Chapter 17: Interviews

Double-J

Evening of September 28, 1976

We pressed the intercom button, a voice answered and we said who we were and that we were there to see Bob Hudson to appear on his show. A minute later a man came to the door, unlocked it, and let us in.

“G’day, I’m Marius, Bob’s producer. Come on in, you’re all a bit early, but we can go up to the studio,” he said.

He led us up two flights of stairs, down a dimly lit corridor, and into the control room or the studio. The place looked like it was a dump, there were boxes piled in the corners; half the lights were out; but the control panel looked fairly new.

“Take a seat, you must be Will,” he said, shaking my hand. “And Phil, and Megan. Okay, here’s how things work: we break for the news at eight; during that time, Bob will come out, and we’ll set you up in the studio. It’s just going to be a casual chat; he’ll ask you about how you got to form your group, the sort of stuff you play, nothing too deep. We want it to be like just a couple of musicians having a yarn, the more you can make it sound natural, the better. I see you bought some guitars, we’ll put mikes out for that, too.”

The break for the news came; we went into the studio, were introduced to Bob and took our seats. Marius checked our mike levels, and counted in after the news break.

“G’day, this is the Bob Hudson music show; we’re back with you; as I said before the news break I’ve got some others with me for the next hour or so.”

He then went on to say how he had been given a new album to listen to; he wasn’t sure whether it was the group’s name or the music we played was what interested him the most.

“Why don’t we start with how you got together, and picked probably one of the most interesting group names since ‘Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’?”

“I guess we started back around nineteen-seventy,” Phil said. “My brother and I and two mates from school got together, played surf music, covers of the Beatles, Stones, the Ventures, Shadows, stuff like that. Eventually we got some gigs, playing the local surf clubs, school dances, nothing all that huge. Then in late seventy-three, a friend of my brother was opening a dinner-dance club up at Newport, he wanted a band to play. We needed a keyboard player, so that’s how Will came in.”

“The music would be oldies, stuff from the forties and fifties, the sort of music our parents would have danced to when they were younger,” I continued. “What we wanted was to make it a romantic evening, the Mirage was going to be the sort of place that you’d take a woman to if you wanted to get lucky that night. Can I actually say that on the radio? Sorry.”

“We can say whatever we like, this is the ABC, so go for it,” Bob said. “How did you come up with the name, and what’s the story behind the album name, ‘Where’s Brian’? It’s got to be one of the most intriguing titles I’ve ever heard.”

“When we knew we had the offer of a regular gig at the Mirage,” Phil answered, “we knew we needed to come up with a name. Until then, it had just been ‘Let’s get Phil and Tommy’s band to play’. We all brainstormed, and someone said that lots of groups have names like ‘so and so and the whatevers’, like ‘Buddy Holly and the Crickets’, ‘Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’...”

“Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs,” I cut in.

“Well ... anyway, we realized we really didn’t have the traditional ‘front man’, then, I think it was you, Will, who suggested we have a non-existent ‘front man’, we put a microphone out for him, but he never turns up.

“So that’s how we came up with ‘Brian Roberts and the Roberttones’; at the start of each gig, we give a different reason why ‘Brian’ won’t be here that night. It didn’t take long before the audience twigged what was going on, soon they started calling out ‘Where’s Brian’ right at the start.

“Anyway, after a few months, my brother had to move to Armidale, with his work, and we got a new drummer, who’s our bass player’s brother. But Tommy was our lead vocalist, which meant Will had to take over singing, which he did until Megan joined almost two years ago and her younger sister joined us at the start of this year.”

“Seven of you; I guess I can call you a septet. So you’ve been playing at this dinner / dance place for almost three years?” Bob asked.

“Pretty much so; every Saturday night since the end of January, seventy-four,” I said. “Over the summer months, we would play Friday nights as well.”

“We have the advantage of knowing almost immediately what works, and what doesn’t,” Phil said. “When you see people up dancing, you know you’re doing something right.”

“It’s probably the best thing you can feel as a musician,” Megan continued, “seeing people dancing to the music you are playing. It’s like they are using their whole body to show their appreciation.”

