided that we've done the best that we could possibly do with that idea. Let's let's all, let's take some time away from each other and see what happens, see what happens with the label and everything, and you know, everyone who was recently married and stuff like that. And at the end of this run, they took the suits off. We always wore suits, and they ripped them up and tore them up and jumped through ound on the stage.

I'm never going to wear a suit again, you know what I mean. And then that's when I realized, Oh, they didn't. They didn't enjoy. It's not about how much money they make. It's about how much fun they're having playing as a band, you know, Like we used to have this fun and laugh at each other and and someone they made a mistake, we would all laugh at each other and yeah, and all that was gone and we were being we were like the Bachelor's or the Shadows.

We were like those bands that we didn't want to be, like, going through the motions, you know, dance steps and everything. And that's when I realized. And that was also about the time that I didn't realize that me sharing the dresser room with Tom Jones and Andy Williams and then being on the third floor with the Czechoslovakian choir was not appropriate. It was bad management of their feelings by me. So whenever we decided to call break, did you think

there was a future for you and show business? You know, I had a TV series, so part of the I had a British TV shot series that was running at the same time as we broke up. And I thought that as soon as I was finished with the TV series, because I'm thoughtless bastard, heartless bastard, that they would come back into the fold. You know, we can start up again. We'll go do an Australian tour and we'll do a little American oldies but goodies to own. That's exactly what

we did. We came over and I think Naida had one of those things and he put together a British and I thought, I saw that in your blog. Yeah, and we thought that was it, and we thought, well, we can do this now and then. But they wanted to work. See the idea that they wanted to work and they would be prepared to pretend to be something

other than who they were. And it never occurred to me that they wanted to work, that they enjoyed working and singing Herman's Hermits songs and that we're prepared to do it without me, and I thought that they wouldn't be able to. I thought they won't be able to do it, you know, like Peter Gabriel thought that Gis would go on and everybody from everybody? What was the TV series you have? It was cool? It was it

was Mike Yarwood. It was on every week. It was a weekly show, and I was doing comedy and singing a song every week. I was three people in the show, Mike Yarwood, Averan Post and me, and we did scenes together and it was kind of a fun show to do. And you would rehearsal week and you shoot it like it would go out live on Thursdays with an orchestra and girls singers and all those things. And I choose the song that I would do every week, and it

was very I mean, it went for three years. It was supposed to be thirteen weeks, but it went for three years because it was successful. Like everything that you think you can just have a little flip with, they turned into being big deals. And that turned into being a big deal. I'm sure you must have done certain things had failed. Lots of things fail. I like fails. I sometimes like failing in a during the song because then I can recover. You know, I enjoy failure because

as you learned something. It's like I say, too, I went to see a band and they go, do why do you want to say that? I'd like to see what I shouldn't do. You know, some ballences you they do things. Once I saw this band and the the singer some girl offered him a bouquet of flowers and he threw it behind him over his head, and every money in the audience went, oh, so you know you learn I go. I go to see loads of bands. I'm still a fan of music, which is what bizarre.

People think, Wow, what are you doing here? I'd like to see what is going on? Okay, So how do you decide to go on this oldies tour British Invasion tour? I think Richard Nader offered loads of money. He made one deal with the Hermits and he made one deal with me, and that was it. We we got together, we rehearsed. I remember we did simple Men. We did a Graham Nash song, which is so bizarre, and I got back on the piano like Alan Price I played

that show, and remember I played the piano in that show. Okay, well I did, But so we were looking for that sort of mystery. Oh, they're much more that are musicians, you know, because we decided, like when we were after we've seen the Beatles, we said, we have to be careful that we never want to try to be those those kind of musicians who want to impress other musicians because they never make it. Okay, so when you go back out on the road, how many original Hermits go

back out with you? Everybody went? I think on that one every everybody. I think there might have been a guy called I think Keith Hopwood didn't come back, so there was maybe one replacement. But Derek let can be the original guitarist, Barry when the drummer and Carl Green the base pay. We all went out, but they got paid less than apparently. Yeah, that was that was also cause of some concern. So how long did that did

working with that band last? Just that one tour? We thought to do other stuff, but it just all fell apart during that tour, I think, you know, because we just we just didn't. We were never an arena act, you know. Herman Summons never could have played arenas, and that tour put us in bed. You know, we were at Madison Square Garden. We could never play that. I still couldn't play it. I don't think the music doesn't transcend the cabaret kind of atmosphere theater. I think so.

