Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories (14 page)

Take Alan Yentob, then a producer and director, later to be Controller of BBC2.

Before Alan worked with me, he drank very little, didn’t smoke and spoke most eloquently. After two months of filming a documentary with me during my drinking days, he stuttered, smoked forty a day and drank like a fish.

I have apologised to Alan many times for this.

The programme was a series of documentaries called
Success Story
, one of which was about David Bowie and another of which was about me. Alan wanted to feature musical snippets of
King Arthur
and face-to-face interviews with me about my inspirations and ideas and so on. They were really excellent documentaries.

We travelled down to Tintagel, a picturesque village in Cornwall, to do some of the filming as this was supposedly home of King
Arthur’s castle (as indeed are at least five other sites). I told Alan that one of my band, namely the singer Ashley, would love to be filmed on a piece of rock jutting out of one of the cliff faces but Alan pointed out that this would require a crane and would create all sorts of logistical problems.

‘But Alan, his heart is set on it – is there any way we can do this for him?’

Ashley’s heart wasn’t set on it at all, as it happens, and I had actually told Ashley that this was something that Alan really wanted to film. Alan duly obliged, and a hoist with Ashley strapped to it was therefore flung out over the cliff face.

Which wasn’t ideal, as Ashley suffered from severe vertigo.

Which I knew, of course.

It took Alan four hours to get him back onto flat ground from the cliff face.

They had to call a helicopter and the coastguard.

These documentaries can take months to complete so one of the tricky parts of any production is continuity. For the first phase of filming I’d had long hair, crooked teeth and a beard. So you can imagine which way Alan’s blood pressure went when he knocked on my door ready to start the second phase of filming after a two-week break to find that I’d drastically cut my hair, had my teeth capped and shaved my beard off.

Another week of filming was planned for a pub called the Saracen’s Head in High Wycombe, where I used to drink regularly. Alan wanted to investigate if the drinking helped my art and performance or hindered it. He’d spoken to the landlord and the people around me and heard all sorts of figures about the volumes I was drinking. Naughtily, I had a word with the barman in advance so, with the cameras rolling, they brought my drink over.

A pint of milk.

‘What’s that?’ Alan asked.

‘Er, it’s Rick’s usual, Alan.’

‘Milk? Are you having a laugh? What about all these stories about boozing?’

‘Alcohol? Nah, never seen him touch a drop of the stuff.’

Celebrity has changed over the years. When I was sinking gallons of booze daily, there weren’t rehab clinics on every street corner. The rehab clinics that were known were mostly in America – even back then, you weren’t really,
truly
hip unless you went to one.

I have to be honest, I’m not convinced these places do as good a job as they claim. I’ll probably get shot for saying that, but I look upon these places in the same way as I look at a health farm. They both make you healthy in an environment that is utterly unrealistic, surroundings that have nothing to do with your real life. Then, when the people come out, those sterile surroundings are taken away and that’s why, in my opinion, so many of them fall off the wagon, because you cannot live that same lifestyle. I think the best rehab should happen out in the real world and not behind closed doors – but that would never work, because the temptation would still be there. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to health farms or, for that matter, rehab, but it’s a little like putting your car in for a service. The day it comes out, it runs a treat, but from the moment you pull out of the garage forecourt it’s starting to wear out again.

As far as people like Amy Winehouse and the like are concerned, I always think,
Where are the people who are supposed to be looking after her?
Why doesn’t somebody who actually cares for some of the young musicians, actors and entertainers coming up through the ranks collate a dossier of rock’s fatal casualties in their thirties and forties, and present it to these kids who are screwing themselves up? Hendrix did not have anyone preceding him to look at for perspective or a warning shot; these kids do, there are now
several generations of rock stars who have fallen by the wayside. There is no mystery.
We know what happens
.

