10cc Own Up

Melody Maker 22 january 1977 pp. 1, 26-31
By Geoff Brown

WITH THEIR latest single, "Things We Do For Love," roaring up the British and American charts, 10cc prepare to embark on an extensive world tour immediately after completion of their next album.

In their first interview since two members quit the group last year, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman talked to the Melody Maker this week about the split and about 10cc's plans for the rest of 1977. A British and European tour is planned for late May and early June.

First, however, Stewart and Gouldman will finish their forth-coming album, provisionally titled "Deceptive Bends."

Once the album is finished, 10cc start rehearsing with new musicians to replace Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, the two ex-10cc men currently working on their own triple album using the Gizmo and to be called "Consequences."

Stewart and Gouldman said that so far only drummer Paul Burgess is confirmed as a permanent member of 10cc. They're looking for another guitarist, another drummer and keyboard player, all doubling on vocals.

10cc go to America in April and tour there until May 17. After a short break they tour Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Holland and possibly France and Italy.

After a break for holidays, the group fly off to Australia, New Zealand and make their Japanese debut during the October/November leg of the tour.

The new 10cc live show, says Stewart, will be more exciting than the old group. "For one part of the show it went really well, the musical side," recalled Eric, "and then we'd bring the whole show down with a sort of humble repartee with the audience. Really boring."

Of the suggestion that the original members might eventually get back together again Stewart said: "No, I'd rule that out entirely. It's like suddenly being given your head after four years of being held back. I'm more excited now than I have been since the 'Sheet Music' album."

Exclusive interview with Gouldman and Stewart: page 26.

Dorking is a respectable suburban town nestling in the Surrey countryside. Its richer inhabitants commute to London five days a week; those who stay out of the metropolis are generally employed in industries and trades whose sole purpose is servicing the homes of the rich while they're in the big city.

The town has a nice old web of narrow streets which at one time must have been the focal point of the town. Along one of these streets stands the shell of a cinema.

Walk up one side of the building, past three or four parked cards and step gingerly between puddles of sand and slush to the very back of the cinema. Through a door, over tarpaulins, duck under a ladder, stumble over something in the dark, push through a door and you emerge into a room the shape of a poorly designed hexagon, with walls of glass, varnished wood and cork looking like wood bark.

The floor is covered by a thick, tufty brown carpet and the room is dominated by a mixing desk. This is Strawberry Studio South, and here Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman are recording 10cc's next album, the first since the four-piece's split.

Lol Creme and Kevin Godley had decided that they wanted to concentrate on their triple album Gizmo project (called "Consequences"). Eric and Graham are continuing 10cc and have got off to a magnificent start with "The Things We Do For Love," a Top Ten British hit and a single scampering up the American charts at a gallop, which is especially exciting for them since "I'm Not In Love" failed dismally there.

Eric and Graham are halfway through the album. Of the rough mixes I heard, one number was familiar as being the only new song they'd played at the Stones' Knebworth concert, a fairly disastrous affair for them. Another short song, a clever musical gag, made an immediate impression and a song about the woes/joys of catching cold sounded strong on one hearing.

Significantly, the majority of the songs they're writing now are much more positive in mood than previously and are certainly recorded with a finely attuned commercial ear (remembering, of course, that the Gouldman/Stewart partnership was responsible for many of their singles - "Wall Street Shuffle," "I'm Not In Love," "Art For Art's Sake," "I'm Mandy, Fly Me," which had lyrical contributions from Lol).

The desk they're recording on, says Eric, is a mobile. The studio's own hasn't arrived yet. In fact the studio is being built "around" them as they record. An extension stretching back to occupy the full length of the gutted building will be big enough to house an 80-piece string section. Towards the front of the building the reception area is still only half-finished - to get to the toilet, for instance, you have to totter along three planks for fear of treading in wet cement or spoiling the interior crazy paving.

Despite the obvious discomfort, Eric and Graham are enjoying recording as never before. If the split has done as much for Lol and Kevin, they will be happy men indeed.

