Peter Noone (Herman's Hermits)

0:00We got the Bluetooth headset too. Oh, I should take that out of the interview. That's very modern. I'm a very modern geek. Yeah. Are you a technology guy? Yeah. What are the gadgets? Are you getting an iPad now? Yeah, I got iPad, iPod, everything. All of it. Yeah, iPhone. Do you like the way? Well, let's start the interview. Peter. Let's talk about that in technology and how music has changed. I mean you started pressing vinyl and you know, and now there's no physical copy anymore of music. It's all just, it's nothing really. I think it's good that there's nothing really because if you remember, I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but if you remember when you would go to a record store, there was usually some guy there with a tattoo that you wanted to mess with and ask for like, have you got the new Roger Whittaker whistling album?

0:50So that he'd be really angry. He would only be really interested in songs by bands that no one had ever heard of. You know, and if you were in Canada and you went and asked for like, guess who? Yeah, over there on the G. So they're all gone. You know, they sort of dug their own grave, didn't they? It was not a good experience going to a record store. When I was a kid, it was a great experience going to a record store. You would hear music in there. They wouldn't be trying to sell books and DVDs. It was records and the people who were there liked music. They enjoyed music. They weren't necessarily musicians. They were kind of music lovers. So they were happy when Perry Como came along. You got kids in the store to buy a Perry Como record for their grandparents. And they would hear at the hop. So that's all gone. Now what happened is people have, most of the shopping thing is gone for kids, doesn't it?

1:41You can buy most anything that you want online. If you want a book for college, you can go to Amazon.com and you can get a used one. And it's cheaper than if you have to deal with that horrible woman who's the librarian at the college, you know, who really doesn't like kids. And she went in a business where you deal with kids, teachers, right? So the teachers, librarians, are all gone. You know, now it's people can just have their own experience. So I'm a big fan of being able to, like at my website, PeterNoon.com, I interact with people who like me, who have similar interests. You go on and challenge them. Yeah. But think about it. They have a similar interest and they connect to each other by me. They like 60s music. They like English music, whatever. So they've all got a common thread and they have become, they're called lunatics and interact with each other.

2:33So it's very useful. You know, there was never that opportunity. For example, in 1964, if I was playing here and somebody sent me a letter, I would get it in about a year. And if it was a request for a song, it would be a year later, you know, we'd be here. We wouldn't have time to read the mail here because we would arrive and do the show. Oh, you must be getting thousands of letters to back then. Yeah, you know, but it's still, you wouldn't get them until it was too late to react to them. You know, I'm 18 blonde. You would miss it completely. It would be a shame. You mentioned the record stores. Take me back to those record stores. Do you remember that first record you listened to that said, this is what I want to do as a career? The one that made me want to do it as a career. I don't know. But I remember, you know, I came from this family of musicians, you know, my grandfather played the organ in church and the piano at home.

3:23And my grandmother ran the church choir and my auntie Mary would play Fats Waller music full time in another room. So I was always exposed to music, but their music was baccarat, you know, sort of classical, no popular music from the period, which is really odd. My auntie had this, oh, I live with my grandparents. I didn't live with my parents. So I was exposed to all this roundabout music. And the first record I think that I bought, you know, I remember going in a record store and asking for the new Perry Como record and they gave me the Frank Sinatra record because they said it was the same type of stuff.

4:09And my dad made me take it back because he said Perry Como is not like Frank Sinatra. It was all uppity. And I remember that was the first record I actually purchased. And then I went back to the same record store because it was near me. Also run by an older lady who didn't really want to sell me a record. But I bought Danny and the Juniors at the HOP. And that led me into, I didn't like any of the English singers. I remember they were all copying American singers, you know, like Craig Douglas did Sam Cooke. Well, you guys did a Sam Cooke song too, actually. Yeah. But we did it when he was dead. We did it not in competition with him. We did it as a tribute to him. But I grew to like Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran and Roy Orbison and all those American, probably country songs, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, everything that was a little bit country.

5:03And then bit by bit that led me into the Sam Cooke's and the little Richards and the, you know, I had a full immersion in music. And I was a bit of a DJ. You know, I had a load of records because my parents were pretty wealthy. I had a load of records and I turned that into, I had a DJ gig in Manchester, which was kind of stupid really. And I remember what, 12 at the time? 13. Yeah. And, you know, I just played records. You didn't, I didn't have a microphone or anything. It wasn't. No, it's on the high five light. It wasn't one of those. I just played records, you know, and I had a load of records and people danced on a dance floor and it was like a restaurant. So, and I thought by that, I thought it would be good to have records that nobody else had to be a unique district. Yeah. And that's where I started building my repertoire. And then one day I was, I went to a school of music in the evening and one day I was going to this club to see a band.

