Peter Frampton: A Life in Music
Posted in: Classic Rock, Feature Stories, Frontpage, Interviews, Rock Guitar Interviews
http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/2010/12/16/peter-frampton-a-life-in-music/Steven: I know there were a few bands sort of pre-Herd. Trubeats and the Preachers, and it was through the Preachers that Bill Wyman actually produced the band?
Peter:Yes. That was my big break, when I was 14.
Steven: Were you that good that Bill Wyman was interested in you? He wasn’t in the Stones then, was he?
Peter: No, he was.
Steven: Oh, he was?
Peter: Oh, absolutely. This was 1964. When I met them they’d already had “19th Nervous Breakdown.”
Steven: What was that like for you?
Peter: Well, the van came to pick me up; the group van, with all the gear in it, to go to the first recording session. We passed by Bill’s house. He lived in South London, over a garage, in an apartment, and Bill came out and everyone went deadly silent.
I just kept mouthing to the other guys in the band, who were all much older than me, [whispers excitedly] “We’ve got a Rolling Stone in the front seat!” [laughs]
That was my first brush with greatness. Now, I realize, he wasn’t so great. No, he’s been my friend, he’s like my older brother. He’s a dear, dear life-long friend. We’ve had many, many great times together. He’s just one of those genuine, wonderful people. I wish everybody was like him. He’s a super guy.
Steven: How did he even know about this little band, the Preachers?
Peter: Well, therein lies the tale. He didn’t know I was in the band. What happened was I was working on Saturdays at the local music store, which was actually a department in the big Robertson’s Electric Store. You could buy a washing machine, a record player. But, there was a music division and they went overboard and we had Gretschs, Strats, Teles.
We had the whole deal. This was 1964. We had 335s, 175s . If I think of all the guitars I used to have to clean and re-string every Saturday, my God they would be worth a fortune now!
I worked on Saturdays and basically all the top local musicians would come in and I would jam with them, in the shop, to sell them something. You know? This guy called Tony Chapman came in, and he was the drummer, at that particular time, of the band I was to join later, the Herd; different personal, still the same band. Well, his story is this. He was the original drummer of the Rolling Stones. It was Tony, Brian, Mick and Keith. They had no bass player.
So, Tony went to school with Bill, Beckenham and Penge Grammar School. And he said, “Well, I know this bass player, and he’s got a van, too.” So, I think that was a big part of why he got the job [laughs]. No, I’m joking. You know how big a van was in those days. Who wanted to put their stuff in your dad’s car and possibly damage it, you know? This is the very beginning of the Rolling Stones. It’s in the book and everything.
What happens was, they get offered what they feel is their break into the big time. No records yet, but they get offered a residency in Wardour Street at the Flamingo Club. And Rik and Johnny Gunnel, who were the people who did the Isle of Wight Festival, they owned the place, and that was where they started.
You could see the early Manfred Mann there; you could see Jack Bruce and the Graham Bond Organization; you could see Eric and the Bluesbreakers there. You know, it was all those very cool musical bands; it wasn’t poppy at all.
So anyway, Johnny or Rik Gunnel offered the Stones a residency there, but one of the other of them said to Mick or Keith or both, “You can have the residency on Saturday night throughout the summer,” which was the piece de resistance because you get all the tourists as well. And they said, “But, not with that drummer.”
So, exit Tony, enter from Alexis Korner’s band, Charlie [Watts], and Bill felt terrible. But, for whatever reason, I won’t go into Tony’s personality [laughs].
Steven: Oh, really?
Peter: You know, I mean, obviously he burned his bridges with the Preachers. So Bill said, as Tony was leaving the building I guess, “I feel so indebted to you that if you ever get a band together I’ll produce it for you.”
Voila! Enter Tony into Robertson’s in Beckenham on Saturday for a pair of sticks and he sees me jamming with some other musicians, you know. He’d left the other band, the Herd, for sort of the same reasons. And he says, “I’m forming this band called the Preachers and Bill Wyman is gonna produce us.
Do you wanna join the band? It’s a semi-pro band.” I said, “Well, I’m still at school, you know?” and he said, “Well, we’ve all got jobs so, you know, it’s not gonna be a burden. What do you think?” Then he said, “Come around to my house and I’ll give you some albums to listen to and this is the sort of stuff I wanna do in the band
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Peter Frampton and Bill Wyman (Read 583 times)