“Okay, I’m going to play what I think is one of the best tracks on the album, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’; can you tell us a bit about that song?” Bob said.

“Well, that has been one of our most popular dance pieces,” Phil said. “It was one of the first ones we picked, before we started playing regularly, and it was so popular we had to change the arrangement to add some extra instrumental verses, to stretch it out.”

“For the album, we recorded the ‘short version’, pretty much as it was done in the Fred Astaire move ‘Swing Time’,” I said.

Bob cued up the track, and while it was playing, Megan and I sang along softly to it.

“Well, we got some bonus vocals with that one,” he said, when it had finished. “What is it about that song that makes it so popular?”

“When you are playing music for people to dance to,” Megan said, “it’s not enough just to hit the right notes, and sing the right words. You have to make sure the timing has just enough syncopation to it, not to the point where you lose the timing and rhythm, but with subtle pauses at the right points, you can’t but help but move your body to the rhythm.”

“The two of you, Megan and Will, sound very comfortable singing together, even then when you accompanied the record. How long have you been performing together?”

“We started back in early seventy-four,” I said. “It was a high school musical evening; our music teacher had us perform this old middle ages English folksong.”

“We had to dress up in costume, as if we were minstrels,” Megan said. “We looked pretty silly, in retrospect, but it was a good experience for us.”

“The song, I’m trying to remember the name, ‘Barbara Allen’, I think. God, it had a million verses, and it was so incredibly depressing; all about some young guy in this village, he had the hots for this woman...”

“Barbara Allen,” Megan said.

“And she spurned his advances, and over the course of the song, as he’s dying, he calls upon her to comfort him. She wants nothing to do with him, and he dies. When she hears the church bells tolling for his death, she realizes what she’s done, and she too dies of a broken heart.”

“The two are buried next to each other in the churchyard,” Megan continued. “And from their graves, a rose bush and a briar bush grow together and intertwine. Do you remember the tune, Will? Let’s sing a couple of verses.”

I checked the tuning of my guitar, and played the introductory chords. I nodded the timing, and we started singing.

In Scarlet town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling
And every youth cried well away
For her name was Barbara Allen

Twas in the merry month of May
The green buds were a swelling
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen

“It goes on for quite a few more verses, when first William dies, and then Barbara karks it as well, realizing what a cruel woman she was.

They buried her in the old churchyard
They buried him in the choir
And from his grave grew a red red rose
From her grave a green briar

They grew and grew to the steeple top
Till they could grow no higher
And there they twined in a true love’s knot
Red rose around green briar

“I’m sure it was written as a morality tale, originally,” I said.

“Although the image of the two bushes growing together is rather romantic,” Megan added.

“Now, there are also some more modern, up-tempo tracks,” Bob continued. “Are they for a younger audience?”

“Not really,” Phil said. “We have a set that is designed for jive and swing dancing; we normally fit that into the middle of the evening.”

“Okay, let’s hear one, I think this is you singing, Megan,” he said, and cued up ‘Da do run run’.

Again, Megan and I sang along softly with the record; rocking in our seats and doing a synchronised hand jive. Phil was strumming his guitar; even Bob was tapping time. When that track finished, Bob let it continue to the next one, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.

“There’s a big variety in styles you play,” Bob said. “Do any of you play in other groups, or have any other outlet?”

“Most of us do,” Phil said. “Will has recorded an album of rock and blues with another group, I play in an Australian Bush band, and Megan is in a jazz ensemble.”

“In fact, Will and I are in the studio this week, recording an album together,” Megan said.

“Can you tell us a bit about that, what style of music, are the songs originals or covers?” he asked.

“The album is tentatively called ‘Songs for Lovers’,” I said. “The idea is that once you’ve taken your girl up to the Mirage, and impressed her well enough to get her home with you; then you can play this album, and you’re guaranteed to score.”

Everyone else laughed.

“It’s a mix of covers, and some new stuff,” I continued. “We’ve got George Young producing again, he did the ‘Where’s Brian’ album, with two guys from the Master’s Apprentices, Glenn Wheatley and Jim Keays helping; and some of the guys from the Little River Band as backing musicians.”

