Phil May Interview Part 2

By Mike Stax
(Originally published in UGLY THINGS #6, 1986)
UT:	OK, we left off the first part of the interview with the departure of John Stax and Brian Pendleton, and the release of Emotions. How did you acquire John Povey and Wally Allen as new group members?
PHIL:	Well, because I grew up with Wally, we were at school together and various things. He and John had a band called the Fenmen, and they were local to where Dick and I lived, and it just sort of followed on naturally. We were broadening the band with some harmony things and that's what they specialised in.
UT:	So you knew them all through the sixties then?
PHIL:	Well, kind of, although we were playing a completely different circuit. Their kind of band, the music they were playing was different. But they started working with us doing vocal backing initially on demos and things. It seemed natural, they just kind of integrated into it.
UT:	John had played drums in the Fenmen, but you got him to play piano and keyboards.
PHIL:	Well he started piano beforehand and then got onto the drums, like a lot of kids; piano wasn't a particularly glamorous instrument so he switched to drums. But also, when Skip got off the drums he used to get on 'em. So we ended up with Skip playing out in the audience and John playing on the drum kit.
UT:	So how much did John and Wally contribute to the change in the Pretty Things' sound?
PHIL:	It's very difficult to say, because initially they weren't involved in the writing. The idea where we were moving towards -- there was just Skip, Dick and myself left -- we were moving towards that music that we eventually did end up doing, things like "Defecting Grey". They were on Emotions with us, but that was pretty much done before they arrived. When you start working with people obviously certain things that go well you aim towards more, because they seem to be working with the people you've got. So it's an almost subliminal direction change.
UT:	"Defecting Grey" was totally unlike anything you, or anyone else, had ever recorded before. What was the inspiration behind that song?
PHIL:	Well it was, again, trying to find a way of making music which wasn't just a straightforward three chords or five chords, and also not straightforward in content. It has about four or five vignettes all going on, which you keep going back to. I mean, it was our mini-version of S.F. Sorrow, that's really what it was. Basically it was about somebody who was very straight who was changing their life, and so the whole thing changed over from being quite straight musically into something more complicated, more complex, if you know what I mean. It was meant to be lyrically and story-wise a musical change. So the whole thing changes over -- the change is going on throughout the song with all the different instruments.
UT:	What was the initial reaction from your long term fans to the new sound?
PHIL:	I don't know, it was pretty mixed really. A lot of people sort of thought we'd gone mad. It ended up being a sort of eight minute single which nobody would play, 'cos they said it was too long. It got played a little bit, but it wasn't 'commercially viable'. In those days everything was meant to be under four minutes, you know? But then, of course, you had things like "Emily" and certain Floyd things coming out that slightly broke that down. But there was a lot of reaction -- but also I think a lot of people didn't really understand it anyway.
UT:	The other side of the single – "Mr. Evasion" -- was that written about any particular person, or was it more about a type of person?
PHIL:	Again it was just sort of about establishment figures, people who were in the establishment who at the time were thinking, or maybe were actually breaking out.
UT:	Did you experiment at all with LSD, and do you feel this had any influence on what you were doing musically at the time?
PHIL:	LSD? Oh yeah, sure! Around that time we experimented with everything. Especially during S.F. Sorrow as well.
UT:	Do you think it had a big effect on what you were doing musically?
PHIL:	I don't know. I suppose the answer to that is it must have done, because it had quite a large influence on a lot of things we were doing at the time. I mean not just musically but in one's life. So I don't think the music could have been … unaffected!
UT:	How did you live shows at this time differ from the R&B years?
PHIL:	Well we started using more visual things, visual props -- like models of the band made out of hardboard and plywood cut out and painted, pianos filled with flowers that Skip would then smash up with a pick-axe -- we had the piano all wired up. We were constantly looking for new ways of making music. John was quite into his sitar things; he wanted to play that onstage. Just the sort of things everyone was trying with experimentation. I mean, in retrospect it seems slightly pretentious and affected, but it wasn't really at the time done for that reason, not consciously.
UT:	Was it difficult to reproduce stuff like "Defecting Grey" live?
