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Authors: Mike Rutherford
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made his own hats and dyed T-shirts in sinks; he was quite free-spirited, but very worldly too.
Tony was also quiet but he was edgy and skinny and had a quick, worried step – he’d never stride anywhere. He came from a classical background whereas Pete loved R & B, Nina Simone and Otis Redding. As well as the piano Pete played the drums at Charterhouse. He was never destined to be a great drummer but he had a very strong feel for rhythm. His drum kit was his pride and joy and he’d lend it to anyone who managed to twist his arm but he’d always stand alongside with his eyebrows furrowed while it was being played.
It was during the 1967 Easter holidays that Ant and I together with Pete and Tony recorded a demo tape in the attic of another Charterhouse boy, Brian Roberts. He was the kind of guy who you knew from a young age would be a BBC technician in later life. A boffin. He always had a white shirt with a stain on it and greasy hair.
Brian had transformed the attic of this house into a recording studio. It just had egg boxes on the walls and a two-track tape recorder in the corner, but was still pretty cutting edge in those days. It was more than enough for our purposes.
Ant, who had been planning to sing on the tape, had invited Tony to come to Brian’s and play keyboards. Tony had then invited Pete to come because he knew Pete had a better voice than Ant. (Funnily enough, I don’t remember Ant having a hump about being replaced as singer: he knew it was for the common good.)
Given that Ant and I were into the blues – John Mayall and Eric Clapton – as well as the Stones and the Beatles, we were quite a diverse lot. I’ve always thought that half the point of being in a band is that the guys you’re playing with are different to you: they bring something to the music that you can’t.
We recorded five songs that afternoon, four by me and Ant, and one, ‘She Is Beautiful’, by Peter and Tony. Theirs was definitely the best. It had a moody sadness to it, a hint of darkness – probably because it had been written for Peter’s voice which always had that feeling.
Sometimes you just need a lucky break. That first tape we made in Brian Roberts’s attic had our best songs on it, but if you took away Pete and Tony’s song it wasn’t as good. Yet Jonathan King must have heard there was something there.
Jonathan had been at Charterhouse a few years before us and had come back to the school for an old boys’ day. At the time he’d just had a huge hit with ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’ and had written and produced another hit, ‘It’s Good News Week’, for Hedgehoppers Anonymous, which was released on Decca. He was also a bombastic self-promoter who talked the talk and wore noisy, very flamboyant clothes. I’m also sure he fancied Pete – we all thought that. But he did have an ear for a song.
I don’t know why it got left to our friend John Alexander, another school friend, to put the tape in Jonathan’s car while he was down at Charterhouse – I think in the end John Al was the only one who had the nerve. He was one of those lucky boys who’d got away with long hair because nobody realized it was long. It was thick, black and curly and he had a chunk of it that he could tuck behind his ear and pull out when the masters weren’t around. He undertook the clandestine operation on Jonathan’s car and managed to leave the tape along with a note: ‘These are Charterhouse boys, have a listen.’ And Jonathan must have done because soon after that he invited us up to London to meet his business partner, Joe Roncoroni.
Joe was an old-school music publisher: a well-built Jewish guy who’d been publishing cabaret and vaudeville songs when suddenly pop appeared. We were naturally extremely impressed that he and Jonathan liked our songs but we were less sure about Jonathan’s idea that our next step should be to form a band. Until then our plan was to be songwriters and let someone else do the
Tony was also quiet but he was edgy and skinny and had a quick, worried step – he’d never stride anywhere. He came from a classical background whereas Pete loved R & B, Nina Simone and Otis Redding. As well as the piano Pete played the drums at Charterhouse. He was never destined to be a great drummer but he had a very strong feel for rhythm. His drum kit was his pride and joy and he’d lend it to anyone who managed to twist his arm but he’d always stand alongside with his eyebrows furrowed while it was being played.
It was during the 1967 Easter holidays that Ant and I together with Pete and Tony recorded a demo tape in the attic of another Charterhouse boy, Brian Roberts. He was the kind of guy who you knew from a young age would be a BBC technician in later life. A boffin. He always had a white shirt with a stain on it and greasy hair.
Brian had transformed the attic of this house into a recording studio. It just had egg boxes on the walls and a two-track tape recorder in the corner, but was still pretty cutting edge in those days. It was more than enough for our purposes.
Ant, who had been planning to sing on the tape, had invited Tony to come to Brian’s and play keyboards. Tony had then invited Pete to come because he knew Pete had a better voice than Ant. (Funnily enough, I don’t remember Ant having a hump about being replaced as singer: he knew it was for the common good.)
Given that Ant and I were into the blues – John Mayall and Eric Clapton – as well as the Stones and the Beatles, we were quite a diverse lot. I’ve always thought that half the point of being in a band is that the guys you’re playing with are different to you: they bring something to the music that you can’t.
We recorded five songs that afternoon, four by me and Ant, and one, ‘She Is Beautiful’, by Peter and Tony. Theirs was definitely the best. It had a moody sadness to it, a hint of darkness – probably because it had been written for Peter’s voice which always had that feeling.
Sometimes you just need a lucky break. That first tape we made in Brian Roberts’s attic had our best songs on it, but if you took away Pete and Tony’s song it wasn’t as good. Yet Jonathan King must have heard there was something there.
Jonathan had been at Charterhouse a few years before us and had come back to the school for an old boys’ day. At the time he’d just had a huge hit with ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’ and had written and produced another hit, ‘It’s Good News Week’, for Hedgehoppers Anonymous, which was released on Decca. He was also a bombastic self-promoter who talked the talk and wore noisy, very flamboyant clothes. I’m also sure he fancied Pete – we all thought that. But he did have an ear for a song.
I don’t know why it got left to our friend John Alexander, another school friend, to put the tape in Jonathan’s car while he was down at Charterhouse – I think in the end John Al was the only one who had the nerve. He was one of those lucky boys who’d got away with long hair because nobody realized it was long. It was thick, black and curly and he had a chunk of it that he could tuck behind his ear and pull out when the masters weren’t around. He undertook the clandestine operation on Jonathan’s car and managed to leave the tape along with a note: ‘These are Charterhouse boys, have a listen.’ And Jonathan must have done because soon after that he invited us up to London to meet his business partner, Joe Roncoroni.
Joe was an old-school music publisher: a well-built Jewish guy who’d been publishing cabaret and vaudeville songs when suddenly pop appeared. We were naturally extremely impressed that he and Jonathan liked our songs but we were less sure about Jonathan’s idea that our next step should be to form a band. Until then our plan was to be songwriters and let someone else do the
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