So when you go that's that would be called a fail. I think that would tour that that come back to the British invasion much too soon. Okay, but how did you feel about being an oldies act? Nothing? I thought everybody that I admired was an oldies act. When you said oldies but goodies, I remembered the word goodie, right, you know Del Shannon. The first time I saw that, think about it. The Beatles opened for Chris Montez and

Tommy Row. That was an oldiest talk. They were in the charts, but they were already it was an oldies show, and the Beatles were opening for Del Shannon and those those great artists and Royal Orbison they were they weren't newcomers. So after that, to or what do you do? I think that's probably when I did a load of solo stuff in England because I'd had that TV series. So now Peter Noon was more and more financially viable than

herme and firm. It's anyway. I was now able to go and do cabaret, which was a big thing in England at the time. That was where all the money was to go into cabaret and people dinner theater, I think is what it's called. And there was lots of that and I ate that up. And then sometime I uh, I started to really not like being in England. It changed, the vibe in England have changed, and I didn't want

to be there anymore. And we had a big, big my wife and I had a big country house with loads of people working for us, and I decided it was time to downsize. And some guy came over and saw the house and he said, how much you want for it? And I said, I want lots of money. He said, put a number, tell me a number. I thought of the biggest number I could think of. My wife still says it was only ten percent of what I should have asked for, you know, because wives always do.

But and he gave me the money and he said, I want to move in on Thursday. So we rented of a truck and a truck and Evolvo and we drove to We rented a house in the south of France and moved to the south of France. Everything with the dogs. We had six dogs, and we had to remove a big truck, you know, like people do in America, and they move. And I stayed there and we stayed.

I loved it in France. I love to get up in the morning and they go to a little cafe and people would drink white wine and breakfast and play the tears, you know, betting on horses. Nothing. I knew nothing about it, but I would play with them, you know, and I could speak French, so I was kind of I felt very comfortable in France when the Stones lived just down the street. So it's like I followed the

Stones to their right. But you weren't on the heroin, so you're how did you feel from going from Top of the Pops to playing dinner theater. I just enjoyed the work. You know, they're all pretty challenging things to I'm always worried about how how the promoters doing. That's my only fear that you know, everyone's making money, That's

just my nature. So everyone was being paid. I had a musical director and he was happy to have the work, and we'd use local bands and stuff like that was very very hard on my throat because you'd have to rehearsal a lot. And Okay, so you say you had some records in France, so you continued to work. You never really stopped working. No, I con'stant work. And then you put the Tremblers together. When is that probably about? And what was that experience? Like? It was a fantastic

experience because you know what happened. I became friends, you know, in l A. There's so the heart Breakers were here and I became friends with stan Lynch. She was the drama and I said, I'm gonna have this. And I was also friends with D from d Murray from the Out and John Bann. There was this little click of people and I said, I think I'm good. I want to because I was jealous that they were in a band and they were in this joyous experience of a band.

They were enjoying being in this band. You know, D was loving playing gigs with Elton and they were they were it was growing every day, and the Heartbreakers were you know, they were all still living in the valley. But you know, they were just ready to make it, you know, just ready to break it. And I have to sit there with Stan. I said, you know what, I think I'm going to start a band and decent.

