May 12, 2021 • 50 mins
Today we meet up Spike Edney, keyboardist for the band Queen for 37 years. We touch his early days with the BoomTown Rats and Duran Duran and we hit everything you want to know about Queen: Spike’s crazy audition, “or lack thereof”… the heyday with Freddy Mercury and what the band really did at After Parties, which will definitely surprise you. We get a peak into the private life of Freddy and the evolution of Queen since his passing with Paul Rogers and now Adam Lambert. We wrap Spike’s best “NO” story — not from an audition, but from Fidel Castro and the most hysterical On Tour travel story ever; you’ll get to hear how: a war, chickens, black market gas and sleeping in barns somehow fit together.
To learn more about Spike, Queen and SAS Band, go to: https://www.queenonline.com and http://www.sasband.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
On Tour is a production of My Heart Radio and
Black Barrel Media. I'm your host, Brian ray On. This
show will take you behind the scenes of the music business.
Do you give me the most raw and real tales
you've likely never heard before? We'll share our wildest, most unbelievable,
and yes, most embarrassing moments while on tour. Today we
sit down with my friend Spike Edney, keyboardist for the
(00:34):
band Queen for thirty seven years. We touch on his
early days with the Boomtown Rats and Duran Duran, who
he had everything you want to know about Queen, Spike's
crazy audition or lack thereof the heyday with Freddie Mercury,
and what the band really did at after parties which
will definitely surprise you. We get a peek into the
(00:55):
private life of Freddy and the evolution of Queen since
his passing with Paul Rodgers and now Adam Lambert. We
wrapped with Spike's best no story not from an audition,
but from Fidel Castro and the most hysterical ontour travel
story ever. You'll get to hear how a war chickens,
(01:15):
black market gas and sleeping in Barnes somehow all fit
together only in rock and roll. Here's my conversation with
Spike Atny Spike, It's a real treat to sit down
(01:37):
with you for a chap today. You've been a major
contributing force with all the bands you've been in. Did
you make a conscious decision to be a sideman rather
than a front man or is that just how things
worked out for you? Well, I'm afraid failure led me
to becoming a sideman like everybody I you know, I
started off with dreams it o kick till uh for
(02:01):
my twelfth birthday in December nine sixty three, when my
mom took me to see the Beatles in my local
town hall, and when I just saw what was coming
off the stage, the power of the whole thing, and
the reaction that had with two thousand screaming girls and me,
(02:21):
I just knew that that was going to be something
I wanted to aim for. And I did the thing
that everybody did. I went home, I would sched it,
I practiced, I joined up with a local band, and
then eventually I got into a band that already was
kind of gigging around the scene in the late sixties,
doing cover versions and stuff, and they could all play,
(02:41):
and then the world opened up to me, and so
we started to play gigs and write songs because we
all wanted to be the next and whatever it was
going to be. Competition in that in those days, as
it always is, was ferocious. I was just trying to
get somebody to play attention, and they always wanted you
would be just like the hit that happened last week,
(03:03):
which of course we all know is nonsense. You can't.
You don't want to be copying somebody else. You've got
to find your own path. And so we did for
many years, right the way through the seventies, banging on
the door, writing songs, getting closer and closer and closer.
And then one day we got dragged into backing American
(03:25):
soul band because in that those days there were a
lot of American Air Force spaces as a sort of
hangover from the Second World War, and so they would
bring over artists from America, and of course, if there
was an invariably a soul act, they wouldn't fly over
a ten piece band because it was just impractically. They
would bring over the artist and a musical director, guitar player,
(03:48):
piano player or whatever, and then higher an English band,
excuse me, that had some grounding in soul music and
had horns. If you had if you had two horns,
you were sho in. So all of a sudden we
were a backing band, but I didn't mind too much
because being a backing band to Benny King, yeah that's
(04:09):
pretty stand. And then on more so with a motown
artist called Edwin Stars, and I was a fan of his,
his records as a fantastic So you know, all of
a sudden we're thrown into playing with icons and we
become their version of American touring soul band with all
(04:34):
the rules that James Brown has and all the moves
on stage and learning all the signs and signals about
what they mean when they want to break it down,
when they want to take it to the bridge. All
this stuff, which we probably think is cliche, was actually
very real and much fun. So having not managed to
get our band noticed enough and our material noticed enough
(04:57):
to create our own thing, all of a sudden, the
world of the sideman became very attractive. Yeah, because you're
working constantly and there's money coming in there. You go basic,
very environment, very important. Well, let's jump forward to your
time with Duran Duran, Boomtown Rats and everyone else that
you played it through the eighties, Were you now decidedly
(05:20):
a guitar player or a keyboard player by that well?
So I moved to London, had nothing at all, and
a mate of ours that we met over the years
had gone in South a job as a tape operator
in a recording studio in West End and soho, but
it was owned by Tony Visconti, producer. Yes, and Tony
(05:42):
Visconti needed a horn section and my mate Andy Duncan said, oh,
I know these horn players. They're cheap and they're quick.
And he called me and he said, can you get
over to the studio like in thirty minutes? And I
was actually living in the center of London at this
point waiting to find work, and I said, damn right,
I can, and I've got two guys. And we went
(06:03):
there and we did a session for the Boom Town
Rats the Antastic and he didn't fire us. That was
great and one song turned into four that turns into
going on tour. We toured all around with them, came
to America as their horns section. That led one of
(06:23):
the other engineers and this engineer was called became a
producer in His name was Colin Thurston and he became
the producer of Duran Duran. It was one of his
first ever gigs and Duran Duran's first single was called
Planet Earth and it was a massive hit straight away.
I mean they really took off because the way they
(06:44):
looked and the timing of course is everything. And all
of a sudden they wanted to do a twelve inch
version of Planet Earth, and they wanted horns because of
how do you extend a single to twelve inches? Tromb
one word? So we brought the horn section in and
we started fatting around. They had a couple of ideas.
We had a couple of ideas and they were all
(07:05):
getting ready to head off from London to Paris and
they said, listen, we're doing our first European gig and
we're doing a showcase for the French record company. Um
tomorrow night in Paris. Do you want to come and
play these songs with us? And we went fuck, yeah,
you know this is brilliant, said great, and we said
so um wow, what do we do we come in
(07:27):
with you now? And said no, We've got a five
seater bus and we're going here's a hundred of bucks.
See you there, you hit the big time. And so
so we ran home and got our toothbrushes and ran
back to and get the ferry to get to Paris,
and we arrived the next day in the in the
afternoon for the sound check, and um, they bust in
(07:50):
a few of their fans from Birmingham. Uh. And that's
the first time the Beatles that I've seen real hysteria.
We actually witnessed it from the stage. And of course
these fans were going crazy, absolutely crazy. And how long
did you stay with the rand around? It was now?
I just did that little period because they had already
recorded their first album and they recorded their second album
(08:13):
and my mate, the sax player, did the solo on
Rio and that's when they really took off, and he
went with them. They didn't need both of us. They
were couldn't afford both of us, didn't want to pay
for both of us, and he went and I got
left behind. And good job too, because while he was
gone off with him, I got the job of queen.
So not too not too many complaints from me. Well,
(08:35):
tell me about that story. How is it that you
ended up with them is. At the beginning of the
eighties a club opened up in London called string Fellows
and it was based around this guy, Peter string Fellow,
who had been a promoter in the sixties and the
disco owner in the seventies and in the north of England,
and he opened what he wanted to be a kind
(08:58):
of London studio fifty or so. One night Stevie Wonder
walks in, and another night Andy Williams walks in, and
and all these people. Um. But when he opened I
thought I could bluff my way into a bar gig
here because and it was a bit disco. And so
I found out and I said, is sumon? So there
completely just taking a random no, no, a name of
(09:21):
somebody on you from five years before, keeping my fingers
because he said, oh yeah, he's here somewhere. I'm like fuck.
And he came on and said it's me he Spike.
Do you remember? Yeah? How's it going? Grey? What are
you up to us? And just moved to London and
just you know, check out. I thought I might come
down and said wait a minute, what are you doing tomorrow?
And I said, what do you mean? I hadn't even
(09:41):
got to do you have a gig as a bus
boy or a barman? You know, n't got to that point.
And he says, you can play cocktail jazz on a piano,
can't you. I said, of course, I can, have no idea,
lying completely pinocky and he's said, well, come in tomorrow
(10:02):
and play. And I went, right, what what have you
got a piano? They said, yeah, we've got a white
grand piano and nobody will play it. And I went,
see you at one o'clock. And I'm freaking out now
because my history is in pop soul and nothing not
in jazz at all. I mean, I'd like to listen
to it. Um So I cool up the sax player,
(10:22):
the one that was in and out with Dran, and
I said, look, I'm crapping myself about going in to
do this because I don't feel I have the chops.
I certainly haven't got the experience, and I'm used to
playing with other people. Do you want to come in
and bluff some bollocks with me? And they said yeah, okay,
And I said, look, come over to my place now,
(10:42):
and it's just knock something up. When we knocked up
girl from e Pan Nema gotta have that and fly
me to the moon? Okay, good story and moaning is
it works? Song? I don't bad? Yeah? Easy, you know. Yeah.
So so I said that's enough. So we get there
(11:07):
and I said, so, how's this going to work? He said, well,
the boss strength fellow will be here in a minute.
And he said, why don't you go and get on
the stage And he said, and I'll give you the
nod as he's walking in, because the piano is right
near the front door. I said, just do you think
m hm? And it's that waving for him to come in,
shipping ourselves completely right. This is gonna be the biggest
(11:29):
bluff of all time. You know, I had no right
to be there doing that, and and he said he
and he turned around, he said no, I know. You said. Yeah,
we used to play in your club years ago. And
he said, yeah, great, okay, you start on Friday and
four hours a night. See you then, oh four hours? Yeah?