Everything recorded by 10cc since its pruning has been at Dorking and all the songs have been Gouldman/Stewart tunes. There was none left from the past. An abundance of material, says Graham, was never a problem with the old group. Everything written was recorded. "That's one thing we're going to try to rectify so that we don't have to rush in and do something. We might have time to do a few B-sides 'cos you always find you've got to rush a B-side and we don't like doing that."

There has been a notable change in their mode of recording, says Eric, and of the songs they're composing. "The material's much more 'up' and the change in the style of recording is that we seem to be more natural and direct."

"Right" adds Graham "more direct. Before there were four people's opinion to take into consideration. Now there're only two."

"We used to do silly things like wander around the studio for two days trying to find something that sounded like a bass drum. Now we use a bass drum," says Eric.

"We don't always agree, there's still that discussion as to what should be what," says Graham, but, he adds, with two views they can afford to try both and see which is best. "That still happens. That was the very good thing about 10cc. Everything's tried.

"In the initial stages of 10cc the four minds worked tremendously, especially around the 'Sheet Music' era. But by the time we were getting into 'How Dare You!' the four minds were going so strongly in individual ways it was beginning to pull apart."

Another advantage in the way they work now, says Graham, is that they're producing the songs they write. Previously, of course, four minds would produce a song which was the product of two minds. "There's closer contact with the song. I think the songs come out more as they were intended during the writing process. Maybe that's why they're more direct."

They don't think they miss the objective view of an outsider. "I think we've become more objective ourselves because there's more responsibility than ever," says Graham.

"In the past we had two camps," says Eric. "Graham and I were thinking more or less very 'commercial' and the other two were thinking 'How can we be as different as possible with whatever we use and whatever we write and whatever we record?' I think we've both rubbed off on each other so much now that the two of us have become a combined force."

Though the production of the group, they think, is more direct, and the tunes more commercial, any redirection in lyrical content isn't so obviously found. It's still very 10cc, "but one song is representative of the album. It's like a different band on each track," believes Graham, which is more like their "Sheet Music" style than the later albums.

"I think that was the most successful album that we ever recorded," says Eric, "because of the variety of the tracks and the freshness of all the tracks. It was really good because at that time we were really up, 'Rubber Bullets' had been number one and everybody was raring to go. It's like that again. We're in the studio, we've only got ourselves to blame and we've only got ourselves to work for, and that freshness has come back."

"What happened was that experimentation became the norm for us so it wasn't an experiment any more. I think things got slightly jaundiced. But now it's more of a challenge because it's the two of us and we've got a lot to live up to, right?"

Writing has been easier and faster and they think they've been as discretionary as in the past. "A lot more ideas come out. When we're in the studio recording we've got ideas coming all the time. We keep the stereo machine on all the time and if an idea comes up while we're in the middle of doing an overdub on another track, we'll record it. We find we've got about 30 minutes of amazing ideas doing it this way. It's because we're so happy about things going so well."

AFTER the album is finished (they hope to complete it by the end of next month), they'll concentrate on rehearsing musicians to take the new music on the road. Paul Burgess, who was brought in as an auxiliary drummer to Kevin when the old 10cc first started playing live dates, is now a permanent group member.

They have a fairly clear idea of what instrumentation the new band should have and they've a couple of names for each job.

"We'll use another drummer on tour with Paul, we hope to use another guitarist and a keyboardsman, both of them vocalists because most of the stuff we've recorded so far is again very, very . . . a lot of harmonies, so we need two vocalists."

Whoever the new musicians are, they'll have plenty of work. First an American tour in April, followed by a British tour in May and early June. After a holiday break 10cc tour Australia, New Zealand and Japan in October-November. "If in that time the band starts to work as a really tight unit, that will be 10cc. If it doesn't we'll have to look for other musicians."

"We really wanna keep the image of being 'a band'," says Graham, "not two people fronting a little orchestra. It won't be like Sutherland Brothers and Quiver, it won't be 10cc and Friends, it will be 10cc because the whole concept and songs and ideas will be 10cc."

"Hopefully," added Eric, "whoever joins the band will be writing." Whether this would lead to a situation where once again four or more minds started pulling in opposite directions seemed open to debate.

