Procol guitarist Richard
Brown: BtP interview
Prospects with the band
Dear reader ... you are advised to read the preface to this interview and draw your own conclusions
'Beyond the Pale'
It sounds as though you did a lot of sitting around!
Richard Brown
While I worked with the band, the difference in pace was very
difficult for me to cope with, and I was also the youngest member
at the time. For example, before joining them, when I toured
doing the Manchester clubs and the Northern cabaret circuit for
instance, we sometimes did two or even three gigs a night. We
owned two sets of gear including two drum kits and packed up our
guitars as soon as the curtains came down at one venue, kept our
stage clothes on and went straight to the next gig, in a taxi,
while two of our four roadies were loading the van to leap-frog
to another booking.
It was an intense time gig-wise and the money in those venues
in those days was excellent, which was why I was able to afford
just about the best equipment available in those days, unlike
most working musicians on the scene ...
When I moved to London, working with Procol was very low-key
after that level and pace of work, but the quality of the music
made it all worth while, even though nothing much was happening.
Why was nothing much happening?
A criticism of the band in those days might be that they
lacked an organised musical direction, and in some senses that
would be justified. For example at rehearsals, Gary would play us
chords of the songs and I'd develop a counterpoint to the vocal
line as a possible future lead line or something to base a solo
around, and then I'd voice the chords for guitar, and Dave would
add melodic bass lines to the drum and Hammond parts. Apart from
that there was no proper 'arrangement' procedure, except for an
unspoken general consensus of how the music was going; there was
no 'arranger' in the traditional sense and no-one was in charge
of 'nailing' the sound or the style.
If it worked musically, then we played it next time. Keith's
contribution in this area was probably underestimated and
overlooked, in that the lyrics always came first when he and Gary
were writing, and the melody second.
Of course, lyricists in those days being considered an
integral part of the band was virtually unheard of (Pete Brown's
contribution to Cream arguably wasn't a fraction of that of
Reid's to Procol ) and obviously the pace and metre of Keith's
lyrics played a huge part in the band's sound ... At the end of
the day, it all worked and came together and somehow he managed
to scrawl lines and lines of amazingly inspired surreal and
visionary images on to crumpled bits of paper, usually penned in
a strange and haunting iambic pentameter.
So Guy wasn't driving things
along, exactly?
Guy Stevens was very positive about the band (we were his boys
of course) and he sometimes dragged us around London with him to
meet with people who could 'do things for us' ... We would meet
Gary from the Southend train when he came up from his mom's and
go off to these 'meetings' which were usually held in strangely-decorated
bohemian cafés. Invariably, fluorescent posters of Gandalf's
Magic Garden or the Grateful Dead were sellotaped on to the wall
and a smell of essential oils and hashish pervaded everything.
Reidy sat and puffed his Gauloises and people wore green and
purple velvet hats and cloaks and cheesecloth shirts, and
everyone looked like stoned beatniks or hippies and read Oz,
or copies of Rolling Stone.
We all thought we would change the world, and why not? After
all, the age of Aquarius had just dawned, and what mere mortal
could stand in the way of the planets in their celestial courses?
Ahhh. Those were the days!
I remember, I felt totally incongruous sitting there drinking
Earl Grey tea dressed in my Levi gear ... I rarely wore anything
else (being the consummate 60s bluesman - and just paying my dues
... ). I had white Levi suits, beige corduroy ones ... and at
least two or three washed-out denim ones ... Sad act ...
You could afford these suits
and fancy teas, then?
On the organisation and finance side, Guy was in charge of the
money and paid us promptly (every Friday) and then deducted money
for food. Unfortunately after that there was very little left!
Really though, he kept the band together. He arranged all the
rehearsals, phoned around for halls, and organised when and where
people had to be picked up ... without him, the band would never
have got anywhere ...
Yet you didn't play live with
them?
Guy wasn't very confident in getting us gigs. I suppose in
retrospect, that the London scene was very different to the
venues I'd been playing up North, especially for an original band
just starting out. I mean if you were the manager ... how could
you sell them?
You'd maybe say ... "Um ... they're sort of like ... um
... now who can I compare them with? Um ... .well I guarantee you
that they're totally original and like nothing you've ever heard."
The promoter would go ... "Uh? ... No ... I think I'll
pass on that lot if you don't mind ... Have you got the phone
number for Herman's Hermits?