And I looked and of course the money was like
(11:50):
we were so broke. It wasn't that much, but it
seemed like a pretty pen to us. And we rushed
into Chapel Music and there it was one hundred cocktail hits,
Thank you very much. And we went home and learned
like ten and started playing and and I thought we
(12:12):
could be canny about this. So when we started playing
as almost nobody in the club, so we played them
are quite slow, and then we take a break, and
then and then it starts to pick up, and so
we played them all again, but much faster. And then
as each day went by, we learned ten more songs,
until eventually we had of cocktail bollocks, you know, so amazing,
(12:35):
what a great story. I love that. So how did
that lead to your meeting? And the guys? So that
we're there five six nights a week and for and
we were well established doing the cocktail thing, and people
used to roll in and come up and say hello,
and all of a sudden guy walks up and said,
Spike Headney, Oh yeah that man, And you know whatever,
(12:59):
we're stuff and have a drink um And I said,
so last time I saw you, you were the lighting
ROADI for that failed band that never got anywhere. And
I said, what have you been doing? He said, Well,
after that, he said, I went to work for David Essex,
you name David big Start at the time, and he said,
and then he said, I became drum roady for David
(13:21):
Essex and he said, and then I left that two
years ago and became drum roady for Queen and he said,
and this year I got promoted from drum roady to
Roger Taylor's personal assistant or band ponts as they were known.
You band ponts if you're an assistant to a musician,
said well, good for you. Great, he said, Queen keyboard
(13:43):
player for the next tour. Do you want to do it?
I went, yeah, sure, great, because that's how it goes right,
let's how that works. And he said, yeah, well'll let
you know. What did you do that? You know? So
he goes off. That's four months later he comes back
in with Trip Kliff and the sound manager, sounder engineers, sorry,
and and he said, well, that tour is coming up.
(14:06):
Do you want it? And went yeah, but you know
this is not how this happened. Said give me a cassette,
send me because we'll send us sett to this address.
And I thought, oh, that's going to be a problem
because I've got cassettes of me playing trombone and cassettes
of me playing fly Me to the Moon. And I
don't none of this is going to be of any
(14:27):
use right whatsoever. So instead I sent a cassette of
a bunch of records I've played on without really saying anything.
I thought, I just confused them m and I'll get
the call and said, right, you can come over to
um West London, notting Hill on Monday. I go over
(14:49):
there and I walk in and it's a very imposing
white Georgian town house, lots of people, millions running around,
gold records everywhere, and it's quite imposing, and I'm thinking,
all right, well, here are you all right upstairs? First
floor and I'm thinking, of I know what's going to happen.
There's two hundred people up there sat waiting. I've been
(15:10):
through a couple of those auditions where you're just you know,
you're just like doctor's waiting room. You're waiting for you
and you and the people listening to the auditions are
all board mind having their minds, and they've already and
if if they're not drunk, then they're waiting for the
drug dealer to just get them through. And I thought, oh,
this is horrible. So I go upstairs and there's an
(15:31):
office from the door open I'm walking down and in
walks Jerry stickles, I have no idea, I have no
idea who he is. And I'm thinking, right, this is
obviously the front office bit, and he's going to give
me the third degree and then I either get to go.
There must be a studio upstairs, you know, the six
floors on them. But I've got to get past him first.
He said, do you have a passport and said yes,
(15:52):
I said, got it with you? Said yes, give it
to me photocopy there. He said, do you have any
objection to playing in South Africa? And because the whole
apartime city, I'm out of what musician I'm playing fucking
the moon if that's where they wanted to do a
(16:13):
gig exactly, And they said, right, that's it then, and
I said, all right, so I'm going up to the
room of death. And I thought, and I don't know
any Queen songs and I'm and so I've prepared nothing,
And I thought, I'm going to have to bluff and
learn this as we go, because anything else I've ever done,
preparation is the key in an audition. If you can
(16:36):
walk in and play their ships straight away. They normally
like that yes, so they don't have to mess around
waiting for you to learn stuff. They played the no
doubt about it. So I'm terrified of this and I thought,
here we go upstairs and he said, right then, on Monday,
be at Heathrow at ten o'clock and you'll fly out
to Munich. What And I said, am I not here
(16:59):
toward this? And he said, well, you'll go up there
on Monday and you'll meet the band and you'll play
with him. And I said, and what if they don't
like me? He said, then on Tuesday you'll fly back.
No pressure. Thirty seven years with them already. So when
(17:26):
you first heard Queen, When you first heard the name Queen,
I mean they were huge right off the bat. Another
band that made such a huge impact on music and culture,
but even more so for a British guy. What was
it like hearing Uh the name Queen? Was it in
any way offensive or oh? The actual name? I thought
(17:49):
it was very risque and quite brave. Yeah, because I
thought cheeky that Wollum at that time. Of course it
was glam rock and the sort of the androgynous thing
with Bowie and Uh, and they were sort of big
hair makeup and type trousers and whatever, and by calling
themselves Queen, they were opening themselves up to ridicule. I
(18:11):
thought an attack, but then I thought, well, you've got
balls to actually do that, And I I have to
say that I wasn't bothered about them at all because
I liked Weather Report and Stephen Wonder and the Queen
was faring away from that as musically as possible. So
nothing up until Bohemian Rhapsodies, So the first like three
(18:34):
or four albums was only a minor interest to me.
But my girlfriend at the time loved Radio Gaga. I
hated that because the drum machine. I thought, well, at
least put some real fucking drums on it or something um,
and so I went into the whole thing. Of course
I wanted the gig. Who wouldn't. But was I musically
(18:58):
intrigued or overruled by anything? No, it wasn't. I knew
that their live versions consisted of a lot of power,
a lot of arrangement, and a lot of Freddie running
around captivating the audience. Sure you don't expect to hear
multi layer harmonies because that two of them sang and
Brian sang when he remembered too and he didn't sing,
(19:18):
So you've got two and a half vocalist going on
and you can't recreate that. And they were allowed hands. Yeah,
and so what they did it was very wise that
it was all smoke and mirrors. You know, don't worry
about what you can't hear. Look at this and Fred
sold it visually and they ran around a lot and
they had smoke bombs going off. So it's all about diversion,
I mean, very clever. But did you see that as
(19:39):
an opportunity to be able to offer via synthesizers where
people may not understand as a keyboardist you're playing strings, horns, percussion,
perhaps a bit of odd background vocal that could be
used who or there. Well, I had to be very
careful because my predecessors had only played on a couple
(20:02):
of tracks. Um. And often it was a case of
keeping the piano go and once Fred stood up, because
he would play the introver song and stand up, so
they would take over and become Fred too. Um And
so that was the first role. But then we had
to play the new songs off the album at the time,
the Works, which was proper synthesizer parts, proper the songs
(20:26):
were based on synthesizers, and so I got to play those.
And then during the course of that, of course, the
first song that I really had to get grips with
was Radio Gaga, which had quite a few elements in it,
and meant me I was multi tasking during What I
did have to do was use the vocoder just to
(20:48):
sing the signature radio And what I said that was established.
I said to them, you know that I can do
this in other songs and fill out other things. So
whatever came of you and me, I would sing that
and play it on vocoda as well. And all of
(21:09):
a sudden, trip K left has got more to play
with in terms of some that you can add to it.
So little by little I managed to put more useful
bits and pieces in and we would. I even once
said to Roger, listen to this, and I played in
the whole of the intro Bohemian Rhapsody on vocoder. Is
(21:32):
this the real? Said? I like it? You said, but
the others don't bother? So how did you guys do that?
Pull that off fire? And never did it? We never
did that. It would start with blame. Sure, yeah, well
that would get your applies right, there is so recognizable,
but it is a big production bit and even until
(21:56):
you never did it until the last tour, I'm talking
was the first time we ever used the introduction and
you're killing me. I didn't not know that. I've never
you've been used, and we would and we would use
the tape of them, but Adam was inserted live as Freddie.
(22:17):
So you're getting all the b vs, but the lead
vocal is Adam taking the place and as soon as
he goes to me that I come in and fantastic.
First time haven't been done. Yeah, the technology really wasn't there,
The quality of it wasn't there. Well, you'd be going
back to the master tapes and pulling everything and rerecording
(22:38):
it so that you could trigger it so people understand
how For there was one little period of time when
the very end of the song nothing really matters, I
would trigger Fred nothing really matters, and Paul Rogers saying,
anyone can see that I would trigger Fred nothing really matter.
(23:01):
Then Form would finish it, and it was quite good
because Fred I was triggering audio and video just for
those one sentence, and the last day of that I
hit nothing really matters. Anyone can see and then I
was day dreaming and I hit the same one again.
Nothing really but to me and the band looking at me,
and I'm saying, what fans that up? But I don't
(23:26):
think many people out there understand how much goes into
a show like that. They just see the final product.
Here it comes blasting out of the the speakers, live and exciting,
and there's well, now Adam Lambert, you know, performing like
a maniac as he does, and uh, well, it's just
great to hear that behind the scenes stuff life goes
into it if you do your work right. They don't.
(23:49):
They don't notice. We keep our fingers crossed that nothing
goes wrong. But as long as you have insurance policy, yeah,
it probably won't go wrong. Yeah. It's when you rely
on something and then you know that one day it
will get you. And remember saying to my we've been
rolling along quite happily on tour, and I was saying,
(24:14):
remind me, do we have a spur keyboard? And he said, yeah,
we've got one over here in this trunk. And I
went and I said, are you loading it up with
the sound because every day I go to sound check
and I fiddle around with something and I'm here and
always changing it. Update And I said you update? Oh yeah,
after every sound check? He said, I'd just come and
filled the thing and plugging. And I said, and what
(24:37):
would happen if this failed? And I turned around and
said to you fuck plan B get the keyboard out.
How long would it take to get me up and running?
He said, all about nine and a half minutes? I
went nine and a half Madison Square girls going to work,
I said, And what am I going to say to
them when they go hit it? And I'm going say something?