Unfortunately the one certain thing about the entertainment industry is that it’s always been governed by money. Nobody within the industry ever said to me, ‘If you keep doing this, you’re going to kill yourself.’ Why? Because they would probably have been replaced by someone who wouldn’t say that and wouldn’t stop the drinking and partying. At that stage, you have a certain income status and people, companies, livelihoods are dependent on you. That’s why Keith Moon was hauled out of so many scrapes, why Amy Winehouse can leave rehab early and why management mop up these messes and get their charges home in the small hours. You are their income.

It’s no good someone like me saying all this, though; when I was that age the last thing I would have wanted was some fifty-year-old lecturing me. But I have to say something, especially when with young ones like Amy Winehouse you see the abyss opening up in front of them and you just take a deep breath.

Ah, Keith Moon. That’s reminded me of a great night out I had with him one time. The Who was always my favourite band as a kid – I loved them and still do. One of the great things about my job and my life is that I can now count Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey as good friends, likewise the late, great John Entwistle.

Moony was a lovely man, he was one stop short of Upney (which, for those of you not familiar with London, is the station before Barking on the District Line), but he just had one of the biggest hearts and I thought the world of him. It is true that he was an incredible drummer, it’s not just sentiment. I once said to Roger Daltrey, ‘How do you arrange your individual parts when you’re putting new pieces together?’ Each band does this differently so I was curious. He said, ‘Well, Pete and John work out their parts, I come in and do the vocals and then Moony just does a drum solo from start to finish.’

Priceless.

Obviously Keith Moon was famed for driving cars into swimming pools, monstrous partying and suchlike, and we all have our story to tell about a night out with him. I was touring
Tales from Topographic Oceans
with Yes down in Australia at the same time as The Who were playing
Tommy
there, when I had this particularly memorable evening with the man. I hadn’t actually known him very long – we obviously knew
of
each other and had bumped into each other after a few shows, but we certainly weren’t close friends. So I was pleasantly surprised when my hotel phone rang one evening and it was Keith.

‘Rick, I’ve got a night off tonight. Do you fancy coming out for a meal?’

‘I’d love to, Keith . . .’ I said with not a little trepidation; my good friend Viv Stanshall had told me that if you went out with Keith Moon, you’d come back either in a police van or via an institution of some kind. This was back in the days when Moony would go out dressed in Nazi gear, goose-stepping into clubs, spraying people at random with a fire extinguisher. So I knew I was lining myself up for something unusual, to say the least.

We met up in the bar and, as we both were rather partial to a drink or seven, got on like a house on fire. Keith said there was a restaurant he wanted to try as he’d heard it was really good.

‘Have you booked, though, Keith?’

‘Er, probably best to book it in your name, Rick. I’m banned from most restaurants worldwide.’

Keith’s reputation at this stage was such that he needed to be this secretive about his night-time forays. We took off in a limo and found ourselves at this really posh exclusive restaurant. It was beautifully furnished and there were about forty tables, all very proper, very formal. The maître d’ recognised me and was very welcoming. But when he looked behind me and saw Keith, his face dropped. I introduced Keith – not that I needed to – and
Keith just cheekily looked up at this man with that gap-toothed grin of his.

The maître d’ paused momentarily: you could almost see him trying to think of a way of not letting Keith eat there, but he couldn’t so instead we were shown to a table in the most remote corner of the room. Then he scurried off and spoke with his staff who were obviously shitting themselves over who had just arrived.

However, we ate a delightful three-course meal and Keith was the picture of civility throughout. He thanked the staff constantly, ate his food with great poise, made fantastic conversation with myself, the staff and a few curious fellow diners and was generally the perfect guest. We talked about Yes, The Who, my life, his world – it was a brilliant meal with not a hint of trouble. Keith was the absolute perfect gentleman, stonkingly polite.

When the maître d’ came over with the bill, Keith even gently said, ‘Can I just say what a wonderful meal that was?’