He said, what would you call it? Herman? I said, no, no, I think I'd call it Watkins and the Dominators because it was an amplifier, a triangular amplifier in the sixties thing and called the Watkins Dominator. And he said, I don't call it that because the people last which once Watkins, which is memorable stuff with a nice guy d So we started about putting this band together. Hell and Stand new this drama, really great drama, a big guy. I wanted a big guy like Stan, you know, but it

could get over the kit like ring. And we started putting this band together and Standard I wrote a couple of songs and we well it was all you know, like starting. It was like really fresh and starting. And and and Bruce Johnston from the Beach Boys, um, he had a label and I played him a couple of the things at me and Standard they said, beyond my label, it's an epic epic portrait associated and I'm associated. So I got, yeah, let's go. They'll give you money, they'll

give us money to make the record. Yeah, we'll get the money, will split the money. Then, so we just suddenly we're in Conway studios and we're making a record with one known you know. I got Phil Phil Solom who's in a band, and he's playing the guitar, and I got Stal on the drums, and he brings in some of the heartbreakers down there to play things, and we just we're having a blast. That's like Abbey Road again,

you know. It's that where everybody's in a room having fun and everything's joyous and and it was just a great experience. And then we put the record out and then of course it all then you find out that the only people who really really love the music the people in the band. Okay, and at what point do you decide to go back on tour as Herman's Hermits. That phone call from from Lulu LULUs, they started me out as Peter Noon. I went Peter Noon formerly Home

and of Herman's Hermits, and then go down. That's okay, it's very complicated. You've never been a player casino with

all that. They're not just not too many words. So then I signed with Paradise in in O Hi and yeah, excuse yeah, Paradise Agency and they say, you know, we've got a problem because there's another band called Herman's Hermits going out and we're going to have trouble selling you us with this Herman Sermits, which is Barry whit when the druma with his new version of Herman Sermits and we've got to stop them. I don't think, you know, British Laurie is unusual. I don't think we can stuff.

I tried to stop and doing it once before, I want in New York, but I failed in Britain. I mean I won the first case to stopping them using the name. And we decide to let him make him call his band Herman's Hermits starring Barry whitwam a new Herman's Hermits starring Peter Nooner let the audience choose which one they want to pay the money to see, and that was an agreement and I guess night sometime in the nineties maybe, Okay, So where's everybody in the original

ban today? Keith Hotwood is in Manchester. He's doing really well. I just had lunch with him last week. He's a nice boy. And his son is a fan of Herman's Hermits. And so what does he do for a living. He's a He is a producer. He does a lot of television and movie commercial work, like sound tracks. Carl Green, what it left the bass player? He left Herman's Hermit

starring Barry when about five years ago? And I think he he does equipment, rents equipment or runs a soundboard and Barry wait, we I'm still out with playing Herman's Hermit songs. And Derek let him be passed away? When did he pass in the night? A long time ago? He was a young man, He was very young man, but he had Hudgkin slim foma. Yeah, that's not good. Okay. So I saw you about a month ago and it was astounding. I mean, I've seen a lot of acts. What the reason the way I described today is I

didn't want to look at my phone. I was afraid I would miss something. And there were First of all, the songs are so great. You have not lost your voice like so many other people at this stage of the game. And you're so funny. Okay. If I went to see you the next night at the Canyan Club, would you have been doing the same jokes. No, no, it's it's it's all run it's it's all runs off the audience. The whole show has to run off the audience. That's what cabaret is. You know, you can't what I have.

It is a show. You know, Oklahoma is a show. When you go and see Oklahoma, you know they're going to start there's are bright, golden you know that that's what it's going to be. I start with him into something good, and the rest of it is all sort of expected. It's expected that I would do a Mick Jagger dick. It was very funny thing. I'm not sure

that I expected, and it was certainly funny. But if you've seen the show, you go back and you expect all the bits to be there, but they'll all be different. We won't do the same Johnny Cash song every night. I have a three hundred songs to choose from. We always do the hits. We always start with him into something good, and we always end with there's a kind of hush. The rest is all to me. And those guys behind me that look that looks like a enthusiasm

is actually consternation, Like what is he gonna do. Does he even know what he's going to do? And I sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wander around and I do a Richard Harris story. I sometimes tell a story that's got nothing to do with the show. And so do you enjoy it? Absolutely? I lived for him and I always did, you know, I've always liked that bit of that fear factor of jumping up there. Now you describe yourself as the luckiest man in the world. Any regrets.