(24:58):
For nine and a half minute, I said, oh no,
we can this cannot work, Um and said, so then
we had to get to this thing where both keyboards
are set up, both keyboards are identical, and the changeover
is now four seconds. And of course we've never had
to use it once you got it perfectly set up. Well,
it's good, but I sleep better at night. Yeah, I'm
(25:20):
sure one of these days I will go quick down
to the other keyboard. Right at what point did you,
um start taking over for Freddie on piano always? I
know that as a front man he was down front
giving it all and you would then play his piano
Partit was there a point at which you took over
(25:40):
all the piano duties or no, no, no, I would
only ever carry on from him, and he didn't. He
had always done we are the Champions. He would have
played the intro in the first verse up until the
chorus when he stands up. So that's where I come
in um. And the same with them. No, I didn't
play abou Huiman in repsolutely until after he had gone,
(26:02):
because he always did the beginning and he finished it
off because there was such a an anthemic song, and
there were other songs. I mean, he let me join in,
and my predecessor Fred Mandel had joined in playing piano
rock and roll piano on crazy little thing called love
(26:23):
but Live There never was originally up until then, it
was all guitar and the records guitar. There's no keeping
on um. And because I could do a little bit
of the little Richard you know, eight and sixteens or whatever, um,
they said, oh, we'll have some of that in frenzy.
Do that, and he said, actually, come and come and
play it on my piano. And so I would walk
down to the front, at which point most people thought
(26:44):
that I evaded security, and they were wenting to see
me bundled off the stage, and then where the fun
is this guy? Because most of the time you're sort
of offen in the shadows kind of um. And then
I've been playing and I'll do some rock and roll
when he come up and do it with me, and
we do it together, and then he'd fool around and
gave him something else to play with, you know, because
(27:04):
we only did two tours together. Because after the kind
of Magic tour that finished in eighties six at net Worth,
we assumed that we would all be coming back together
a couple of years down the line to do it
all again. But it didn't happen. It wasn't it wasn't
(27:25):
to be, So it was only, you know, from four
to eighty six, two short years. Even though it looms large,
especially because of the Live at Wembley UM, and because
they've done Live at Wembley, which was in the July.
They didn't film Live at Nebworth, which was on August.
They didn't bother because they thought they had it in
(27:45):
the can and that turned out to be the last show.
It wasn't filmed. Oh, that's that's all a bit sad.
It's more than a little bit sad, and since then
they filmed every single show everything because you never know.
And so tell us a little bit about Freddie. What
was he like? Was he shy? Some someone had told
me that he was kind of shy, which would you know,
(28:05):
of course betray his loud, sort of brash performing style.
Was here shy? Yes he was. He was very shy
around people he didn't know, so you had to be
a very He was skittish in terms of you had
to prove that you were a proper reliable person and
(28:26):
not a hanger on or after something, and once you
sort of were accepted, he was very relaxed and very open.
And there were two definite sides to him. There was
his private, quiet off stage person and there was the
diva and he could turn it on in a second
when he needed to. But we really kind of bonded
(28:48):
best because he was so famous by that time. After
a Live Aid, their career went whish back up. I mean,
they always were big, but it kind of plateaued a bit,
but Live Aid it through the roof and he couldn't
go out in public when we're on tour. Um we
used to go up to a club red I mean
(29:09):
his suite became the hangout because he couldn't go out,
so we came to him and we would, you know,
you wouldn't have a backstage party very much. We would
just pile back to the hotel and Fred always had
the presidential suite, and so he would invite everybody up,
and there's always that, you know, everything's there. And his
favorite thing to do was board games. He loved scrabble
(29:31):
and at the time, the big game was trivial pursuit.
He loved that too, and we that tour, the eighties
six tour became NonStop trivial pursuit and he come on, everybody,
get at my memory. We we don't finish. We didn't
get finished last night. We got to do it. When
he said, would that be just the band in those
situations or a few of the predominantly just the band,
(29:56):
but then there might be have some guest or friends
that would turn up who were press ganged. But there
was one occasion when towards the end of a Japanese
tour when everybody was there, management, all the band, assistants,
the security and caliph and and we divided up the
band versus management versus crew and stuff like that, and
(30:19):
that was hysterical, lots of you would get people getting
very irate and jumping up and down. That's what I said. No,
you didn't say that. That wasn't your answer, and hysterical,
lots of fun. And that would have been a time
to have a camera and a fly on the wall documentary,
just just to see the normality of it, because playing
(30:41):
trivial pursuit with my mates back in South London, it's
just the same as playing with a bunch of mega
stars in the in the biggest hotel in the Tokyo
You know about what time? When was it that you
(31:10):
started to recognize his his health was failing? Um? Was
it when the tour didn't happen that you were hoping for?
Were you made aware of it? I was kind of
made aware of it. Um. They were recording in London
and Roger was going to be there and he said,
(31:32):
pop by and I hadn't seen Fred for probably a year,
and I was kind of taken aback. You haven't seen
anybody for a while, and then you've seen them, and
then I'm thinking, oh, well, there's nobody said anything. But
(31:52):
I had a feeling right there, and then m and
there was some kind of that band were very protective
towards him, which is the right loyal They would not
say anything to anybody, and and there were these rumors
going around that he'd had some kind of problem with
(32:15):
blood pressure or something, and there was some some old
nonsense being spoken that he needed to have something taken
care of, and then we would be looking at doing dates,
and I remember Jerry's saying to me, yeah, Fred's got
an issue with his ankle or something, because he he'd
had a problem with his knee previously and had to
keep on having therapy to keep it functioning, and it
(32:37):
did function very well with the therapist there every day.
And he said, yeah, he's had some trouble with that
old injury, and we're trying to figure out how we
can do a tour without him having to run around. Um.
So this was just talk and then um, I was
out doing a promo thing with Roger. He did a
(32:58):
couple of solo albums which I was involved it, and
one night he said to me, you know, he said, well,
we don't know how long friends can ask. And we
were drinking at a bar in the hotel, just me
and him, and I went really I said, I thought
it was hypertension and dodgy anchor, and he said, no,
it's not, it's what you think it is. And I said,
(33:19):
so are we looking at the end of this and
he said yeah, and it could be quite soon. And
that really kind of shot me, threw me back, because
I've been buying the dream, you know, out of politeness.
I was believing everything they said, and of course he
only announced that he was really. Photographs came out and
(33:42):
you could see that he was desperately on the press
were relentlessly hounding him. I I'm very sorry for him,
and that they published one picture I think it was
one of the red top papers saying what's wrong with
you Fred? You know, and he wouldn't say anything. Didn't
feel there's anybody's business but his own, which he was
perfectly entitled to. And then I think he declared it
virtually like the day he died and he became public
(34:05):
and and I'd kind of come to terms with it
before that, but on my own, I wasn't, you know,
it wasn't my job to tell anybody, and wasn't my
secret to tell. So I didn't think, yeah, yeah, I
hear you, Jeez, what a great lass, but what a
lovely gift, and how fortunate you were to be able
to spend all that time with them an amazing artist. Yeah, yeah,
(34:28):
And and when you think about it, Okay, so he
passed in and here we are touring the world playing
his music to an audience that went born the last
time he was on stage. Exactly how remarkable. I mean,
you could not write that, and you could never if
you put it into a movie. They wouldn't buy it,
(34:48):
they said, they'll be ridiculous. You know, this is not
going to happen. So nobody's more surprised than me, and
I'm sure nobody's more delighted than them that they can
do medicine square garden, you know. Well, want to circle
back for just a second, Like after after Freddy's passing,
how long was it before you took up again with
Paul Rogers singing? Well, there was a period of excuse me,
(35:13):
non queen stuff because they felt that what can you do,
how can you you cannot replace somebody like Freddie. So
so from nine to two thousand, it's eleven years very quiet. Therefore,
where Queen didn't exist really apart from a couple of awards,
shows that we would do and other people would guess
(35:33):
as singers. So come around about two thousand and three,
there's a message came through and said, look there's this
TV show we think we're going to do. They want
to get out some dodgy award. Uh So we were
rocky and we are the champions and Paul Rodgers is
going to be there singing all right now. But he
doesn't have a band, and you don't have a singer.
Will you do it together? Now? Paul Rodgers is an
(35:54):
absolute hero to all of us. I mean the band Free,
which is one of great, one of the great, one
of the great bands ever. And his performance in that
band is you know, stellar, remarkable. So we all love them,
and especially Brian and Freddie loved Free. And in fact
there's stories of when Brian wrote a song and David
(36:15):
Freddie and and Freddie said, you want me to seem
like fucking poor Rogers, Well I can't, so you could
just funk off. And now this she was on the
other play Yes, Paul has got to come in so
it sound a bit like Freddie. Yeah, well so we
hysterical moment and we know how to play all right now?
And he just had to learn the words that we
will rock you and we other champions, you know. So,
(36:36):
I mean there's not an awful lot of rehearsal needed
with the quality of the players and the stuff in
material there playing. So we actually basically didn't rehearse. We
just turned up at the to run through it at
the studio, at the TV studio, and and we bang
it through twice and everybody knows what's going on, you know,
there's no new arrangement on anything, and we're done. And
(36:59):
so then you've got that horrible period of four hours
that you've got to hang back around backstage before you
go and do it O god. You know, that's that's
where drugs kicking and abuse. And so we were all
there were a couple of dressing rooms and at some
point I said to Paul, do you want to have
(37:20):
a quick go through one more time? And he said, well,
how can we do that all the games up there?
I said, well, no, follow me. So so we'll do
this and we'll get the others in and we will
gathered around in the changing room no bigger than where
we are now, and I got out a roll up piano,
a roll up rubber piano, and I turned it on
and I started to play with other champions on this.