PHIL:	Very difficult, yeah. But, I mean, not impossible. It just took a certain amount more discipline, and also switching of instruments. We weren't particularly sophisticated technically -- like you could do it onstage now, I mean there's no problem -- it was more like a question of technical expertise, which people like the Floyd were working on all the time. Half of their music came out of their experimentation with technical, er, technical techniques, if you like! (laughs)
UT:	Would you use tape recordings onstage to help augment your sound?
PHIL:	We only ever used it once, that was when we did a mime show of S.F. Sorrow. We didn't ever really use tapes as a backing track which the Floyd, as I say, were doing quite professionally. All those things you could do then in the studio, but on the road it was still very much the basics -- Vox amps and things. We had mellotrons, but we didn't have, sort of, Korgs or synths, or the kind of things which could have actually done the job. The keyboard player, instead of having to change instuments would have just changed sounds, and would have programmed in the sounds he needed.
UT:	How did you first conceive S.F. Sorrow?
PHIL:	I wrote it just as a short story. When we were sitting around I think I suggested that I had an idea, the start of something. And Dick must have approved it, and the other guys must have approved it, 'cos I then expanded it and wrote in characters, and it really just came out of that.
UT:	Did you ever think of publishing that or anything?
PHIL:	No, not really. I feel it's sort of done its job. It's like doing the book of a play, I mean it's obviously what it was, it was a record.
UT:	Yeah. So you stuck very much to the original text of the story as far as the lyrics of the songs went and suchlike?
PHIL:	We tried to make the lyrics tell the story. We liked lyrics that worked, so you didn't have hundreds of choruses of sort of, "Moon in June, moon in June, moon in June," 'cos in five minutes you had to pass over the episode and communicate what had just happened. And in certain characters quite a lot of things are happening.
UT:	How long did the album take to record?
PHIL:	God, we were at it for about six months. I mean, not solidly because we didn't have that kind of studio bookings, but we'd have like two weeks here and two weeks there, and also we were working as well, so we had to keep going off on tour and then we'd come back and do a bit more. We made "What's Good For The Goose" during it, which meant we were sort of three or four weeks filming in which we worked on it in rehearsals, kind of rewrote things, 'cos we weren't in the studio, 'cos we were in the other end of England.
UT:	So did your producer, Norman Smith, have a big hand in your sound at this time?
PHIL:	Yes he did. He was like a sixth member really.
UT:	Who is that reciting the names of the dead and missing at the end of "Private Sorrow"?
PHIL:	Norman.
UT:	Songs like "Trust" and "Loneliest Person" present a very disillusioned and pessimistic view of the world. Was this just you documenting Sorrow's state of mind as he grew older, or was it also a reflection of your own personal feelings at the time?
PHIL:	AIt was really in character with the character, but also reflecting general misgivings. But it was in keeping with what had happened to him. I mean "The Loneliest Person" was just really about somebody who loses somebody. It was really about him and the situation.
UT:	Right, but it could be translated into a more universal situation.
PHIL:	Yeah, it could be but it wasn't particularly how I felt; it was putting myself in the position of the character and trying to convey that feeling. The thing was to try and make the characters have sort of three-dimensional shape, rather than just be names of songs. We were trying to flesh out the characters in the songs so that they actually had some life of their own. Things like "Baron Saturday" which was based in all the voodoo/papadolk things.
UT:	Who's that singing lead on "Baron Saturday"?
PHIL:	Dickie. It's the only thing he ever sang on.
UT:	What were the circumstances behind Dick's departure from the group in 1969?
PHIL:	Well, he'd kind of had enough of being on the road and of the "showbiz" thing. I don't know, we were speaking about it the other day -- he'd just had enough, y'know?
UT:	So that must have come as a pretty big blow when he decided to leave.
PHIL:	It did, yes. But when you get to feel that you have somebody under strain keeping it going. He was doing less and less involved with the band so it wasn't such a great rend in that sense, because we were having to, sort of, cover for him. He just wasn't putting it into it. So only his presence was missing -- his talent -- but his actual contribution, at that time, had gone down to pretty much zero. He wasn't instrumental in the direction at that time, so therefore it wasn't quite such a blow as it could have been.