“Wow; that’s a powerful lineup you have there,” Bob said. “When do you expect it out?”

“We will have all the tracks done by the end of this week, so allowing another few weeks for production, and all that, it should be out around the end of October or the beginning of November.”

“We will have to have the two of you back when the album comes out; maybe get you to perform some of the tracks live for the listeners. Now, before we wrap this up, maybe we can get another live performance?”

We had a quick discussion, and decided on ‘A Summer Song’.

“This is one that Megan and I sometimes do in our opening bracket,” I said. “It’s a cover of Chad and Jeremy’s ‘A Summer Song’.”

I counted us in; Megan added harmony to my lead vocals.

“Well, who says we don’t have variety here on the Bob Hudson show. That was part of the Sydney septet, the Roberttones; with their latest live album, ‘Where’s Brian’ which is out now. It’s worth listening to; they are seven top musicians, beautiful songs and arrangements, and as they said, it’s a record you would put on if you’ve invited someone home for the evening, and you hope to score. Thanks, Megan, Phil, Will, it was great having you in here, chatting, listening to you play. Maybe we can do this again another time ... now it’s a break for the news, and I’ll be back after with more of the latest Australian albums.”

The producer indicated that our mikes were now off; we gathered our stuff, and headed out to the control room.

“Thanks again for coming in,” Bob said. “I like having people in to play live; it gives a greater dimension to the music than me just playing the record, and talking about it. I hope things go well with sales, and with the album you two are working on. I mean it; I want the two of you in when it’s released.”

We shook hands, and thanked him for the opportunity to promote the album; then headed back to the street.

“Well, that was fun,” Phil said. “I enjoyed playing along with our record, live on air.”

“We’ll see if it does anything to the sales,” I said. “The latest figures, as of last week, were just under seven thousand sold.”

“Really? That’s pretty good,” he said. “How often do we get a cheque?”

“At the end of every month, they tally up the sales, work out what is due to us; at least we don’t have an advance to pay off before we get our cash. Over the weekend, the sales for this week will come in, and early next week they’ll get a cheque to Lori; she’ll deposit that into the bank account; I guess we have to pay John for all the legal work, but once that’s done, we will get our cut.”

In the car back to our house, Megan asked me about the last song we played.

“I was surprised you picked that song, the one that was yours and Cathy’s,” she said. “I would have thought it had bad memories for you.”

“Cathy? Who’s she?” I said; Megan pulled a face and punched me softly in the shoulder.

“You know what I mean, you dickhead.”

“Seriously, that’s all ancient history,” I said. “Sure, that song conjures up memories of my times with Cathy, but ... I’m with you and Lori now, and if I was going to get all morose every time something reminded me of her, then I’m not really over her, am I?”

“As long as you’re okay with us singing it; I thought the three of us sounded pretty good; having Phil play guitar with you on it was good. Maybe we can add that to our regular playlist, what do you think?”

“We could try that; although we’re not set up to have Phil playing with us in that opening set. What’s your guitar playing like? It’s not all that difficult to play the rhythm accompaniment for that song, maybe we can practice it over the next week, once the recording’s out of the way.”

“I would like that; do you think you can teach me? I’ve got my old guitar back at my apartment, what if we just head back there now, and pick it up. I probably need to get some new strings for it, but it’ll do for the time being. Maybe when the first cheque for the album comes in, I can get a decent acoustic-electric, like yours. How much are they; they probably aren’t as expensive as a true electric guitar?”

I turned back around, and we parked behind Megan’s apartment. Inside, we picked up her guitar, and she also suggested we take all her records across, too. Since we didn’t have any boxes to pack them in, we carried them out in bundles, and put them on the back seat of the car; using her guitar to wedge them against the seat back. We weren’t going far, so they shouldn’t slide around.

When we got home; we carried the records in; and Lori immediately said she would put them into the shelves in the living room with the other albums. First she would get a little coloured sticker to attach to each album cover, so we would know which ones were Megan’s, then they would go into the shelves. All properly ordered, of course; as only Lori could.