(37:40):
He broke his whole laughing. He said, I've never seen
anything so ridiculous in all my life. But he sang it,
and we practiced it, and we practiced the backing vocals,
and we all sang at the top of our voices,
because it's something that we had always done as our
little gathering before going on stage. We get together and
sing a little bit. And and I was in the
(38:01):
habit of taking this roll up stupid piano around, which
is almost play and he said, this is the most
surreal thing I've ever seen. And even now we talk
about it when we can out, he said, I shall,
I shall never forget that moment. But it was obvious
that his singing ability. He was one of the few
people who could actually sing the songs in the original keys,
(38:24):
which was astounding really, because you think of Paul Roger's
great blues rock singer, you don't think of him singing
the sort of white euro classical tradition that Fred had established.
But he could not all of them, and he knew
which one has worked and which one didn't. He sure,
I won't be able to do that one very well,
let's pass on that one and it's this one instead,
(38:47):
which I can get to grips with. So so that's
what we did. And we had a combination of great
Paul Rogers songs from Bad Company and and then my
mate Jamie Moses came in on second guitar so that
we could do all the twin guitar things and and
Queen Hits. I mean, I was in heaven and a
(39:07):
few people didn't get it, and we're upset, but a
lot of people did get it, and they realized that
he was doing a really tough job of jumping out
of his comfort zone, which was blues rock and soul
to sing this stuff. And my hat goes off to
him still the fact that he had the range, but
he also had the chot span to get up there
(39:30):
and deliver it. Yeah. Yeah, what a singer, I mean,
what a voice that guy had to shoot forward um,
I would imagine. Adam Lambert has been a blast of
excitement and energy for the band. How are things now
with with Adam? And do you guys think you'll be
heading back out when it says well? I was in
Los Angeles a couple weeks ago and I had lunch
(39:51):
with him and I said, how you feeling He said,
I am bored to the tits. He said, I can't
wait to do something. I think everybody coming through this
is board. I mean, are you bored yet? Oh? Yeah?
Um and so we had a European tour from got
kicked through into one and it's now been kicked through
(40:11):
to twenty two. So there is no real plan until
May of two when we will fulfill the European tour.
Whether anything happens between now and then, it's really in
the lack of the gods as well. I hope we
get to cross paths out there, that's for sure. So
thanks so much Spike for coming out. Now it's time
for the Iron Core. First question, what was the biggest
(40:34):
or most impactful no you ever received? The day I
got conned into trying to organize a gig in Cuba
by a Swiss drug dealer, um and and I wanted
to do. He said, we want to put on a
live aid style gig in Cuba to open it up
for tourism. And he said, and I said, well, the
(40:54):
only place you can do that is in the Square
of the Revolution, the Big Square, And they said, well,
the anyway you're going to do that is if you
ask permission from Fidel Castro. I said, set it up.
I'll come. No, no, no, you have to write a
letter and I said, oh, and he doesn't speak English. Oh,
we'll write it for you. Here's a translation. And once
in a lifetime a man has a dream of bringing
(41:16):
the music of the world to the and all this
flowery communism shit. And I went, I can't put my
name to this, and they said it won't happen this
you do. So I signed it and give it to him,
set in the hotel for three days, and it came
back with not written on it. That's a powerful Now,
Fidel Castro told me the funk off in one word,
pretty much fantastic. Okay, So next one, they say, tragedy
(41:39):
plus time equals humor. What is the most embarrassing moment
you've ever had on stage? The day and a Nelson
Mandela gig. I had the privilege to be musical director
for a bunch of shows for Nelson Mandela and we
did one up in the very far north of Norway
troum zone. What is Nelson Mandela doing in trump? So
(42:00):
I don't know um. And we are playing with a
world music artist called g Van Gasperan who plays the
Armenian nose flutes. And now this is not a Monty
Python joke, he really does. And he played the theme
tune to Gladiator Um. So they're very enigmatic music. And
and but his music has no form to it. It
(42:23):
just made meanders and goes along and then at a
certain point it changes. Now, being a Western musician at
playing music that doesn't have a beginning or an end
or bar lines can be quite a challenge. But I
had his mate who spoke English, standing at the end
of my keyboard, and his job was to tell me
(42:45):
when to change from D to G because you're going
to be under for a very long time. And and
so I'll be looking at in the band's looking at me,
and I'm looking at the mate and like he would
go now and we would change right. So far, so good.
We could do that, except that we organizers come up
(43:05):
and say, you know that Peter Gabriel produced this record,
but yeah, so he has to play this. I said, well,
good luck with that, because nobody's going to know. So
we'll let him play alongside you. So Peter Gabriel standing
next to me, and I said, right, do you know
what dear is? Pete? He has I know what D is?
I said, you old D. And when that bloke nods
changes to G, do you think you can manage that?
(43:28):
And he looked at me with that are you fucking
kidding me? Look? You know? And so we're there and
with D and I'm holding a sort of ethereal string
padded and the tunes going through, and it's going through
and mate, boys eyebrows start to go up and we said, oh,
you know it's coming. They're looking at me and my
eyebrows go up. And then all of a sudden, he
goes now G, and Pete changed the G and I
(43:51):
changed in the band changed. The guy goes, no, I'm wrong,
go back, go back. So we managed to get a
train wreck out of two notes, right, so half and
presser indeed, and I'm cracking up laughing, and eventually we
get it all back together and and it stops. And
when it finishes, I said, hey, Pete, in a minute,
(44:13):
we're going to play with Norway's biggest Abber tribute band.
We're doing dancing queen. Do you want to stay on?
And he just looked at me. What do I that's
fantastic ge No, go back? Okay, last one here. The
nine glamorous part of your job, as we've discussed, is
(44:33):
the travel. What's the craziest travel story you had? And
when I formed the S A S Band, it was
basically out of the remnants of Brian May's touring band
into with Cozy Powell, the wonderful Cozy Powell, fantastic drummer
and Murray and we had and we played a show
down my hometown, Portsmouth, and we called on Chris Thompson
(44:55):
from Man from Man's Earth band the Man was saying
blinded by the Light, and Tony Hadley from spandau B
and Kiki d and they turned up and we played
a great night. We played a couple of their songs
and they sang their favorite cover versions and we had
a blast. It was fantastic. And three weeks later, Cozy
Pala says, do you want another gig? And I said, oh,
I thought that would ever be another gig. I thought
(45:17):
we'd just done. He said, no, I've got a bloke,
a mate. He wants me to do a gig. It's
really important. Will you do it? And I said, I'll
found everybody up. Yeah, where is it? And he said Serbia?
And I went right. I said, isn't there a war?
And they said, well, it's kind of all died down
a bit. It should be okay. And I said, um,
wait a minute. Can we even get there? Haven't they
(45:37):
closed the airport because of you know, people dying. But
basically he said yes they did, but my mate swears
blind he'll be fine if we go. And I said, so,
how is this going to work? Then he said we'll
have to go into Budapest and we'll get a bus
up to Belgrade. And I said, and what are we
(45:59):
doing exactly? And we play into troops? He said, no,
no concert for Peace. They're calling it some bloke called Dragon.
I thought, I'm going to play in the middle of
a war zone for some guy called Dragon. And I said, sure,
let's go. So we fly into and I'll tell me
Hawley and Chris Thompson said, yeah, great, you know, adventure
and I agreed to come. We land in Budapest and
(46:19):
we come outside and there's a some a representative who
has come down to meet us, and Cozy says, okay,
then so where you know there's like twenty of us,
you know, crew the band, and and he said, so
where's the bus? He said, busn't me here in a minute.
It's so good. So we're standing there just to go,
and the bus pulls up, and I thought, this feels
(46:40):
a bit strange. And Cozy goes first and I follow
him and we get on and it's a real bus
full of punters with goats and chickens who are all
going and it's like a five hour journey, and it's
a city bus. It's a city bus. And Cozy turns
around and said, I don't think so, and we all
come back off. He said, no, no, you've got to
(47:02):
do better than that. Get a bus just for us.
We can't be sent up to people with goats and
chickens and we just won't work. And so they said,
well we can't find another bus. We'll take you up
by taxi, but we've got to wait for the cabs
to come from Belgrade. So we sit there for six hours.
We arrived at the airport at four o'clock in the afternoon.
(47:22):
The taxis turn up at ten o'clock in the evening,
and basically what turns up are these guys who all
look like Bandido's driving these cars. They didn't speak any
language except from Serbian, grow at whatever it is. They
don't speak Hungarian. They can't even read the signs. And
(47:43):
there's five cars and we all bundle in and they
tear off about a hundred miles an hour going up,
and we're going through a bandit country and I'm suddenly
beginning to feel that this could probably in badly. And
the other thing is they don't have enough gas to
get us to the gig, so we have to stop
at the side of the road, and they do black
market deals with people selling gas to drive it. And
(48:04):
so we arrive at the gig at four o'clock in
the morning. The punters have been in the gig since
five o'clock in the previous evening. They're all asleep, but
they don't believe it's going to happen, and they and
they said, please rush onto the stage to tell them
that you're here. So me and Tony and Chris Thompson
running the stating we're here. Yes, it's great, We're really here,
(48:24):
and everybody's waking up, going on, you know, fantastic. We
play the gig finish at seven o'clock in the morning,
and they said, should we take you to the hotel?
Cozy Powell, Tony Hadley, Chris Thompson, Neil Murray said no,
we want to go back to the airport and go
now And they said okay. So they put them back
in these death traps and they go off and in
(48:48):
the middle of nowhere they run out of gas and
they have to walk up a farmhouse and knock on
the door. So, hey, you don't know me, but I'm
a famous rock drummer. Can you give us some gas
or can you put us up for the night. And
they ended up sleeping in a barn while you stayed
in the hotel. And and then we got home the
next day and we went Cozy. Please never book a
(49:10):
gig Cozy. Oh my god. So flying around in the
private jet certainly has its um compared to It's the
dynamics of rock and roll, Spike. It's the dynamics. I'm
sorry it wasn't lightning, but as you can understand, there's
a lot of moving parts to that. This has been great, Spike,
Thank you so much for coming out and talking with
(49:30):
me today. Thanks so much. I'd like to thank everyone
for listening and thank you to Spike for sharing your
insane stories. On Tour is a production of I Heart
(49:51):
Radio and Black Barrel Media. This show is produced by
Mandy Wimmer with executive producer Noel Brown and I'm Your
host Brian Ray. For more information about On Tour, visit
our website black Barrel Media dot com. For behind the
scenes photos from these interviews and to interact with us,
(50:12):
Visit our social media at ontour pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. For more shows from I Heart Radio and
Black Barrel Media, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
On Tour is a production of My Heart Radio and
Black Barrel Media. I'm your host, Brian ray On. This
show will take you behind the scenes of the music business.