The build-up to the split began in September last year. Eric and Graham were summoned to a meeting at which Kevin and Lol announced that in order to go ahead with their lengthy project they needed time, more time than their 10cc duties would allow. "They didn't think it was fair that they should keep Graham and myself sitting around waiting," and suggested that Gouldman / Stewart should pursue 10cc.

Eric: "Of course there was the usual management 'Don't do it boys' and 'Think of what you're giving up.' There were about two months of heavy discussion, which was a bad time for all of us until we came out of it saying 'Why not, let's do it.'"

They never thought of working completely solo? "No, the idea of 10cc was so great and we're keeping the thing alive," says Graham.

"It stood for a hell of a lot to us. We thought about all the records we'd released, the number of records we'd sold, the tours that we sell out; it would be just stupid and, I think, not fair on the public, to just scrap the whole thing."

Apart from which, I presumed, it was fulfilling most of their musical aspirations. "It fulfills more in a way in that it's more demanding," says Graham, "in that I'm playing more guitar, Eric's playing a helluva lot more piano on tracks, so that although it's more work it's a lot more fulfilling. And, obviously, producing twice as much."

Eric thinks that ideas which they're developing now could never have been used before. "It's mostly guitar work. I don't know if you've looked at the structure of the last three albums but from 'Sheet Music' downwards to 'How Dare You!,' that had three guitar solos on it, or three parts for a guitar player; and so as The Lead Guitarist I was beginning to feel really stagnant. I wasn't playing at all and it was getting very frustrating.

"This album will contain all the guitar that I've ever wanted to play. And also Graham wanted to play guitar before but he couldn't."

Had the old 10cc been the sort of live band they'd hoped for? No, they both say, most definitely not.

"I think John Peel put it very well, actually," says Graham, "he always thought we were 'slightly out of focus.' I'm not sure why, I think you've got to be totally committed to the whole stage thing to make it work. You don't have to be a superstar or look fantastic on stage, but I think it's important that you are really into the whole stage thing," he says emphatically, "and it doesn't bore you and it isn't a bind for you.

"We're very into the stage thing, it's really important. It's the life-blood of a band: if you can't put it on stage, well . . . it's so easy to do it in the studio, in a way, as compared to doing it on stage. I think it will improve but I think we were quite good."

FOR Eric, 10cc on stage was never exciting enough. "For one part of the show we played and it went really well, the musical side. And then we'd bring the whole show down with a very humble sort of repartee with the audience. A really boring, humble . . . that kinda attitude used to p— me off tremendously because I thought we were playing exciting music, most of the time, and the band should have been presented in that way completely. Just great music and great lighting. No apologies.

"In the future we'll be looking at it that way. More exciting musicianship, more exciting production by the lights and stage set, much more chance for people to show the way they can play."

Graham: "See, I've always wanted to play guitar on stage with Eric, a double guitar thing, but I've never been able to. We play in the dressing room and it's great. We do a lot of things in jamming that we should've done. That's where the clue is to the next 10cc on stage, I think, cos we do play lots of things but some of them have been very inhibited because we thought 'Well, maybe it sounds a bit like so-and-so' or 'It's a bit funky, we shouldn't do it.'

"But if it's good, it's good and that's all there is to it. Whatever we do we always find a way to twist it anyway, to give it our stamp. So now there's much more freedom. We'll try it."

Yes, they say, they'll be including some old 10cc hits but "obviously there are some songs we just can't do, it'd be a rip-off. They were so tied up in the four of us that I don't think anybody could do it the way we did it. A substantial version of 'Paris,' for instance, or 'Don't Hang Up,' which was Kevin's voice. You can't substitute that, it's not right."

It would be, says Graham, like Herman's Hermits singing "I'm Into Something Good" without Peter Noone.

The fact that 10cc's live work never matched their expectations had its roots in the fact that the group was born in a recording studio. Eric was the only one who'd had any lasting stage experience before 10cc, although Graham had had a short spell with Eric in the Mindbenders at their death knell.

Or "drove the final nail into the coffin," as Eric put it, "but the other two guys had never been on stage in a professional situation before and I expected a little bit more stage presence or professionalism or whatever you want to call it. It was never exciting, it never gelled properly."