Lori told us she had recorded the interview off the radio onto a cassette; she said we sounded really good, particularly the last song. She was surprised that I would choose to sing that; but was happy that I was willing to sing that with Megan. By now, we were all rather tired; it had been a long, exhausting day, so we had a hot shower before getting into bed.

More Recordings

September 29 – October 1, 1976

As we arrived at the studio the next morning, George grabbed me.

“A question Will, can you play a Hammond organ?” he asked. “I’ve put a B3 in the studio; I think it will enhance some of the songs.”

“I’ve played one a couple of times, but I don’t really know how to get the best out of one.”

“No worries; I’ll call a mate, and get him in later today. By the way, that was great last night on Double Jay, too. Another question, last night the three of us had a bit of a discussion about what tracks to cut to your single. We all agreed that ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ should be on one side, but Jim and Glenn reckon ‘I’ve Got You Babe’ is just too corny.”

“Discussion? Is that what you call it?” Glenn Wheatley said. “It was a full blown argument, you just couldn’t see the point that Jim and I were making. Every time I hear that song, I think of those goof balls Sonny and Cher. Will and Megan do a much better job than the original, but it’s still a fucking goofy song.”

“Discussion, argument, it doesn’t matter,” George said. “The other two guys suggested we should go with ‘Unforgettable’ as the other side of your single. What do you two think?”

“You’re asking me?” I replied, laughing. “What the fuck do I know about what makes a good record; what would sell? I think the recording we got of ‘Unforgettable’ yesterday was probably one of the best renditions of it Megan and I have done, so if you guys think that’s what we should go with, it’s fine by me. You’re the experts; you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m happy with that, too,” Megan said. “Can we listen back to it, just so I can be sure it sounded as good as I thought it did as we were recording it?”

“Okay, let’s all hear it back, if everyone thinks it sounds good, we’ll go with that,” George said.

He cued the tape up, and we listened to the recording. As it played, Megan slipped an arm around my waist, and held me tightly to her. It sent shivers down my spine; hearing us and knowing what was going through our minds as we were singing. I had to admit, it was one of the best versions of that song that we had sung. It was agreed; the single would have ‘Unforgettable’ on the B-side, replacing ‘I’ve Got You Babe’. With that decided, it was into the day’s recording session. We spent the best part of two hours; working on the arrangement for ‘Lady’; mid-morning George’s friend, Rory Thomas arrived, to play the organ on the remaining tracks.

By lunchtime, we had one version on tape; I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. Considering today was really the first time I had sung it with a full backing group, which was only to be expected, but to maintain our schedule, we would have to do a lot of work on it after the lunch break.

“Feel like a quick walk outside?” Megan asked me. “Stretch our legs, get some fresh air to clear our heads, it’ll do us good.”

We headed outside the building; Megan slipped her arm around my waist as we started walking. I put my arm around her, too, and as we walked down the street, our hips bumped against each other. When we reached the corner, we looked around, trying to work out which way to go.

“We can walk up here to the left,” I said, “and we should be able to go all the way around the block, and get back to where we started.”

“Can I ask you a rather personal question, about when we recorded ‘Unforgettable’ yesterday afternoon?” she asked. “What were you thinking about to get yourself in the right frame of mind to sing it the way you did?”

“Well ... there were a lot of thoughts going through my mind, both before we started singing and during it. When we started the song I looked across at you, and thought back to the start of seventy-five, when we did that week of rehearsing in my bedroom, and how almost immediately there was that strong attraction and desire for each other. I thought about the first time we made love; in your apartment, and the dinner afterwards. That was probably the most wonderful time of my life with a woman; I think that was when I first realized what ‘making love’ actually meant, as opposed to ‘having sex’ or ‘just fucking’.

“I looked around the studio, and I realized that most of the others were older than us; in their thirties and I wondered just how we would be when we were that age. You know, we rarely think much about the future; I mean, if we talk about ‘the future’ at all, it’s like how we will have to find a new place to live by the end of this year, or maybe what we might do when we graduate. We don’t think more than a year or two ahead. But I realized that in twenty-three years, not only will it be a new century, but a new millennium. We will be in our early forties, and I tried to imagine what we might be doing by then.