Do you give me the most raw and real tales
you've likely never heard before? We'll share our wildest, most unbelievable,
and yes, most embarrassing moments while on tour. Today we
sit down with my friend Spike Edney, keyboardist for the
(00:34):
band Queen for thirty seven years. We touch on his
early days with the Boomtown Rats and Duran Duran, who
he had everything you want to know about Queen, Spike's
crazy audition or lack thereof the heyday with Freddie Mercury,
and what the band really did at after parties which
will definitely surprise you. We get a peek into the
(00:55):
private life of Freddy and the evolution of Queen since
his passing with Paul Rodgers and now Adam Lambert. We
wrapped with Spike's best no story not from an audition,
but from Fidel Castro and the most hysterical ontour travel
story ever. You'll get to hear how a war chickens,
(01:15):
black market gas and sleeping in Barnes somehow all fit
together only in rock and roll. Here's my conversation with
Spike Atny Spike, It's a real treat to sit down
(01:37):
with you for a chap today. You've been a major
contributing force with all the bands you've been in. Did
you make a conscious decision to be a sideman rather
than a front man or is that just how things
worked out for you? Well, I'm afraid failure led me
to becoming a sideman like everybody I you know, I
started off with dreams it o kick till uh for
(02:01):
my twelfth birthday in December nine sixty three, when my
mom took me to see the Beatles in my local
town hall, and when I just saw what was coming
off the stage, the power of the whole thing, and
the reaction that had with two thousand screaming girls and me,
(02:21):
I just knew that that was going to be something
I wanted to aim for. And I did the thing
that everybody did. I went home, I would sched it,
I practiced, I joined up with a local band, and
then eventually I got into a band that already was
kind of gigging around the scene in the late sixties,
doing cover versions and stuff, and they could all play,
(02:41):
and then the world opened up to me, and so
we started to play gigs and write songs because we
all wanted to be the next and whatever it was
going to be. Competition in that in those days, as
it always is, was ferocious. I was just trying to
get somebody to play attention, and they always wanted you
would be just like the hit that happened last week,
(03:03):
which of course we all know is nonsense. You can't.
You don't want to be copying somebody else. You've got
to find your own path. And so we did for
many years, right the way through the seventies, banging on
the door, writing songs, getting closer and closer and closer.
And then one day we got dragged into backing American
(03:25):
soul band because in that those days there were a
lot of American Air Force spaces as a sort of
hangover from the Second World War, and so they would
bring over artists from America, and of course, if there
was an invariably a soul act, they wouldn't fly over
a ten piece band because it was just impractically. They
would bring over the artist and a musical director, guitar player,
(03:48):
piano player or whatever, and then higher an English band,
excuse me, that had some grounding in soul music and
had horns. If you had if you had two horns,
you were sho in. So all of a sudden we
were a backing band, but I didn't mind too much
because being a backing band to Benny King, yeah that's
(04:09):
pretty stand. And then on more so with a motown
artist called Edwin Stars, and I was a fan of his,
his records as a fantastic So you know, all of
a sudden we're thrown into playing with icons and we
become their version of American touring soul band with all
(04:34):
the rules that James Brown has and all the moves
on stage and learning all the signs and signals about
what they mean when they want to break it down,
when they want to take it to the bridge. All
this stuff, which we probably think is cliche, was actually
very real and much fun. So having not managed to
get our band noticed enough and our material noticed enough
(04:57):
to create our own thing, all of a sudden, the
world of the sideman became very attractive. Yeah, because you're
working constantly and there's money coming in there. You go basic,
very environment, very important. Well, let's jump forward to your
time with Duran Duran, Boomtown Rats and everyone else that
you played it through the eighties, Were you now decidedly
(05:20):
a guitar player or a keyboard player by that well?
So I moved to London, had nothing at all, and
a mate of ours that we met over the years
had gone in South a job as a tape operator
in a recording studio in West End and soho, but
it was owned by Tony Visconti, producer. Yes, and Tony
(05:42):
Visconti needed a horn section and my mate Andy Duncan said, oh,
I know these horn players. They're cheap and they're quick.
And he called me and he said, can you get
over to the studio like in thirty minutes? And I
was actually living in the center of London at this
point waiting to find work, and I said, damn right,
I can, and I've got two guys. And we went
(06:03):
there and we did a session for the Boom Town
Rats the Antastic and he didn't fire us. That was
great and one song turned into four that turns into
going on tour. We toured all around with them, came
to America as their horns section. That led one of
(06:23):
the other engineers and this engineer was called became a
producer in His name was Colin Thurston and he became
the producer of Duran Duran. It was one of his
first ever gigs and Duran Duran's first single was called
Planet Earth and it was a massive hit straight away.
I mean they really took off because the way they
(06:44):
looked and the timing of course is everything. And all
of a sudden they wanted to do a twelve inch
version of Planet Earth, and they wanted horns because of
how do you extend a single to twelve inches? Tromb
one word? So we brought the horn section in and
we started fatting around. They had a couple of ideas.
We had a couple of ideas and they were all
(07:05):
getting ready to head off from London to Paris and
they said, listen, we're doing our first European gig and
we're doing a showcase for the French record company. Um
tomorrow night in Paris. Do you want to come and
play these songs with us? And we went fuck, yeah,
you know this is brilliant, said great, and we said
so um wow, what do we do we come in
(07:27):
with you now? And said no, We've got a five
seater bus and we're going here's a hundred of bucks.
See you there, you hit the big time. And so
so we ran home and got our toothbrushes and ran
back to and get the ferry to get to Paris,
and we arrived the next day in the in the
afternoon for the sound check, and um, they bust in
(07:50):
a few of their fans from Birmingham. Uh. And that's
the first time the Beatles that I've seen real hysteria.
We actually witnessed it from the stage. And of course
these fans were going crazy, absolutely crazy. And how long
did you stay with the rand around? It was now?
I just did that little period because they had already
recorded their first album and they recorded their second album
(08:13):
and my mate, the sax player, did the solo on
Rio and that's when they really took off, and he
went with them. They didn't need both of us. They
were couldn't afford both of us, didn't want to pay
for both of us, and he went and I got
left behind. And good job too, because while he was
gone off with him, I got the job of queen.
So not too not too many complaints from me. Well,
(08:35):
tell me about that story. How is it that you
ended up with them is. At the beginning of the
eighties a club opened up in London called string Fellows
and it was based around this guy, Peter string Fellow,
who had been a promoter in the sixties and the
disco owner in the seventies and in the north of England,
and he opened what he wanted to be a kind
(08:58):
of London studio fifty or so. One night Stevie Wonder
walks in, and another night Andy Williams walks in, and
and all these people. Um. But when he opened I
thought I could bluff my way into a bar gig
here because and it was a bit disco. And so
I found out and I said, is sumon? So there
completely just taking a random no, no, a name of
(09:21):
somebody on you from five years before, keeping my fingers
because he said, oh yeah, he's here somewhere. I'm like fuck.
And he came on and said it's me he Spike.
Do you remember? Yeah? How's it going? Grey? What are
you up to us? And just moved to London and
just you know, check out. I thought I might come
down and said wait a minute, what are you doing tomorrow?
And I said, what do you mean? I hadn't even
(09:41):
got to do you have a gig as a bus
boy or a barman? You know, n't got to that point.
And he says, you can play cocktail jazz on a piano,
can't you. I said, of course, I can, have no idea,
lying completely pinocky and he's said, well, come in tomorrow
(10:02):
and play. And I went, right, what what have you
got a piano? They said, yeah, we've got a white
grand piano and nobody will play it. And I went,
see you at one o'clock. And I'm freaking out now
because my history is in pop soul and nothing not
in jazz at all. I mean, I'd like to listen
to it. Um So I cool up the sax player,
(10:22):
the one that was in and out with Dran, and
I said, look, I'm crapping myself about going in to
do this because I don't feel I have the chops.
I certainly haven't got the experience, and I'm used to
playing with other people. Do you want to come in
and bluff some bollocks with me? And they said yeah, okay,
And I said, look, come over to my place now,
(10:42):
and it's just knock something up. When we knocked up
girl from e Pan Nema gotta have that and fly
me to the moon? Okay, good story and moaning is
it works? Song? I don't bad? Yeah? Easy, you know. Yeah.
So so I said that's enough. So we get there
(11:07):
and I said, so, how's this going to work? He said, well,
the boss strength fellow will be here in a minute.
And he said, why don't you go and get on
the stage And he said, and I'll give you the
nod as he's walking in, because the piano is right
near the front door. I said, just do you think
m hm? And it's that waving for him to come in,
shipping ourselves completely right. This is gonna be the biggest
(11:29):
bluff of all time. You know, I had no right
to be there doing that, and and he said he
and he turned around, he said no, I know. You said. Yeah,
we used to play in your club years ago. And
he said, yeah, great, okay, you start on Friday and
four hours a night. See you then, oh four hours? Yeah?