What should have been a highlight for 10cc last year turned out to be an embarassing farce — the Knebworth concert at which they were second on the bill to the Stones.

"That was a real vibration," says Eric. "Never do a gig with the Stones, that's the name of the game."

"If we had felt that any of those problems would've affected the gig, honestly, we would never have done it," adds Graham, "we're not into all that. It was just too important a gig."

"It was really embarassing. It was worse for us because we were blamed for the delay. We had to sit behind those amps for two hours with that delay, waiting to go on," says Eric.

"The Delay Of The Year," murmers Graham.

"We weren't sat in the dressing rooms saying 'F— this, we're not going to go on stage.'"

"You could see us before a gig for two hours to see all the trouble we go to make sure everything's bloody right and, honestly, we're so finicky. We leave an hour to tune all the guitars. We're so conscientious in that department and when something's out of your control . . . the band always gets the blame," adds Graham.

"We were warned not to do the gig," says Eric, "we heard that other groups like Wings . . . well, we were talking to Macca about it and he said 'No, you don't go second on a bill to the Stones. 'There's no way they're gonna let you get away with it.' But we saw them in the South of France and had a nice chat with them and they said 'Why don't you do the show with us?' We thought it was gonna be a big ballsy thing. Jesus Christ!

"WHEN that foldback system went two hours before we were due to go on stage there was nobody around saying, 'Don't worry, fellas' it was all 'You're the b—' and none of it was our fault. We couldn't do anything about it."

10cc and outdoor gigs in general, however, never seemed wholly compatible.

"That's what I mean about this humble rap with the audience. I think it's great to be warm with the audience and acknowledge the fact that you're pleased they've come to see you, because we are pleased, but to do a humble rap to 250,000 people there's NO WAY!

"You're talking to 50 kids at the front! That's the way it shouldn't be in the future. You should be able to project the whole image of the band to 5,000 or 50,000 or 250,000 purely on the size of the p.a. system and the lights — not on your rap." Those who have seen the group will realise that the great bulk of the group's announcements on stage were made by Lol.

"In the final analysis," says Graham, "it comes down to the music. That's what we've always thought, that goes for the recorded product. We're really knocked out with everything that we've done. The first thing that we've done (as 10cc Mark Two) has been very, very successful for us so that's great. In the end it's up to whether people can get off on the music."

Had they been confident that they'd not be successful in the new group configuration? Well, says Graham, he got a bit paranoid but he's like that anyway. "Suddently we'd gone from four to two and you think 'Well, maybe that element has gone,' these things go through your head."

Eric says that when they were recording "The Things We Do For Love" there was no intention to make it the next single. "We got about two-thirds of the way through the song, I'd put lead vocals down and few other things, and I started putting some backing vocals down, triple harmony things. And as I walked into the control room Graham says 'it's a smash.' Just at that moment the whole song clicked."

"It's done more than we expected," says Graham, "because we'd not had a record out for almost nine months. I mean it's got very wide appeal, it's almost middle of the road. We felt instinctively that it was the right thing to do, that it would be a hit."

Did they feel a similar apprehension about following up a single like "I'm Not In Love," which won just about every kind of plaudit possible?

"We don't feel paranoia after a hit. We were in a bit of a bad position because we recorded an album with no hit single on it, I mean no substantial hit. When you think of 10cc in ten years time, 'I'm Not In Love' will be one of the songs but 'Art For Art's Sake' and 'I'm Mandy' won't be," says Graham.

"Talking about the restriction that started to happen to the four minds of the band, after we'd recorded the 'How Dare You!' album and started to write this album, as a four-piece, we were still thinking that we should never ever try to write another 'I'm Not In Love,' which is stupid."

"It's like asking Burt Bacharach not to write another ballad," explains Graham. "Yeah," agrees Eric, "we've found that we can write that sort of a song really well. We love ballady-type things and we love romantic lyrics which for the 10cc, the four-piece, might be considered a little bit twee and boring. Now we haven't got that problem anymore and we certainly will be writing more of that type of song."

Do not expect "I'm Not In Love" Parts One Through 25, says Graham, but they are discarding the idea that if you repeat a love song it becomes boring.

