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core ones. Schools today have a far greater
relevance to life outside which in itself is
much more diverse.
Did you enjoy school?
I was very homesick initially – but after I’d
settled in I had a good time and made some
good friends, although I don’t think we ever
thought we were supposed to enjoy school.
I think I was the first person at the
school to own an electric guitar. My
housemaster let me keep it in a cupboard
in the Geography hut because in the
afternoons, when I was allowed to practise,
it was miles away from everyone. Eventually
there was a band in my House, Field House,
and another emerged in Mac’s. There were
actually quite a few of us into rock/pop
music – in Segar’s there was John Silver,
who was the first drummer in the band that
became Genesis.
Music in general was nowhere near as
accessible to pupils as it is today. Unless you
were a music scholar it was slightly on the
fringe of school life.
After my early attempts to learn the
organ, I started formal lessons at Teddies
aged 13 with Peter Whitehouse. I was no
prodigy and a late starter and therefore
under no particular pressure; I was allowed
to discover music at my own pace and
to find out what I liked about it in a very
relaxed way. Yes, I did exams, but they didn’t
seem especially important at the time. I
found great calm in practising the organ and
in the peace of the Chapel.
If you watch a truly exceptional individual
at work – be they a dancer, footballer,
musician, or whatever – even as a layman –
it’s always obvious that they have something
special. I knew even then that Whitehouse
had that quality. He was an incredibly skilled
musician. I was greatly influenced by him
in life as well as in music; he gave me the
confidence to try things and he continued
to do that even after I left School. He
became a lifelong friend and I am always
thankful to Teddies for that. I was so
stressed when I started School (hopefully
that’s not the case for people now) that I
thought of it as some kind of necessary and
painful rehearsal for life, but looking back
at that friendship and a couple of others
too I see that School wasn’t just ‘school’
– as in five years in brackets – because it
offered connections and possibilities which
became a very real part of my life. I didn’t
fully understand that and certainly not the
importance of my relationship with Peter
until I knew him as an adult and worked
with him, which I did extensively.
How did you launch what has been a
hugely successful career?
I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to
do, other than play the guitar and not take
up the option I had to go to university,
which my parents didn’t seem to mind
about. I left school in 1968 – so there
was no anxiety about finding a job. The
security of knowing that had a wildly
liberating effect on all of my generation.
There was an explosion of nightclubs,
boutiques, bands, hairdressers, shops etc.
It was a cultural revolution of sorts but in
the certain knowledge that if you had half a
brain you could always get a regular job if it
went wrong.
I couldn’t really imagine I would actually
earn a living in music so I messed around
a lot. Played in a couple of bands and was
a delivery driver for an off-licence. I had
half wanted to become an actor and I sort
of did to the extent that I was rescued
from the off-licence by getting a part in
Alan Bennett’s first West End play,
Forty
Years On
. (I even made a brief appearance
in
Emmerdale
). As a result of that I was
encouraged to audition for, and was offered
a place at, Central School of Speech and
Drama but I turned it down because by
then I was making a bit of a start in music
- I had session work and a recording deal
and was also studying music again. And
following on from that I began to do some
arranging and orchestrating.
My first real break came when I had a
call from the Royal Shakespeare Company
saying a director wanted to meet me. I
had played guitar for them in a previous
production so I assumed that was the
reason but it turned out he was calling
Rehearsing
Planet Earth
at the Barbican
ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
FOCUS ON MUSIC