And I looked and of course the money was like
(11:50):
we were so broke. It wasn't that much, but it
seemed like a pretty pen to us. And we rushed
into Chapel Music and there it was one hundred cocktail hits,
Thank you very much. And we went home and learned
like ten and started playing and and I thought we
(12:12):
could be canny about this. So when we started playing
as almost nobody in the club, so we played them
are quite slow, and then we take a break, and
then and then it starts to pick up, and so
we played them all again, but much faster. And then
as each day went by, we learned ten more songs,
until eventually we had of cocktail bollocks, you know, so amazing,
(12:35):
what a great story. I love that. So how did
that lead to your meeting? And the guys? So that
we're there five six nights a week and for and
we were well established doing the cocktail thing, and people
used to roll in and come up and say hello,
and all of a sudden guy walks up and said,
Spike Headney, Oh yeah that man, And you know whatever,
(12:59):
we're stuff and have a drink um And I said,
so last time I saw you, you were the lighting
ROADI for that failed band that never got anywhere. And
I said, what have you been doing? He said, Well,
after that, he said, I went to work for David Essex,
you name David big Start at the time, and he said,
and then he said, I became drum roady for David
(13:21):
Essex and he said, and then I left that two
years ago and became drum roady for Queen and he said,
and this year I got promoted from drum roady to
Roger Taylor's personal assistant or band ponts as they were known.
You band ponts if you're an assistant to a musician,
said well, good for you. Great, he said, Queen keyboard
(13:43):
player for the next tour. Do you want to do it?
I went, yeah, sure, great, because that's how it goes right,
let's how that works. And he said, yeah, well'll let
you know. What did you do that? You know? So
he goes off. That's four months later he comes back
in with Trip Kliff and the sound manager, sounder engineers, sorry,
and and he said, well, that tour is coming up.
(14:06):
Do you want it? And went yeah, but you know
this is not how this happened. Said give me a cassette,
send me because we'll send us sett to this address.
And I thought, oh, that's going to be a problem
because I've got cassettes of me playing trombone and cassettes
of me playing fly Me to the Moon. And I
don't none of this is going to be of any
(14:27):
use right whatsoever. So instead I sent a cassette of
a bunch of records I've played on without really saying anything.
I thought, I just confused them m and I'll get
the call and said, right, you can come over to
um West London, notting Hill on Monday. I go over
(14:49):
there and I walk in and it's a very imposing
white Georgian town house, lots of people, millions running around,
gold records everywhere, and it's quite imposing, and I'm thinking,
all right, well, here are you all right upstairs? First
floor and I'm thinking, of I know what's going to happen.
There's two hundred people up there sat waiting. I've been
(15:10):
through a couple of those auditions where you're just you know,
you're just like doctor's waiting room. You're waiting for you
and you and the people listening to the auditions are
all board mind having their minds, and they've already and
if if they're not drunk, then they're waiting for the
drug dealer to just get them through. And I thought, oh,
this is horrible. So I go upstairs and there's an
(15:31):
office from the door open I'm walking down and in
walks Jerry stickles, I have no idea, I have no
idea who he is. And I'm thinking, right, this is
obviously the front office bit, and he's going to give
me the third degree and then I either get to go.
There must be a studio upstairs, you know, the six
floors on them. But I've got to get past him first.
He said, do you have a passport and said yes,
(15:52):
I said, got it with you? Said yes, give it
to me photocopy there. He said, do you have any
objection to playing in South Africa? And because the whole
apartime city, I'm out of what musician I'm playing fucking
the moon if that's where they wanted to do a
(16:13):
gig exactly, And they said, right, that's it then, and
I said, all right, so I'm going up to the
room of death. And I thought, and I don't know
any Queen songs and I'm and so I've prepared nothing,
And I thought, I'm going to have to bluff and
learn this as we go, because anything else I've ever done,
preparation is the key in an audition. If you can
(16:36):
walk in and play their ships straight away. They normally
like that yes, so they don't have to mess around
waiting for you to learn stuff. They played the no
doubt about it. So I'm terrified of this and I thought,
here we go upstairs and he said, right then, on Monday,
be at Heathrow at ten o'clock and you'll fly out
to Munich. What And I said, am I not here
(16:59):
toward this? And he said, well, you'll go up there
on Monday and you'll meet the band and you'll play
with him. And I said, and what if they don't
like me? He said, then on Tuesday you'll fly back.
No pressure. Thirty seven years with them already. So when
(17:26):
you first heard Queen, When you first heard the name Queen,
I mean they were huge right off the bat. Another
band that made such a huge impact on music and culture,
but even more so for a British guy. What was
it like hearing Uh the name Queen? Was it in
any way offensive or oh? The actual name? I thought
(17:49):
it was very risque and quite brave. Yeah, because I
thought cheeky that Wollum at that time. Of course it
was glam rock and the sort of the androgynous thing
with Bowie and Uh, and they were sort of big
hair makeup and type trousers and whatever, and by calling
themselves Queen, they were opening themselves up to ridicule. I
(18:11):
thought an attack, but then I thought, well, you've got
balls to actually do that, And I I have to
say that I wasn't bothered about them at all because
I liked Weather Report and Stephen Wonder and the Queen
was faring away from that as musically as possible. So
nothing up until Bohemian Rhapsodies, So the first like three
(18:34):
or four albums was only a minor interest to me.
But my girlfriend at the time loved Radio Gaga. I
hated that because the drum machine. I thought, well, at
least put some real fucking drums on it or something um,
and so I went into the whole thing. Of course
I wanted the gig. Who wouldn't. But was I musically
(18:58):
intrigued or overruled by anything? No, it wasn't. I knew
that their live versions consisted of a lot of power,
a lot of arrangement, and a lot of Freddie running
around captivating the audience. Sure you don't expect to hear
multi layer harmonies because that two of them sang and
Brian sang when he remembered too and he didn't sing,
(19:18):
So you've got two and a half vocalist going on
and you can't recreate that. And they were allowed hands. Yeah,
and so what they did it was very wise that
it was all smoke and mirrors. You know, don't worry
about what you can't hear. Look at this and Fred
sold it visually and they ran around a lot and
they had smoke bombs going off. So it's all about diversion,
I mean, very clever. But did you see that as
(19:39):
an opportunity to be able to offer via synthesizers where
people may not understand as a keyboardist you're playing strings, horns, percussion,
perhaps a bit of odd background vocal that could be
used who or there. Well, I had to be very
careful because my predecessors had only played on a couple
(20:02):
of tracks. Um. And often it was a case of
keeping the piano go and once Fred stood up, because
he would play the introver song and stand up, so
they would take over and become Fred too. Um And
so that was the first role. But then we had
to play the new songs off the album at the time,
the Works, which was proper synthesizer parts, proper the songs
(20:26):
were based on synthesizers, and so I got to play those.
And then during the course of that, of course, the
first song that I really had to get grips with
was Radio Gaga, which had quite a few elements in it,
and meant me I was multi tasking during What I
did have to do was use the vocoder just to
(20:48):
sing the signature radio And what I said that was established.
I said to them, you know that I can do
this in other songs and fill out other things. So
whatever came of you and me, I would sing that
and play it on vocoda as well. And all of
(21:09):
a sudden, trip K left has got more to play
with in terms of some that you can add to it.
So little by little I managed to put more useful
bits and pieces in and we would. I even once
said to Roger, listen to this, and I played in
the whole of the intro Bohemian Rhapsody on vocoder. Is
(21:32):
this the real? Said? I like it? You said, but
the others don't bother? So how did you guys do that?
Pull that off fire? And never did it? We never
did that. It would start with blame. Sure, yeah, well
that would get your applies right, there is so recognizable,
but it is a big production bit and even until
(21:56):
you never did it until the last tour, I'm talking
was the first time we ever used the introduction and
you're killing me. I didn't not know that. I've never
you've been used, and we would and we would use
the tape of them, but Adam was inserted live as Freddie.
(22:17):
So you're getting all the b vs, but the lead
vocal is Adam taking the place and as soon as
he goes to me that I come in and fantastic.
First time haven't been done. Yeah, the technology really wasn't there,
The quality of it wasn't there. Well, you'd be going
back to the master tapes and pulling everything and rerecording
(22:38):
it so that you could trigger it so people understand
how For there was one little period of time when
the very end of the song nothing really matters, I
would trigger Fred nothing really matters, and Paul Rogers saying,
anyone can see that I would trigger Fred nothing really matter.
(23:01):
Then Form would finish it, and it was quite good
because Fred I was triggering audio and video just for
those one sentence, and the last day of that I
hit nothing really matters. Anyone can see and then I
was day dreaming and I hit the same one again.
Nothing really but to me and the band looking at me,
and I'm saying, what fans that up? But I don't
(23:26):
think many people out there understand how much goes into
a show like that. They just see the final product.
Here it comes blasting out of the the speakers, live and exciting,
and there's well, now Adam Lambert, you know, performing like
a maniac as he does, and uh, well, it's just
great to hear that behind the scenes stuff life goes
into it if you do your work right. They don't.
(23:49):
They don't notice. We keep our fingers crossed that nothing
goes wrong. But as long as you have insurance policy, yeah,
it probably won't go wrong. Yeah. It's when you rely
on something and then you know that one day it
will get you. And remember saying to my we've been
rolling along quite happily on tour, and I was saying,
(24:14):
remind me, do we have a spur keyboard? And he said, yeah,
we've got one over here in this trunk. And I
went and I said, are you loading it up with
the sound because every day I go to sound check
and I fiddle around with something and I'm here and
always changing it. Update And I said you update? Oh yeah,
after every sound check? He said, I'd just come and
filled the thing and plugging. And I said, and what
(24:37):
would happen if this failed? And I turned around and
said to you fuck plan B get the keyboard out.
How long would it take to get me up and running?
He said, all about nine and a half minutes? I
went nine and a half Madison Square girls going to work,
I said, And what am I going to say to
them when they go hit it? And I'm going say something?