‘Well, thank you, sir. I shall pass on your compliments to the chef. And can I just say what an absolute pleasure it’s been having you both dine with us this evening.’ The whole restaurant was watching as we stood up from the table to leave and you could slice the sense of communal relief with a blunt knife. I stood up first and started weaving my way through the other tables towards the exit . . .

. . . When I heard this almighty crash behind me.

I swung around to find Moony standing on our table with plates and glasses smashed everywhere. He then proceeded to jump across onto every single table in the room, smashing crockery, bottles, glasses, everything in sight. There was food, wine, stuff everywhere, carnage.

None of the staff ran to the table he was jumping to next, they just ran to the table he’d just demolished. Of course, that meant he was free to destroy every setting unhindered. When he finally
landed next to me at the door, he looked up, smiled that toothy grin and simply said, ‘Run!’

He lost me within seconds and disappeared into the Melbourne night.

I ran and ran and ran and eventually hailed a cab to take me back to the hotel. Of course, when I arrived there were several police cars already waiting outside. They spoke with me and said that The Who’s management had been down to the restaurant and paid for everything and that Keith would receive a formal caution, as indeed did I.

When I saw one of his entourage the next day, I said, ‘I’d never been out with Keith before. Does he always do this sort of thing?’

He just smiled a knowing grin at me.

I went down to the pool and there was Keith, on a sunlounger.

The waitress came over to him with a beautiful full English breakfast on a tray. Keith thanked her kindly, took hold of the tray and jumped – fully clothed and with his egg, bacon, sausage and the plate – into the pool.

THE TIN-BATH TECHNIQUE AND THE SMALL-HOURS HOOKER

Prog rock has been much maligned over the years. You have to admit, though, like it or loathe it, we certainly tried to push the boundaries of recording technology. Take the time I had my entire band standing over a tin bath in a cellar, pissing into it.

They don’t do that at Abbey Road.

We were at a studio in northern France made famous by Elton John’s classic LP
Honky Château
and I needed the sound of a waterfall for a track on the album we were making called
No Earthly Connection
. This was way before the days of samples, so although we had an LP with quite a few water sounds on there they were all pretty rubbish, to be honest – they didn’t even sound like waterfalls. We were using a cellar as an echo chamber and, by chance, there was a huge old tin bath in there. I had the brainwave that we should just fill lots of jugs with water and record ourselves pouring this back into the tin bath. We tried it but for some reason it sounded rubbish too – it just didn’t work. Plus it wasn’t making the sound for long enough. So, over lunch, I came out with the idea that if everybody drank copious amounts of wine until they were desperate for the toilet, but then hung on and
on until the very last second, they could all piss into this bath at the same time, making a perfect long-lasting waterfall sound. I reckoned, by my own standards, that we’d have at least a minute’s worth of urinating waterfall on tape.

Of course, by the time we’d all drunk copious amounts we were far from sober – a slight flaw in my cunning plan. The resulting tape was nothing short of hilarious. Everyone is sniggering, going, ‘Ssshhhh!’ and saying, ‘Hurry up! Hurry up! I’m bursting!’ I was up in the control room, having relieved myself in the normal way in a toilet, in charge of this hi-tech studio wizardry.

‘OK, guys, now you’ve all got to start pissing at the same time, right, it’s very important, what we are trying to create here is—’

‘Bloody hell, Rick, press the sodding button before I piss myself . . .’

So I pressed ‘record’ and there was a communal but silent sigh of relief, with an absolute torrent of water gushing into this tin bath. And do you know what? It sounded
exactly
like a waterfall. As time went on, people started to run out of pee and the sound got gradually quieter.

Until there was only one person still urinating.

Martin Shields, my trumpet player.

A further minute and a half went by and he was still going.

The rest of the guys were still all standing around him, flies undone, watching . . .

Two minutes.

Then he stopped . . .

. . . And then started again for about another half a minute . . .

Then he finally stopped.

. . . Only to start again for another twenty seconds or so.