UT:	So did he work at all on the Parachute album or any of the songs while they were in their formative stages?
PHIL:	No, that was really all Wally and myself. What I'm saying is the direction had been taken over and Dick was just playing at that time, y'know? He admits that, he was just going along because he didn't know how to stop. So it wasn't quite such a shock when he left.
UT:	So Wally really filled in a lot of Dick's previous role in the band as far as his contribution in songwriting and arranging?
PHIL:	Wally and I started writing together, that was different, and that meant that there was still writing strength to carry the thing on. The whole Parachute thing was sort of under way in terms of song ideas so it was OK, apart from finding somebody who would have replaced Dick on guitar -- which was pretty much impossible -- but then it wasn't a guitar-oriented album. At that time the songs weren't coming from guitar riffs -- more chord structures and song ideas.
UT:	What was the concept behind Parachute?
PHIL:	Well, it was again a concept thing, but trying to simplify it. It was one side 'country' and one side 'city'. It was various episodes which related to city living, which a lot of people were thinking about at the time -- dropping out and going to the country. It was just really giving both sides -- not particularly making a personal decision on it, just reflections on both environments. I've personally lived in both and always have done, for work I prefer the city. Basically the songs are just little cameos of various things that happen in either of those two different environments.
UT:	What does the title mean?
PHIL:	Well it was all about escape. It's like jumping out with a parachute is an escape and it's like almost kind of a ritualistic suicide, but you have something strapped to your back that nine times out of ten is going to open. You're not actually really jumping off. And that is what I felt about a lot of the people – they were dropping out, but hoped they could still come back. They could get back.
UT:	Which songs on that album do you feel work the most successfully? What are your personal favourites?
PHIL:	AI haven't heard it for a while. One of my favourite ones I remember doing was, I suppose, "Grass'. I just liked it as a song. I suppose one of the strongest image songs was "Cries From The Midnight Circus". That to me might have said more about the city environment than "Grass" said about the country, I don't know. But to me 'Grass' is a kind of favourite song.
UT:	What about "Sickle Clowns"? What's that about?
PHIL:	It's a pastiche of the "Easy Rider" thing, again on the escape -- if you read the lyrics it is kind of an ode to "Easy Rider", which had a large effect on people here, and I know in America too, when it came out. It did sum up quite a lot about the kind of confusion, people who distrusted values, and changing values -- out of paranoia really. I'm not really sure what they were doing. I mean, that was sort of an escapist film -- they tried to run out, and the Angels, all the chapters were doing it -- the whole dropping out thing.
UT:	What about the title cut -- that's really strange and great -- how did that song come about?
PHIL:	It was reflections of the album itself, and also we wanted that as a kind of tailpiece that would coda all the things that the album had hopefully gone through -- to give it a kind of symphonic finish and go for the build.
UT:	Did you do that song live ever?
PHIL:	No, again technically it was very possible, but the trouble with mellotrons is that every time you moved them they went out of tune. So you'd get two days into the tour and the thing would be out and you wouldn't get to play it, so it'd have to go in for a re-service. That's why they never really left the studios, because the things were hopeless in any way if they got slightly jogged or knocked.
UT:	So you could only do certain songs live off that album?
PHIL:	Yeah. Also by then we were doing quite a mixture of things anyway. There was an awful lot of tracks to do. Every time we went on the road about half our stuff was brand new; we hadn't recorded it yet. There was sort of a natural perverseness in the band that the minute we put it on record people (in the band) didn't want to play it so much; they wanted to do the new stuff we'd worked on. Then at least a third of the show we were playing to people they'd never heard before.
UT:	Victor Unitt didn't last too long, why did he leave?
PHIL:	Well, he was a nice bloke, but he didn't contribute much musically. He was like a journeyman guitarist, and he didn't really fit with the band, basically. He didn't stamp his mark on things; he didn't make the fate of the band his own. What happens in a band, of course, is that people in the band resent working with people that don't feel as committed as the rest of them are. And that's not just from me, that was a general feeling: "Is this guy just along for the ride? Does he really care? What's up?" I think Vic just didn't feel comfortable; he didn't feel it was his place.