(24:58):
For nine and a half minute, I said, oh no,
we can this cannot work, Um and said, so then
we had to get to this thing where both keyboards
are set up, both keyboards are identical, and the changeover
is now four seconds. And of course we've never had
to use it once you got it perfectly set up. Well,
it's good, but I sleep better at night. Yeah, I'm
(25:20):
sure one of these days I will go quick down
to the other keyboard. Right at what point did you,
um start taking over for Freddie on piano always? I
know that as a front man he was down front
giving it all and you would then play his piano
Partit was there a point at which you took over
(25:40):
all the piano duties or no, no, no, I would
only ever carry on from him, and he didn't. He
had always done we are the Champions. He would have
played the intro in the first verse up until the
chorus when he stands up. So that's where I come
in um. And the same with them. No, I didn't
play abou Huiman in repsolutely until after he had gone,
(26:02):
because he always did the beginning and he finished it
off because there was such a an anthemic song, and
there were other songs. I mean, he let me join in,
and my predecessor Fred Mandel had joined in playing piano
rock and roll piano on crazy little thing called love
(26:23):
but Live There never was originally up until then, it
was all guitar and the records guitar. There's no keeping
on um. And because I could do a little bit
of the little Richard you know, eight and sixteens or whatever, um,
they said, oh, we'll have some of that in frenzy.
Do that, and he said, actually, come and come and
play it on my piano. And so I would walk
down to the front, at which point most people thought
(26:44):
that I evaded security, and they were wenting to see
me bundled off the stage, and then where the fun
is this guy? Because most of the time you're sort
of offen in the shadows kind of um. And then
I've been playing and I'll do some rock and roll
when he come up and do it with me, and
we do it together, and then he'd fool around and
gave him something else to play with, you know, because
(27:04):
we only did two tours together. Because after the kind
of Magic tour that finished in eighties six at net Worth,
we assumed that we would all be coming back together
a couple of years down the line to do it
all again. But it didn't happen. It wasn't it wasn't
(27:25):
to be, So it was only, you know, from four
to eighty six, two short years. Even though it looms large,
especially because of the Live at Wembley UM, and because
they've done Live at Wembley, which was in the July.
They didn't film Live at Nebworth, which was on August.
They didn't bother because they thought they had it in
(27:45):
the can and that turned out to be the last show.
It wasn't filmed. Oh, that's that's all a bit sad.
It's more than a little bit sad, and since then
they filmed every single show everything because you never know.
And so tell us a little bit about Freddie. What
was he like? Was he shy? Some someone had told
me that he was kind of shy, which would you know,
(28:05):
of course betray his loud, sort of brash performing style.
Was here shy? Yes he was. He was very shy
around people he didn't know, so you had to be
a very He was skittish in terms of you had
to prove that you were a proper reliable person and
(28:26):
not a hanger on or after something, and once you
sort of were accepted, he was very relaxed and very open.
And there were two definite sides to him. There was
his private, quiet off stage person and there was the
diva and he could turn it on in a second
when he needed to. But we really kind of bonded
(28:48):
best because he was so famous by that time. After
a Live Aid, their career went whish back up. I mean,
they always were big, but it kind of plateaued a bit,
but Live Aid it through the roof and he couldn't
go out in public when we're on tour. Um we
used to go up to a club red I mean
(29:09):
his suite became the hangout because he couldn't go out,
so we came to him and we would, you know,
you wouldn't have a backstage party very much. We would
just pile back to the hotel and Fred always had
the presidential suite, and so he would invite everybody up,
and there's always that, you know, everything's there. And his
favorite thing to do was board games. He loved scrabble
(29:31):
and at the time, the big game was trivial pursuit.
He loved that too, and we that tour, the eighties
six tour became NonStop trivial pursuit and he come on, everybody,
get at my memory. We we don't finish. We didn't
get finished last night. We got to do it. When
he said, would that be just the band in those
situations or a few of the predominantly just the band,
(29:56):
but then there might be have some guest or friends
that would turn up who were press ganged. But there
was one occasion when towards the end of a Japanese
tour when everybody was there, management, all the band, assistants,
the security and caliph and and we divided up the
band versus management versus crew and stuff like that, and
(30:19):
that was hysterical, lots of you would get people getting
very irate and jumping up and down. That's what I said. No,
you didn't say that. That wasn't your answer, and hysterical,
lots of fun. And that would have been a time
to have a camera and a fly on the wall documentary,
just just to see the normality of it, because playing
(30:41):
trivial pursuit with my mates back in South London, it's
just the same as playing with a bunch of mega
stars in the in the biggest hotel in the Tokyo
You know about what time? When was it that you
(31:10):
started to recognize his his health was failing? Um? Was
it when the tour didn't happen that you were hoping for?
Were you made aware of it? I was kind of
made aware of it. Um. They were recording in London
and Roger was going to be there and he said,
(31:32):
pop by and I hadn't seen Fred for probably a year,
and I was kind of taken aback. You haven't seen
anybody for a while, and then you've seen them, and
then I'm thinking, oh, well, there's nobody said anything. But
(31:52):
I had a feeling right there, and then m and
there was some kind of that band were very protective
towards him, which is the right loyal They would not
say anything to anybody, and and there were these rumors
going around that he'd had some kind of problem with
(32:15):
blood pressure or something, and there was some some old
nonsense being spoken that he needed to have something taken
care of, and then we would be looking at doing dates,
and I remember Jerry's saying to me, yeah, Fred's got
an issue with his ankle or something, because he he'd
had a problem with his knee previously and had to
keep on having therapy to keep it functioning, and it
(32:37):
did function very well with the therapist there every day.
And he said, yeah, he's had some trouble with that
old injury, and we're trying to figure out how we
can do a tour without him having to run around. Um.
So this was just talk and then um, I was
out doing a promo thing with Roger. He did a
(32:58):
couple of solo albums which I was involved it, and
one night he said to me, you know, he said, well,
we don't know how long friends can ask. And we
were drinking at a bar in the hotel, just me
and him, and I went really I said, I thought
it was hypertension and dodgy anchor, and he said, no,
it's not, it's what you think it is. And I said,
(33:19):
so are we looking at the end of this and
he said yeah, and it could be quite soon. And
that really kind of shot me, threw me back, because
I've been buying the dream, you know, out of politeness.
I was believing everything they said, and of course he
only announced that he was really. Photographs came out and
(33:42):
you could see that he was desperately on the press
were relentlessly hounding him. I I'm very sorry for him,
and that they published one picture I think it was
one of the red top papers saying what's wrong with
you Fred? You know, and he wouldn't say anything. Didn't
feel there's anybody's business but his own, which he was
perfectly entitled to. And then I think he declared it
virtually like the day he died and he became public
(34:05):
and and I'd kind of come to terms with it
before that, but on my own, I wasn't, you know,
it wasn't my job to tell anybody, and wasn't my
secret to tell. So I didn't think, yeah, yeah, I
hear you, Jeez, what a great lass, but what a
lovely gift, and how fortunate you were to be able
to spend all that time with them an amazing artist. Yeah, yeah,
(34:28):
And and when you think about it, Okay, so he
passed in and here we are touring the world playing
his music to an audience that went born the last
time he was on stage. Exactly how remarkable. I mean,
you could not write that, and you could never if
you put it into a movie. They wouldn't buy it,
(34:48):
they said, they'll be ridiculous. You know, this is not
going to happen. So nobody's more surprised than me, and
I'm sure nobody's more delighted than them that they can
do medicine square garden, you know. Well, want to circle
back for just a second, Like after after Freddy's passing,
how long was it before you took up again with
Paul Rogers singing? Well, there was a period of excuse me,
(35:13):
non queen stuff because they felt that what can you do,
how can you you cannot replace somebody like Freddie. So
so from nine to two thousand, it's eleven years very quiet. Therefore,
where Queen didn't exist really apart from a couple of awards,
shows that we would do and other people would guess
(35:33):
as singers. So come around about two thousand and three,
there's a message came through and said, look there's this
TV show we think we're going to do. They want
to get out some dodgy award. Uh So we were
rocky and we are the champions and Paul Rodgers is
going to be there singing all right now. But he
doesn't have a band, and you don't have a singer.
Will you do it together? Now? Paul Rodgers is an
(35:54):
absolute hero to all of us. I mean the band Free,
which is one of great, one of the great, one
of the great bands ever. And his performance in that
band is you know, stellar, remarkable. So we all love them,
and especially Brian and Freddie loved Free. And in fact
there's stories of when Brian wrote a song and David
(36:15):
Freddie and and Freddie said, you want me to seem
like fucking poor Rogers, Well I can't, so you could
just funk off. And now this she was on the
other play Yes, Paul has got to come in so
it sound a bit like Freddie. Yeah, well so we
hysterical moment and we know how to play all right now?
And he just had to learn the words that we
will rock you and we other champions, you know. So,
(36:36):
I mean there's not an awful lot of rehearsal needed
with the quality of the players and the stuff in
material there playing. So we actually basically didn't rehearse. We
just turned up at the to run through it at
the studio, at the TV studio, and and we bang
it through twice and everybody knows what's going on, you know,
there's no new arrangement on anything, and we're done. And
(36:59):
so then you've got that horrible period of four hours
that you've got to hang back around backstage before you
go and do it O god. You know, that's that's
where drugs kicking and abuse. And so we were all
there were a couple of dressing rooms and at some
point I said to Paul, do you want to have
(37:20):
a quick go through one more time? And he said, well,
how can we do that all the games up there?
I said, well, no, follow me. So so we'll do
this and we'll get the others in and we will
gathered around in the changing room no bigger than where
we are now, and I got out a roll up piano,
a roll up rubber piano, and I turned it on
and I started to play with other champions on this.
(37:40):
He broke his whole laughing. He said, I've never seen
anything so ridiculous in all my life. But he sang it,
and we practiced it, and we practiced the backing vocals,
and we all sang at the top of our voices,
because it's something that we had always done as our
little gathering before going on stage. We get together and
sing a little bit. And and I was in the
(38:01):
habit of taking this roll up stupid piano around, which
is almost play and he said, this is the most
surreal thing I've ever seen. And even now we talk
about it when we can out, he said, I shall,
I shall never forget that moment. But it was obvious
that his singing ability. He was one of the few
people who could actually sing the songs in the original keys,
(38:24):
which was astounding really, because you think of Paul Roger's
great blues rock singer, you don't think of him singing
the sort of white euro classical tradition that Fred had established.