“Now, you might think what I’m about to say is silly; and I’m not trying to pressure you into anything; you wanted to know what I was thinking of. I pictured us; the three of us still living together, but with a bunch of kids, two of them yours, and two Lori’s. We were still very much in love, but now matured into a comfortable middle-aged life together.”

“Oh,” she said, and we walked up to the next corner in silence.

“Is that how you hope things turn out?” she asked after a few minutes. “You, Lori, me, still together, and with children; I guess our combined children. At least with Lori and me together, we would always have someone available to care for our kids.”

“Is that how I hope things turn out between us? Yeah, I would like that. Look, I’m not trying to pressure you into anything; it’s just how my mind went, you asked what I was thinking about when I was singing. But I do think that would be a nice way for our lives to progress.”

“I wonder how we organize it, all three of us, and both Lori and I having your children? We can’t both marry you; that’s against the law, but there would be no problem with marrying one of us, and the other being unmarried, I guess.”

“No, I won’t marry just one of you, not if I can’t have the same legal status with the other. I mean, how would I choose which one of you to marry?”

“You really mean that?” she asked, and stopped walking, pulling me around so she could kiss me. “Not that there’s a huge social stigma with two people living together, even having kids together and not being married. Now, with all three of us in a relationship like that, some people might be critical of us.”

“Fuck ‘em; fuck ‘em all,” I said. “It’s our lives; I’m not going to let ‘society’ tell me how to live my life, or who I should or shouldn’t love.”

“That’s how I feel, too. Although our kids might face some problems and teasing at school; being in an ‘unconventional’ home situation.”

“I never thought of that ... kids can be fairly cruel to anyone who’s different. I suppose before we decide to have kids, we should talk with some experts, work out what’s the best way to go, how to tell our kids about why our family situation is different to most other families.”

“Have you talked about this with Lori?”

“No, as I said, it was just some thoughts that went through my mind as we were singing yesterday; but I guess sooner or later it’s something that all three of us will have to talk over, and work out just what each of us wants in the long term.”

“Yeah, we should do that. But just so that you know, I think it would be lovely to have kids with you, one day. You’d make a great father, I’m sure of it.”

“And I would love to watch your body change as your pregnancy develops, knowing our child is growing inside you, and being there for the birth. It is a sort of scary thought, lots of responsibilities, but that’s something that I would love to share with you.”

“And share with Lori, too?”

“Yeah, with Lori, too,” I said.

We had completed our lap around the block, and we were outside the studio building.

“I think we should keep those thoughts to ourselves; at least until we can find a good time to talk about it with Lori,” Megan said, as we climbed the stairs. “Make sure we really understand what it would involve; being a family unit in a rather non-traditional way. It’s almost like we will be living like that religious sect in the US, the Mormons; didn’t they have multiple wives or something?”

“Yeah, polygamy,” I said. “Although they actually had formal marriages with the additional wives, too; but they had to disavow polygamy in order for Utah to be admitted as a US state. Maybe the first thing to find out is exactly what the status of you and Lori would be if you weren’t married to me; are there any tax implications, or bank account stuff. What if we want to buy a house; can we do that with all three of us together, and then there’s probably something we would have to do about inheritance, and wills and so on.”

“Why does life have to be so damn complex?” Megan sighed. “If only we could just live the way we choose to, without all this interference. If both Lori and I want to live with you, and have a family with you, why is that anyone else’s damn business?”

We joined the others back in the studio; during the lunch break Rory had been working on the organ backing for the song. Rory showed me how the pre-sets on the B-3 worked; with two sets of drawbars for each manual, allowing him to quickly change between various tone bar settings. I was impressed at the variety of sounds he was able to get from the organ; I felt it added so much to the backing of the song. All I had to do was make sure my singing was up to the same quality.