I regret that I wasn't kinder to the people on the way up, and I regret that I wasn't. I never realized how proud my parents were of me. I didn't. I didn't think of that. You know, until you get your own children, you don't know how proud you are of the smallest things. I didn't realize that they would be proud. And the only compliment my father ever gave to me was he came to see me in Pirates of Penzance on the West End and at the end of the show he said, that was pretty good. Do

you know what I mean? It's this is kind of weird. I mean, British tend to be reserved, but my parents have not been supportive of any endeavors I have. Remember once I got an email from Quincy Jones and I know Quincy at this but first email, I get it and I forward it to my mother. This is like twenty years ago, and I'll get a response and I'm on the phone and I go, hey, mom, uh and I sent you an email from Quincy Jones. She said, yeah, yeah, I read it. Your mom. You know it's Quincy Jones. Yeah.

I got a question, oh, v Quincy Jones, how would you know him? And it's like, whoa that was looking for my don't look for it from my family? So what have you do? But no, But I'm not like that. I mean I wish that when when I've been on top of the pops and the record was number one, that I'd gone home and say, hey, you know, well they think your parents were proud. Whatever. I haven't had the success you've had, But my parents are not proud.

I think I think you aldience understands, which acknowledged them. Yeah, so what have you learned in this career? You know, all the good guys to finish first. I've found that a lot of people that I respect and have had long careers, like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and people like that. They're very nice people there, you know, there's the night. I can't find a better word than nice. They're they're they're really cautious with their kindness, you know,

they're they're kind people. Do you believe they were kind on the way up? And one never knows how people were there were always kind to me and and you know, I would say that somebody like Mick Jagger has this fascinating arrogance, which is which I feed off, because he's a man who is one of the top five biggest star in stars in the world, but he's completely under the radar. You don't know where he is. Like me, he's never set foot on a red carpet because we

don't want any of that. We don't want that. That's not what we're looking for. Red carpets and people flashing bulbs in you know, we've got a song because it now it's all about the songs, isn't it. And he's got that thing. And Paul mc cartney as well, he lives under he's under the radar. When he was married to Linda and making all those great records like ram, they lived in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere.

They lived a personal, fabulous little life in love. Now all the people, all those British invasion acts, do you personally know all those people? Probably? I think I know all the British and uh and you keep up with any of these people you see about other road, Yes, see,

almost everybody. Like I mean, I was just on a tour in England with Brian Pool from Brian Pool on the Tramler's Probably he's at the end of his career, but I saw him the first time with the Beatles opening for the Beatles in Ermston and the middle of a field and I've I've known him for that long. So of six sixty three to now is this is a classic question. But you mentioned so many gigs. What's the best gig that you've ever been into that you

you were not the performer? Oh, probably Gino Washington and the Ram Jam band that the you know what I mean, just one inspirational gig, where as a guy who's just sweating and and and also Roy Head. I saw Roy Head in Houston once. Did you even know Ray Head had this record? Like and he was like he did Jackie Wilson, I like Jackie Wilson as well, but he

could do Jackie Wilson better than Jackie Wilson. And he sound great, had a phenomenal band, and I saw I saw the Supremes once and they were pretty good too. So there's there's about five or six really fascinating giggs. And every time I saw Roy Orbison he always killed me. And and of course every time every time I saw the Beatles and Jerry and the Pacemakers, they were brilliant. Jerry and the Pacemakers were on that tour with you, Yeah,

but then it wasn't the original Jerry. I'm talking Jerry and the Pacemakers at the Cavern and at the Liverpool Locarno. And you know, Jerry was very kind to my first Pete Novak on the Harbis. He took us on a tour with him and he was the headliner and it was Billy Ja Kramer under the coatas with a second act, and we were the opening act. And Jerry very kindly showed us to our dressing who which had gentlemen written on it. It's a joke. Thanks for calling on at all.