But he could not all of them, and he knew
which one has worked and which one didn't. He sure,
I won't be able to do that one very well,
let's pass on that one and it's this one instead,
(38:47):
which I can get to grips with. So so that's
what we did. And we had a combination of great
Paul Rogers songs from Bad Company and and then my
mate Jamie Moses came in on second guitar so that
we could do all the twin guitar things and and
Queen Hits. I mean, I was in heaven and a
(39:07):
few people didn't get it, and we're upset, but a
lot of people did get it, and they realized that
he was doing a really tough job of jumping out
of his comfort zone, which was blues rock and soul
to sing this stuff. And my hat goes off to
him still the fact that he had the range, but
he also had the chot span to get up there
(39:30):
and deliver it. Yeah. Yeah, what a singer, I mean,
what a voice that guy had to shoot forward um,
I would imagine. Adam Lambert has been a blast of
excitement and energy for the band. How are things now
with with Adam? And do you guys think you'll be
heading back out when it says well? I was in
Los Angeles a couple weeks ago and I had lunch
(39:51):
with him and I said, how you feeling He said,
I am bored to the tits. He said, I can't
wait to do something. I think everybody coming through this
is board. I mean, are you bored yet? Oh? Yeah?
Um and so we had a European tour from got
kicked through into one and it's now been kicked through
(40:11):
to twenty two. So there is no real plan until
May of two when we will fulfill the European tour.
Whether anything happens between now and then, it's really in
the lack of the gods as well. I hope we
get to cross paths out there, that's for sure. So
thanks so much Spike for coming out. Now it's time
for the Iron Core. First question, what was the biggest
(40:34):
or most impactful no you ever received? The day I
got conned into trying to organize a gig in Cuba
by a Swiss drug dealer, um and and I wanted
to do. He said, we want to put on a
live aid style gig in Cuba to open it up
for tourism. And he said, and I said, well, the
(40:54):
only place you can do that is in the Square
of the Revolution, the Big Square, And they said, well,
the anyway you're going to do that is if you
ask permission from Fidel Castro. I said, set it up.
I'll come. No, no, no, you have to write a
letter and I said, oh, and he doesn't speak English. Oh,
we'll write it for you. Here's a translation. And once
in a lifetime a man has a dream of bringing
(41:16):
the music of the world to the and all this
flowery communism shit. And I went, I can't put my
name to this, and they said it won't happen this
you do. So I signed it and give it to him,
set in the hotel for three days, and it came
back with not written on it. That's a powerful Now,
Fidel Castro told me the funk off in one word,
pretty much fantastic. Okay, So next one, they say, tragedy
(41:39):
plus time equals humor. What is the most embarrassing moment
you've ever had on stage? The day and a Nelson
Mandela gig. I had the privilege to be musical director
for a bunch of shows for Nelson Mandela and we
did one up in the very far north of Norway
troum zone. What is Nelson Mandela doing in trump? So
(42:00):
I don't know um. And we are playing with a
world music artist called g Van Gasperan who plays the
Armenian nose flutes. And now this is not a Monty
Python joke, he really does. And he played the theme
tune to Gladiator Um. So they're very enigmatic music. And
and but his music has no form to it. It
(42:23):
just made meanders and goes along and then at a
certain point it changes. Now, being a Western musician at
playing music that doesn't have a beginning or an end
or bar lines can be quite a challenge. But I
had his mate who spoke English, standing at the end
of my keyboard, and his job was to tell me
(42:45):
when to change from D to G because you're going
to be under for a very long time. And and
so I'll be looking at in the band's looking at me,
and I'm looking at the mate and like he would
go now and we would change right. So far, so good.
We could do that, except that we organizers come up
(43:05):
and say, you know that Peter Gabriel produced this record,
but yeah, so he has to play this. I said, well,
good luck with that, because nobody's going to know. So
we'll let him play alongside you. So Peter Gabriel standing
next to me, and I said, right, do you know
what dear is? Pete? He has I know what D is?
I said, you old D. And when that bloke nods
changes to G, do you think you can manage that?
(43:28):
And he looked at me with that are you fucking
kidding me? Look? You know? And so we're there and
with D and I'm holding a sort of ethereal string
padded and the tunes going through, and it's going through
and mate, boys eyebrows start to go up and we said, oh,
you know it's coming. They're looking at me and my
eyebrows go up. And then all of a sudden, he
goes now G, and Pete changed the G and I
(43:51):
changed in the band changed. The guy goes, no, I'm wrong,
go back, go back. So we managed to get a
train wreck out of two notes, right, so half and
presser indeed, and I'm cracking up laughing, and eventually we
get it all back together and and it stops. And
when it finishes, I said, hey, Pete, in a minute,
(44:13):
we're going to play with Norway's biggest Abber tribute band.
We're doing dancing queen. Do you want to stay on?
And he just looked at me. What do I that's
fantastic ge No, go back? Okay, last one here. The
nine glamorous part of your job, as we've discussed, is
(44:33):
the travel. What's the craziest travel story you had? And
when I formed the S A S Band, it was
basically out of the remnants of Brian May's touring band
into with Cozy Powell, the wonderful Cozy Powell, fantastic drummer
and Murray and we had and we played a show
down my hometown, Portsmouth, and we called on Chris Thompson
(44:55):
from Man from Man's Earth band the Man was saying
blinded by the Light, and Tony Hadley from spandau B
and Kiki d and they turned up and we played
a great night. We played a couple of their songs
and they sang their favorite cover versions and we had
a blast. It was fantastic. And three weeks later, Cozy
Pala says, do you want another gig? And I said, oh,
I thought that would ever be another gig. I thought
(45:17):
we'd just done. He said, no, I've got a bloke,
a mate. He wants me to do a gig. It's
really important. Will you do it? And I said, I'll
found everybody up. Yeah, where is it? And he said Serbia?
And I went right. I said, isn't there a war?
And they said, well, it's kind of all died down
a bit. It should be okay. And I said, um,
wait a minute. Can we even get there? Haven't they
(45:37):
closed the airport because of you know, people dying. But
basically he said yes they did, but my mate swears
blind he'll be fine if we go. And I said, so,
how is this going to work? Then he said we'll
have to go into Budapest and we'll get a bus
up to Belgrade. And I said, and what are we
(45:59):
doing exactly? And we play into troops? He said, no,
no concert for Peace. They're calling it some bloke called Dragon.
I thought, I'm going to play in the middle of
a war zone for some guy called Dragon. And I said, sure,
let's go. So we fly into and I'll tell me
Hawley and Chris Thompson said, yeah, great, you know, adventure
and I agreed to come. We land in Budapest and
(46:19):
we come outside and there's a some a representative who
has come down to meet us, and Cozy says, okay,
then so where you know there's like twenty of us,
you know, crew the band, and and he said, so
where's the bus? He said, busn't me here in a minute.
It's so good. So we're standing there just to go,
and the bus pulls up, and I thought, this feels
(46:40):
a bit strange. And Cozy goes first and I follow
him and we get on and it's a real bus
full of punters with goats and chickens who are all
going and it's like a five hour journey, and it's
a city bus. It's a city bus. And Cozy turns
around and said, I don't think so, and we all
come back off. He said, no, no, you've got to
(47:02):
do better than that. Get a bus just for us.
We can't be sent up to people with goats and
chickens and we just won't work. And so they said,
well we can't find another bus. We'll take you up
by taxi, but we've got to wait for the cabs
to come from Belgrade. So we sit there for six hours.
We arrived at the airport at four o'clock in the afternoon.
(47:22):
The taxis turn up at ten o'clock in the evening,
and basically what turns up are these guys who all
look like Bandido's driving these cars. They didn't speak any
language except from Serbian, grow at whatever it is. They
don't speak Hungarian. They can't even read the signs. And
(47:43):
there's five cars and we all bundle in and they
tear off about a hundred miles an hour going up,
and we're going through a bandit country and I'm suddenly
beginning to feel that this could probably in badly. And
the other thing is they don't have enough gas to
get us to the gig, so we have to stop
at the side of the road, and they do black
market deals with people selling gas to drive it. And
(48:04):
so we arrive at the gig at four o'clock in
the morning. The punters have been in the gig since
five o'clock in the previous evening. They're all asleep, but
they don't believe it's going to happen, and they and
they said, please rush onto the stage to tell them
that you're here. So me and Tony and Chris Thompson
running the stating we're here. Yes, it's great, We're really here,
(48:24):
and everybody's waking up, going on, you know, fantastic. We
play the gig finish at seven o'clock in the morning,
and they said, should we take you to the hotel?
Cozy Powell, Tony Hadley, Chris Thompson, Neil Murray said no,
we want to go back to the airport and go
now And they said okay. So they put them back
in these death traps and they go off and in
(48:48):
the middle of nowhere they run out of gas and
they have to walk up a farmhouse and knock on
the door. So, hey, you don't know me, but I'm
a famous rock drummer. Can you give us some gas
or can you put us up for the night. And
they ended up sleeping in a barn while you stayed
in the hotel. And and then we got home the
next day and we went Cozy. Please never book a
(49:10):
gig Cozy. Oh my god. So flying around in the
private jet certainly has its um compared to It's the
dynamics of rock and roll, Spike. It's the dynamics. I'm
sorry it wasn't lightning, but as you can understand, there's
a lot of moving parts to that. This has been great, Spike,
Thank you so much for coming out and talking with
(49:30):
me today. Thanks so much. I'd like to thank everyone
for listening and thank you to Spike for sharing your
insane stories. On Tour is a production of I Heart
(49:51):
Radio and Black Barrel Media. This show is produced by
Mandy Wimmer with executive producer Noel Brown and I'm Your
host Brian Ray. For more information about On Tour, visit
our website black Barrel Media dot com. For behind the
scenes photos from these interviews and to interact with us,
(50:12):
Visit our social media at ontour pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. For more shows from I Heart Radio and
Black Barrel Media, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
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