For Love and Money
10cc Has Divided, Regrouped and Spawned a Hit-Producing LP 'Deceptive Bends'

Circus Magazine 21 july 1977 pp. 35-37
by Kris Nicholson

The release last month of Deceptive Bends (Mercury) brings back memories of the fateful fall of 1976, when it became apparent that 10cc's Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman would finalize divorce proceedings with Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. For both fans and critics, that was indeed a sad occasion. With four albums, one classic American hit single, "I'm Not In Love," and a handful of British chartbusters to their credit, the union of the band's four minds had seemed a marriage made in heaven.

Though their last work together, How Dare You, had failed to produce a successor to "I'm Not In Love," the band's potential had yet to be fully tapped. Then it happened. Caught on the rebound of this creative lull, Godley and Creme became infatuated with the Gizmo, a special attachment they invented for guitar that makes the strings sustain and sound like violins. The Gizmo was subsequently named correspondent in the band's alienation of affections.

Godley and Creme were willing to try a trial separation-take a year off from 10cc to work on an album featuring their new contraption. Stewart and Gouldman were not smiling : "It had been 13 months since 10cc had been in the studio," Eric explained. "We had a record contract to fulfill and we felt that the public were due another lot of 10cc material. We had to say that we were going in the studio to do it and carry on as 10cc. They responded by leaving."

In reality the split May have been more like desertion than divorce. it was not amicable. Both Graham and Eric were very upset, "We counts. "We were more or less left in the air," Eric recounts. "we were under a helluva lot of pressure. The studio thing was OK because I'd always been the engineer but it meant that Graham and I had to write a lot more material and come up with the production ideas."

Of course, the remaining two 10cc's did have some degree of confidence. They had written the successful "I'm Not In Love," as well as several of the band's other hits. "We also got a lot of mail from people in America and England encouraging us not to completely disband the group," Eric recalled. "We felt that 10cc had a lot to offer yet and it would've been madness to just give up."

And so, sometime in October, 1976 with four song ideas and a good deal of determination, Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman and the group's second drummer Paul Burgess retreated to Strawberry Studios to record the band's fifth album.

At the end of January, while putting the finishing touches on the disc, destined to be titled Deceptive Bends, 10cc released a single, "The Things We Do For Love." It has since gone gold and become the group's best selling single, clearly re-establishing 10cc's pop identity and proving to the core members that they've got what it takes.

One of the curious quirks about 10cc is their continued success with singles about "love." The majority of the group's works is comprised of tongue-in-cheek humor, like "Rubber Bullets," The Wall Street Shuffle"-and simple out and out insane songs like Deceptive Bends' "Honeymoon With B-Troop." When confronted with this peculiar twist Eric murmured an amused, "Strange . . . and Graham admitted with mock seriousness that there will always be the temptation to keep the word "love" in their single titles. "It's a shame. 95% of our songs aren't about love at all. We write about anything and everything." Though the singles are not lyrically definitive, Eric and Graham are obviously not complaining.The new album is named, however misleadingly, after a road sign Graham sighted on the road from London to the studio In Dorking. "It struck me as a rather unusual phrase for the Ministry Of Transport to use! It's very English, but then it's in a very English part of England."

Likewise, the seemingly obscure album cover depicting various photos of Eric and Graham decked out in deep sea diving attire connects to another obscure but sensible concept. As Graham suggests, "The bends is a term used to describe the condition you experience when you get too much oxygen or nitrogen in your blood when you surface from the water's bottom too quickly. It's called 'rapture of the deep,' and you hallucinate."

Ludicrous cross references abound on the LP's subject matter. "Honeymoon With B-Troop" is a briskly paced episode laced with Eric's hot licks and inspired by the guitarist's memory of a newspaper article about a scout leader whose honeymoon coincided with summer camp sessions. You guessed it, the title is self-explanatory. "I Bought A Flat Guitar Tutor" is a cool shuffle full of musical puns; and, the idea for "You've Got -A Cold" materialized at Amsterdam Airport when Eric started sneezing in rhythm. These fellows always pay attention.

Aside from the pair of serious love songs, the album's three part "Feel The Benefit" is Deceptive Bends' piece of profundity, or what might in all sincerity be called 10cc's Utopian vision. Eric comments, "It's a reflection of the life of one person," and digresses, "Though the first piece, 'Reminisce and Speculate,' is really going back to our childhood. Our mothers used to say to us after we'd come in with our coats on, 'Don't keep your coat on in the house, you won't feel the benefit when you go out.' Then we wan-der off on a tangent and ask what it would be like if we all went out without our coats on. Well, you get the idea.

"The person in this story is very dissatisfied with him-self. He's travelled all over the world and not really found anything that suits him. At this point the music shifts from orchestrated ballad to lively latin tempo. We tell the song's character to forget about life and take a trip to Rio, get high and have a good time. He does that and when he gets back he's got an amazingly clear mind and begins to think about what he can do for the world.

"We had this vision of everybody in the world singing the song at the same time. A very idealistic vision, still it would be amazing, wouldn't it? It would mean that everything would stop: work, war. We're talking about black and white people working together. The most im-portant thing is that we see it happening through music.

"Obviously it was the music of people like Dylan and Baez that did more for the peace movement than any politician ever did. Though that all got very debased with the whole San Francisco, flower power trip-,and became suddenly cosmic and slightly unhealthy. It was a shame, 'cause there were a lot of great artists with nice things to say and no one wanted to listen anymore. Now, maybe they do again."

Sincerity is Eric's main concern when he talks about --, this song and these ideas. He feels somewhat that a handful of media cynics have been responsible for destroying a lot of good ideas before they've had the chance to get off the ground. "It's obvious that the prevailing apathy of the times has affected our music. We've shrouded our messages in imaginative and mysterious ways. I suppose, if we'd been a bit more honest with ourselves we'd have been more lyrically up front. But, it works on different levels with different people."

For 10cc, a European tour is next, followed by a month long American tour to commence in late July. A new band consisting of Paul Burgess and ex-Pilot Stuart Tosh on drums, Rick Fenn on guitar and former Kokomo member Tony O'Malley on keyboards and vocals. Except for Burgess, the band is considered a touring band. Graham Gouldman hopes they 'develop as a group and makes it quite clear that both he, and Stuart want to work as a group, and not as a fancy duo with back-up musicians.

Left to right: Paul, Eric, Rick, Graham, Stuart (plaid shirt) and Tony

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