"We've been criticised for being a very pessimistic band. But we're not. Graham and I certainly are not. We've never written a pessimistic lyric ever. Have we?" Eric asks.

"Not with each other, but, er, we certainly have in other combinations. But time will tell whether that kind of thing is gonna be missed."

"It's bloody easy," says Eric, "to write ambiguous songs because you find something that is sacred and knock it. That's really easy. We could write a dozen songs like that every day and we also find it very easy to write puns, which is another thing we're starting to be more careful with. We're looking for other ways now."

The question of whether Eric and Graham thought the old 10cc's split was inevitable, Gizmo or no Gizmo, brought differing opinions. Eric thought they'd merely maintain an even level of achievement; Graham thought they'd have gone on to greater things. It's hypothetical, of course. "I did feel that it was a shame but now I don't feel that at all, now it's a total fresh thing."

ERIC says that to friends in the business he's been forever explaining that "the band hasn't split, two people have left it. We didn't all agree to split the band up. Two people said they wanted out and that's it. So what can you do about it?"

"It's just that we've got to carry on. It was a bit crazy but there it is and we're making the most of it," says Graham.

At the time of the announcement in December, 10cc's management was quoted as saying that it would not discount the possibility of a reconciliation. Adding that "time will tell." Would Eric and Graham agree with that?

"No," says Eric, "I'd rule it out entirely.

"It's like suddenly being given your head after four years of being held back. Once you get a taste of it it's very exciting. I'm more excited now than I have been since the 'Sheet Music' album. It's a great feeling and I don't want to give it up."

"I suppose there is an ego thing because with each track there's twice as much of you there than was there before. If it fails you're twice as much to blame, but that's the chance."

Realistically, however, there is little chance they will fail. After all, they've got the group name, which stands for rather a lot.

"Can I pick you up on that? I don't really think that 200,000 buy a record on a name," says Graham.

Obviously, but the fact that there's a 10cc market already established means that they're assured of substantial interest and, more important, of plentiful radio play. It's what they've worked for in the past as 10cc. "We've got a head start," agrees Graham, "but if the music's no good, we'll fail."

Eric: "We've had a couple of letters from fans who said 'I bought your record and I think it's disgusting, I think it's not good enough — you should all get back together, you've blown it.' We've had a few of those. A lot of people must've been very upset that the four-piece has suddenly disappeared. I mean, I know what I felt like when the Beatles split up. I felt 'This is terrible, there's nothing in music now'."

On the other hand, they say, they've had a lot of encouragement from fans and especially from deejays who reckon it's "the best record we've released. Very strange," says Eric.

Do they think it's the best 10cc record? (Unison) "No."

"I'll tell you what it is," says Eric. "It's one of the most honest records that we've ever made. There's no frills on it."

Of the other songs completed for the forthcoming album (provisionally titled "Deceptive Bends," it comes from a road sign outside Dorking), there is one called "Good Morning, Judge," which they played at Knebworth. It's about a petty criminal who has become institutionalized, can't cope with responsibility outside prison and, immediately on release, commits another crime to get back inside. "It's a rocker, an out-and-out rocker with quite a few production things, it's quite intricate. It was the first track we recorded. The freshness is amazing. We still get off on it."

The second track cut was the single, then the B-side, then a ballad, which they tried three times before leaving it, finally coming back to it afresh. "Which is just what happened on 'I'm Not In Love' in fact. With this ballad we're doing now, it's called 'People In Love.' We tried to record it but couldn't get off on it.

"Somehow, eventually we got the right combination — exactly the same, the same instruments but suddenly the right timing hit. When we got the take it was magic."

They're having a string part scored ("10cc cop out, I can see the headlines" smiles Eric) for them by Del Newman. "It cries out for a string arrangement," says Eric. And, adds Graham, "rather than spend ten months getting a string sound we thought 'Let's use strings, the real thing.'"

Newman is also working part of another track; they called it "a piece," called "Feeling The Benefit" (a most appropriate title, I felt) which is made up of three parts and lasts 11 minutes. "It's quite," Graham says in his best [undecipherable] mayoral accent, "a substantial item!"