Let me show you to your addressing room. So when you're doing a gig. Now do you know whether it's a good gig or a bad gig. You never do a bad one because you're so experienced. But there are certain gigs that are better than other. Do you suddenly feel it when you're doing it? But I never quit on it, you know the guy the guys in my bend says, wow, we thought we'd lost one air. But you never quit, you know, because I've I know, I've always got Henry the eighth. You know, you back up, okay,

so that Henry the eighth is your trick. That's how that you know you rely on that or you'll play that sooner to wake everybody up. Yeah, but there's a few that can do that. You know. It's sometimes it's listen people, you know, it can change my my, my my. I can read an audience pretty well because I've been doing it for a long time and I've never done anything else, you know, I've never had a success of anything else, ex from being on a stage and reading

an audience. And now, with the time you have left, which you could be a day or thirty years, what would you like to do with accomplisher? You having accomplished yet I think I want to do this for I've got ten more years. I keep saying every every day, I say, ten more years of this would be great, you know, and then I'd probably I've got to keep my chops. You know. It's a lot of musicians like Mick Jagger and Paul mcco are actually athletes who can

sing and dance and and create music. So you have to think that, you know, when you lose the ability to do it, you have to be able to stop. You know, if you can't hit home runs anymore, you've gotta quit. You don't want to go into the mind leagues. And while he is still hitting home runs, when you see Peter Noone's name in the paper, you go to

his website. You should definitely go. If you know his records, you will have a fantastic time and you'll smile and glow for the next Peter so great to have you here, that you could go on for so much or so many other questions like I have, but I will do it again, and at all period of all those specific songs. I have memories. I remember, as I say, you know, being in a bus being tired from skiing, and listen people coming out of the radio and the bus and

it being dark. You have all these memories of these songs, but as long as they're good memories, I I have make it. Most used to say, it's only about the songs. Remember, it's about the songs. And it always and my show still is only about the songs. It doesn't matter how they presented. You know, people can go out and sing those songs in a karaoke bar and people get the buzz because it's only about the songs. Okay um, I

present them really well, I do say so. Yes, let's go back to what part of the renaissance was I'm into something good was in The Naked Gun in eight I think it was, But that wasn't the original version. That was a recut by you. Yeah. We had to recut it because they were and we re cut it so well that they said, we have to change the solo because Alan Klein that a code. People will think

it's the original and they'll want the licensing feast. We just went and we've rechanged the guitar solom and put like some little little do. I think the theater that I saw that and that's one of the that's the best part of the movie. I thought it was the original track. We tried, We tried very hard to sing. You know I can still do that herm and guy really well. You know I take a lot of pay a lot of attention to to try to be that guy that sang those records. Do you mean with your

voice or your appearance, every every part of it. It's standis Levski kets it's um. You know, if you if you can become the person and you can believe it, then all the music makes sense. If you can believe it, just for a few minutes that you're in the studio in in in London making the record with sixteen year old boys. If you can get into that suit, then it will work. Can you get into that suit every night, five nights a week. I can do it. I needed,

I do need a day off now and then. But I truly you know, when I did Pirates of Penzance, I did a thousand consecutive shows, and that I was. I was in New Zealand and I think was the Prime Minister long He said to me, how do you do a thousand shows? Us? I'm still trying to get it right for Wow And when you live, I mean, I know you, but you when you go through we airports or you're on the street, to people recognize you. So yeah, that's the people. Do you know certain people do.

I wish it was the twenty three year old girls, but it's it's usually the sixty two year old men and their and their moms, you know what I mean. Okay, it's okay, but that's recognition. I love being under the radar. I like being able to walk around right star Box and that have this following that is a magical following. I have a massive, magical following who trust me to keep delivering Once again, I think we're finally done here. Thanks so much, Peter, Thanks Abo,