We're not that rich, say 10 cc, it's:

Record Mirror & Disc, 13 december 1975, pp. 6-9
By David Hancock

MONEY, it would appear, is big business.

For a start there's the Rollers who reckon it's all Money Honey and now there's 10cc busy yelling 'money for God's sake'.

Now that's pretty strange when you realise that 10cc's transfer fee from UK Records to Mercury was for £1,200,000 over the next five years. It would appear they have more than enough.

So why the cynicism of their latest hit single Art For Art Sake? Are they the reincarnation of Frank Zappa's We're Only In It For The Money?

'Money talks so listen to it
Money talks to me
Anyone can understand it
Money can't be beat.'

Judging by those sentiments maybe they are.

Let's say their production techniques have taken them to a new understanding, an understanding that technology can buy you money, backing tapes can buy you fame.

It's a good theory but it doesn't hold water . . .

The photogenic Eric Stewart comes over as a commanding professional.

The band are currently in the States trying to consolidate the following they found with I'm Not In Love. But being professionals they managed to return to London for a few interviews and the inevitable Top Of The Pops.

Most of the idea behind Art For Art's Sake came from Eric.

Split

"We were just thinking of people who want to make money out of the business and then split, leave the country," he says.

"Graham didn't quite like the idea of it because he thought we shouldn't be so controversial, but it's just another sacred cow to have a go at.

"You see we're in it for the music, not for the money. We haven't made any money, as Jonathan King will tell you.

"The money side of things is left to the management, the biggest buzz of all for us is going on stage and playing the music for people."

They'll be playing that music for British audiences in February and March next year. It'll include music from a new album called How Dare You which is released January 9. The album is the long-waited successor to The Original Soundtrack and is expected to be an even bigger money-spinner.

It's a concept album in that all the tracks are concepts in themselves but there's no central theme, says Eric.

"There's enough in one track to make a concept album of if you're one of those groups that like to pad things out. We don't.

"Take for instance the One Night In Paris track on the last album. That was originally 30 minutes long and after playing it over and over to each other we said 'We're just padding it for padding's sake.' In the end we cut it to eight minutes.

"But sometimes we stretch things. I'm Not In Love was quite short. That one was stretched because we got off on the sound of those voices. We were intoxicated with it and got carried away."

Eric moves on to a breakdown of the new album.

HOW DARE YOU: "It's an instrumental track which is something new for us since the days of Neanderthal Man (remember Hotlegs?)."

Lazy

LAZY WAYS: "It's a vocal thing but like I'm Not In Love it's a sound record where the sound is more important than the lyric. It's about a guy who stays in bed. He's lazy."

I WANT TO RULE THE WORLD: "It's about a 13-year-old boy who wants to rule the world. It's a very strange track, believe me."

MANDY: "It's about an air hostess and I think it was triggered off by the advert 'I am Randy fly me', or something like that."

ICEBERG: "This one's a psychopath in New York. A heavy-breathing-on-the-telephone type of fella who goes around cutting people's insides out. Not a nice person to know."

ART FOR ART'S SAKE: "It's a lot longer than the single and it's a re-mixed version. In fact we had to do a totally different cut for America too. They want their singles even shorter and shorter, which is stupid."

ROCK 'N' ROLL LULLABY: "It's ambiguous in the way we used to do ambiguous things. It's a lullaby that a modern pop parent would sing to a kid but nobody would go to sleep with it. The words are rather nice, it's a pleasant song."

GIMME SOME HEADROOM: "It's the story of a guy learning about sex . . . and it'll probably be banned in America . . . "

Divorce

DON'T HANG UP: "This is what I think's the best track on the album. It's where the How Dare You album title comes in. It's about a man and wife's telephone conversation when they are going to get a divorce. It goes through all types of time changes and different parts of the world. It's my favourite."

But 10cc don't just get their money (for God's sake) from being solely artists. Much of their talent lies in the equally lucrative field of production, most noticeable recently with Blue Guitar for Justin Hayward and John Lodge.

"I was really knocked out to see that in the charts," enthuses Eric. "We heard about it when we were in the States. We all got nicely drunk that night.

"We were always good friends with the Moody Blues from the time of Hotlegs when we did a tour with them, and since then I've carried on a friendship thing with Justin, who also owns a part of Strawberry studios.

"We had a few weeks spare around Easter and Justin had a song he didn't think suitable for anything he was going to do, so we went into Strawberry studios and cut Blue Guitar. It turned out so nice we thought we'd go the whole way and put strings on it so we got Del Newman in, and then it was mixed by Tony Clarke at Threshold.

"I tried to mix it but I couldn't get it anywhere near as good as that."

Eric can't say whether it'll be a permanent combination or not.

But he is emphatic that their love for Strawberry Studios is over. The new album is probably the last thing they'll record there.

"The studio is so successful now that we can't get in," explains Eric. "So now we're building a new studio in Surrey to be called Strawberry South. It's being built out of an old cinema in Dorking."

In case you think 10cc already have enough strings to their bow, you're wrong. There's yet another way that the money (for God's sake) can come pouring in and that's via films.

Movie

"We've been approached to write the music for Superman, a new 10 million dollar movie. It'll be great if we get it but it'll probably go to one of the big names like John Barry or Paul McCartney, or somebody like that.

"It'll be nice to do because we're really into films and comics and cartoons. It comes through in most of the songs," points out Eric astutely.

What also comes through is the crisply polished production which has caused 10cc to bear the brunt of criticism that has labelled them a fastidiously manufactured studio band.

Are they divorcing themselves from the real human power and emotion that rock thrives on or are they, like Queen, pioneers of a new ever-changing techno-rock?

"Rock music is getting away from the raw earthy stuff it was earlier and I think that's a good thing," states Eric.

"Theres a helluva lot more music around now than even a year ago and I think we've influenced the field slightly. People are becoming a lot more adventurous with seven minute singles and the like.

"I'd like to see the day when there's a 12-minute single.

"We don't actually record a specific single but do a collection of tracks for an album and then try to pick out which is the most commercial for the time.

Smash

"But quite frankly I wouldn't worry if we never have another hit single. It would be nice to be in the position of, say, Pink Floyd where you know if you released a good album it's going to be a smash whether it's two years after the last one or not," he continues.

"It would be nice to know you don't have to rush out a single like we've done in the past. We've said, 'Well we haven't got a single in the charts, better get one out because we've got a tour coming up.'

"Fortunately it's getting less and less important to do that and we would rather concentrate on albums."

Eric admits that it's also a sure-fire recipe for complacency but reckons that because there are four guys all writing and all singing there never will be that long gap.

"I don't think 10cc have really started yet. We're only just feeling confident to do things and by the time the next album's out there'll be a few surprises," he adds.

Those surprises are bound to keep 10cc up there as one of Britain's top bands which'll keep the money (for God's sake) flowing the right way. With the biggest known transfer deal for a British group and a hit single (I'm Not In Love) that sold nearly 3,000,000, these four boys ought to be doing the Wall Street shuffle, but they're not.

They're not even thinking of becoming taxiles, like so many other British stars.

Disgusting

"There's no chance of Britain losing us to America in spite of Harold Wilson's disgusting Labour Government," says Eric.

"We can't become tax exiles because we haven't any money. Anyway I'd hate to leave Britain because it's still pretty free here.

"Somebody told me something interesting last week. The percentage of people in Britain that earn over £5,000 a year is amazingly low. In fact it's 56,000 people out of 60 million. Isn't that amazing?

"And if you redistributed all the wealth in England it would give everybody an extra four quid."

'Give me you silver [sic]
Give me your gold [sic]
Make it a million
For when I get old'.

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