“Maybe you can think about what we talked about on our walk as you are singing,” Megan said softly to me. “Think about wanting me, and what sort of a life we will be having together.”

I smile, and kissed her on the cheek.

“I’ll certainly be thinking about that, and not just while I’m singing.”

Before we started the next take; I sat down and closed my eyes, and tried picturing a future life with Lori and Megan. I conjured up an image of a traditional suburban house, with a large backyard. Running around the yard were a couple of kids; our kids, children that I had fathered with both Lori and Megan. The two of them were there in the yard with me; one on each side, watching our kids playing and laughing. That’s the future that I imagined for the three of us. This time, my singing was much better; the timing was just how George wanted it.

“Did you do what I said, and think about our life together?” Megan whispered to me. “It certainly sounded much better than the other times you’ve sung that.”

We recorded another two takes; each with a slightly different arrangement for some of the backing music; then we took a break in the middle of the afternoon. We sat around the table, and kicked around some arrangement ideas for ‘Reminiscing’. As well as fitting in Rory’s organ part, we worked a little on Megan’s trumpet parts. We ran through a few different arrangements; varying the tempo a bit, until we finally had one that seemed to work the best.

“Okay, let’s call it a day; we can polish that on up tomorrow, and get it down on tape,” George said. “Thanks everyone, you all did well.”

As Megan and I were about to leave, George asked us to stay back for a bit.

“Look; I’m a bit worried about that song Jim’s written, the ‘Take this Ring’ one. I’m not sure it’s really ready to be recorded; I think it needs more work on it, both the words and the music. I don’t want him to take anything personally, that I’m tossing out what he’s written. Do you have another one that we could use as a substitute?”

“Originally, we were going to do ‘When I Fall in Love’,” Megan said. “Will, what about that Elvis one you sang a couple of years ago, ‘You Were Always on my Mind?”

“That’s a real downer of a song, one to make you want to slit your wrists,” I replied. “Besides, I don’t think I can sing that anywhere near as well as I did that time you are thinking of.”

“Maybe it’s another one I’m thinking of, what’s the one that starts ‘Wise men say, only fools rush in’?”

“This one?” I said, and started playing at the piano.

Wise men say only fools rush in
but I can’t help falling in love with you
Shall I stay would it be a sin
If I can’t help falling in love with you

“Yeah, that one,” she said. “What do you think, George, it’s probably a similar theme to the one you want to replace.”

“Do you think you can have it ready for Friday?” he asked. “If you can really hit that one, it would be good. How’s the voice holding out, by the way?”

“We can practice it up tonight, and see how it sounds tomorrow. The voice seems to be holding up fine; the salt water gargle has been helping.”

“Good; I’ll see you both tomorrow, sleep well.”

On the drive home we talked about the suggested changes.

“I’m sorry I mentioned that song, the one you sang after Cathy dumped you,” Megan said. “I guess that still has bad memories associated with it.”

“It’s not so much the memories; that’s from so long ago, it really doesn’t matter,” I replied. “It’s just that we are wanting to have a positive, uplifting album, all about the joy of being in love with that special person, and that song would be a real mood killer. Anyway, the first time I sang the one we plan on doing; Cathy was there, and I was singing it for her. But that was a long time ago; so much has changed since then.”

“Things in our lives have changed so quickly,” she said. “It was only a year ago, we were getting ready for our HSC exams, you and Cathy had got back together, and I had the shits with you about that.”

“I think I told you to mind your own business, or something like that.”

“You hurt me with that comment; I was only trying to help you, to prevent you from getting your heart broken again. But a lot has changed between us since then.”

After dinner, Megan sat down at the piano, and we ran through ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love’ several times. It was good having her play the piano; I could concentrate on the melody and my breathing. I still didn’t have things quite right; I would run out of air before the end of some of the lines; but some more practice would get that right. Meanwhile, Lori worked on more of our next book; next week I would have to get in and write some more of my chapters, too. I had one chapter outlined; I would have to read what Lori had written so I could fill in the details and to make sure our two parts were consistent. Since it had been a long day, and tomorrow looked like being just as busy, we went to bed, and had an early night.