UT:	About this period--from "Defecting Grey" to Parachute -- the Pretty Things seemed to be light years ahead of anyone else, in terms of what you were doing musically. Was it frustrating that other, less-deserving groups were getting more attention?
PHIL:	Yeah, it was frustrating, but there was not very much we could do about it, because we couldn't go backwards at that point, because we were quite excited, I suppose, with what we were doing musically. I also think that everyone believes that at some stage it'll all come good and you'll get your just desserts. I don't think that's necessarily true, but what I'm saying is that when you're working at it you assume that. You know, when Rolling Stone makes Parachute album of the year and things it seems that it is gonna crack, but what did happen was that the band cracked -- just under the strain of not getting recognition it started to fall apart. It's something you don't particularly notice until suddenly you've got a crisis at hand. The band actually had split up before we made Freeway Madness (1972). It was only by Skipper working with somebody else. It (Parachute) happened to be playing on his car stereo, the guy who was managing the new outfit that Skip was in (Sunshine) he goes, "Who's that?" and Skip explained to him, "Well, why did you split up? Surely you should get back together?" And that's kind of how the band happened, that's how Freeway Madness came about. It's funny, when I said that Skipper's sitting next to me and he confirmed that I'm right, 'cos my wife doubted that fact.
UT:	So do you feel that the controversial image the group had acquired during the early part of your career made critical and commercial acceptance more difficult later on?
PHIL:	Well, yeah, I think the fact that it was so different, it had gone through such a rapid series of changes that people just didn't accept it. They couldn't believe that if "Don't Bring Me Down" was good therefore something like S.F. Sorrow or Parachute could have been as honest or as good because it was different. Whereas maybe if the band had changed their name they might have got away with it more, because people could have listened to S.F. Sorrow and Parachute and not been influenced by the fact that they knew the same band recorded "LSD" and "Don't Bring Me Down" and whatever else. But we felt we would have been dishonest if we'd done that.
UT:	Yeah! 'Cos it was still the Pretty Things!
PHIL:	Yes! That's what we thought. People would say, "Well, all stay together but change your name," and I said, "Well, surely that's pointless, kind of more dishonest." Also we were never very good at having a commercial awareness of how we were coming across in that sense. It was very much a 'heads down' period; we just worked. We made what we thought were good records and got on with writing the way we wrote, and weren't particularly aware of our place in time and space -- I mean in terms of just wanting record sales or work or whatever was happening at the time. We never really managed to get ourselves in a commercial frame of mind and say, "This is what they want. Let's now go home and write these kind of songs and make this kind of album."
UT:	So your creative ambitions were always very much above your commercial ones.
PHIL:	Well, you can serve it up for so long, and then eventually you get the plug pulled on you and people won't pay for another album. And that's what can happen. EMI lost faith in us, because people in the accounting department can be told that a band could be great and is really a musical breakthrough, but if their figures don't show it, you really don't cut it with them. They're the people who sign out the checks, and they're really the people with the power. They don't know T. Rex from Pretty Things, all they know is that "Ride A White Swan" is Number One and we're in the alternative charts at number 44 or something! They don't care; it's just figures on a paper to them at some stage.
UT:	So, looking back, do you have any real regrets about the way your whole career was handled?
PHIL:	No, not really. Because I can't really see what else we would have done. If we would have done anything different, I mean if we would have made a whole different bunch of albums then, I suppose, it would have been different -- but that doesn't really say necessarily better. The thing is I think we got musical reward, but if we would have chopped and changed we might not have got that, and still might not have got the commercial success. I mean you just really go along with what you feel, and also what we felt we were good at; we were making the material we liked and enjoyed making. I don't think any of us was particularly too aware that there was an alternative that we could have done successfully. I don't think we felt that we particularly had a choice, other than going off to join different bands who were doing more commercial stuff. I don't think as a unit we could have put together a more commercial package. I don't particularly believe in that. I think you can be too obscure for your own good sometimes, but in the case of S.F. Sorrow, we just made what we made, we weren't particularly setting out to be 'obscure'. It wasn't a conscious effort to ostracize ourselves from the rest of the world, or from the rest of our music. We thought we were just making another album that might interest people.