"It goes through six different phases of changes within the song. Three we're going to score with an orchestra versus using anything that we own than we've done in the past. We have all these little weird tapes that we've dug out, new tapes as well, to produce sounds. So this three-part thing, it only took three days to write — it all started to fit together," says Eric.

"It's very exciting to do something like this, because for something to last 11 minutes and hold your interest all the time it's got to be bloody marvellous, it's got to be fantastic. It's another challenge."

THEY are hard put to describe it's subject matter. "A lot of people will see whatever they want in it," says Eric.

Another song called "Honeymoon With B Troop" (at first I thought they said "Honeymoon with Beetroot," which raised all kinds of images which I dare not describe at this particular point) tells the tale of a Patrol Leader who marries and has to take the cubs on honeymoon.

"I remember reading something about some scout guy having to do this about five years ago. He actually took the cub pack on holiday to France. It's about what happens to him. It's a crazy song."

The short cut, called "I Bought A Flat Guitar Tutor," is a [?] lyric, the implications of which are followed closely by the chord sequence. (It's [undecipherable] and one could explain it further but they want its mystery to remain intact). "If you don't like it it only lasts one-and-a-half minutes and if you do you can play it again," smiles Graham.

The only other completed track is about catching a cold, which they suddenly dreamed up while driving. Naturally, one of them had a cold. "It's a sort of funky thing."

"Yeah, it's an optimistic look at having a cold if you see what I mean," says Graham, "when Eric sings it he sounds very pleased about it. In a way."

The musicians who are going to play this new material on stage are to be "given room to blow on stage because that's another thing that used to hang me up," says Eric, "we were so precise about the music on stage that we were never really able to do anything spectacular, everything was so strict. With a song like 'Paris' or something like that you couldn't put anything in there other than what there was; but, er, obviously the musicians we choose there'll be parts now where they can shine.

"When writing a song, I've always wanted to get to as many people as possible. Some people call it middle of the road but I think of it like the Beatles were middle of the road. That sort of middle of the road I would love for 10cc. I'm not interested in appealing to three guys in Mongolia who get off on a particular freaky lyric you've put in. I want to get to as many people as possible and the direct way is the way you actually talk to each other. So write it down that way. We write much faster because we write it as we say it, instead of trying to find a new way of saying it."

"It's rarely a radical rethink," says Graham, "if it needs that we usually say 'Forget it.' But I never fell that I have to go out of my way to be different. I think we do that on a production level, sometimes it's apparent sometimes it isn't. But in the actual writing I've got to like it, Eric's got to like it. If one of us doesn't then we've got to change it."

Over the last three years 10cc had been making in-roads into the vast American market for live rock and though they'd played most of the major cities it often felt like the equivalent, in Graham's words, of attempting to break the British market by playing one gig in Birmingham.

But, says Eric, "I think we've paid our dues there. I think the next band will be much more suited to America than the old 10cc was because we were playing to these bigger audiences and, as I said, you can't go into that humble rap, you're actually there to play to 80,000 people in a stadium."

"And it's got to hit exactly the right spot," says Graham. "It doesn't mean to say that we won't be [?] but it meant that there are certain things that won't go above people's heads. And no 'in' jokes and [?] jokes. There's no point in that."

The old 10cc seemed particularly fond of them. "I hate all that," agrees Graham.

Eric: "You've got to relieve the boredom, [?] have a joke on stage with each other, otherwise you'd go mad. But when you had the jokes becoming part of the set and people still don't know about them and they're the same jokes every night at the same moment between the same two songs at the same second . . . it's boring. It really is so boring."

"And embarassing," adds Graham.

THEY couldn't think of anything that the group lacked after its pruning. At first, says Graham, he thought the fact that they'd lost two voices might affect the range and frequency of vocals at their disposal but it hasn't turned out that way.

"To be honest with you," says Eric, "it might sound pretentious but I really don't miss anything. The overall freshness of the whole thing I really got off on. It's such a relief to be able to just talk to Graham about something.

"One of the most important things to do with 10cc was hit singles. We like singles. We always have done. And if you look at the singles over the last two years, 80 per cent of them have been Graham's and [?] as writers. We also have that going for us." Feeling the benefit? Absolutely.

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