5:54And, you know, I was about 13. So you go to see the band, but you're really going to maybe dance with girls. And in those days, all the girls sat on one side and all the boys sat on one side. And I was sitting on the side with the boys, all of whom I went to school with. And, and the band, the singer from the band didn't show up. And they said, well, Peter New knows all the songs that we do because he's got a DJ gig and he knows the words and everything. So the guy, this guy Alan Wrigley said, would you sing with the band tonight? Because Malcolm, gotta be called Malcolm, don't they? These guys have got to be called Malcolm. Malcolm isn't showing up. And I said, yeah, what are you doing? And they gave me a list of songs. It was I'm a hog for your baby, you know, Arthur Alexander, Alexander, and I'll Never Dance Again, which is Bobby Rydell.

6:39And they were all songs that I knew. So I said, yeah, I'll have a go. And I got up and I sang and Malcolm never showed up again. They said, don't bother showing up, Malcolm. We got a new singer. So I think they were called the heartbeats and I became Pete Novak. They chose the name Pete Novak and the heartbeats. My mum took me out and looked for clothes and we eventually called this local English singer called Deep Rivers. He had an advert in the Manchester Evening News, like stage singers, rock singers clothes for sale. And he came over to our house and he had this blue silver larmay suit and a red sort of three piece suit. And my mum bought them and we fixed them up and they were like 15 sizes too big for me. You're still touring like 50 years later. Is it 50? Yeah, it is 50 years later. It's something like that. Did you just say 50 years? Yeah. Sorry.

7:26You know, the first time I came to Calgary was 46 years ago and I remember there was nothing here. I think we were probably cows grazing out here. I wouldn't be surprised. It's been a boom in the last 20 years. Well, I'm sure you've come back many times. Can you imagine 46 years ago what was here? It's hardly anything. It's very impressive. How come you guys came here 46 years ago? You were fairly large then. Calgary was a very big market. Calgary Stampede. It was a big deal. Is it still a big deal? Yeah, it's still a huge deal. So we came to do the Calgary Stampede. We were all excited. The Calgary Stampede is like all like for us English people, cowboys and Indians. Oh yeah, way different. That's what we were looking for. Some of that. Do you still love it as much? Playing? Yeah, you know, I'm still, it's still kind of an adventure. It's a pangolussian adventure. You know, I'm always, like I get on the plane and it's always an adventure. I like going to the airport and getting on the plane and where we go in and most places I've been but it's still got that adventure spirit, you know.

8:18What are the set lists looking like? We don't have a set list, so to speak. We've got a list of songs but they're not like in order. And we always... I'm assuming all the old hits. Yeah, oh yeah we do. I'm into something good. Wonderful world. Listen people, silhouettes, can't you hear my heartbeat? Mrs Brown Henry the 8th. There's a kind of hush just a little bit better. So many hits. Yeah, we do all the hits in every show but then we don't know which order they go in. We found it's more fun for me to just shout them out. Yeah, and the band likes that too, even when they're told. Yes, because it looks like enthusiasm. What we do next just looks like enthusiasm. Are you throwing any contemporary songs in? Do you ever have that wish? Yeah, we do sort of semi-contemporary songs. We think our songs are contemporary because quite often there are people in the audience who've never heard them before or they've heard them but they don't place them with us. You know, they go, oh, after the show people come and say, I must do a Voila, I don't know, wow, I always wondered who did that. So we think of ourselves as a contemporary oldies band. You know, and we're lucky because if you see the kind of oldies bands there, right?

9:17They're out there. They're mostly crap. I mean, not. They're crap. And we think that we kind of still have something to offer. We get more fans at a show, not less. You know how many bands you go and see after you go, oh boy, what a shame I remember them when they were... You know what I mean? We try to keep it on the up and up. And that's been working for us. There's a curve going like that. We do sell more records. Mostly online actually because people are now getting more adept. It used to be difficult to download a file. Right. And that's very, very simple. Click here. You do it on your phone now. Yeah, right. Exactly. People are more apt to do that. And you know, and also at concerts like tonight, you see we sell a load of CDs at concerts because lots of people had a home and service record in another century, right? In another format that they don't have any way to play. So they go, well, I used to have these. I want to go and buy and then buy a CD and the CDs are pretty obvious. You know, they got the greatest hits. Yeah. You know, and in Canada, it's like a double CD and it's good. But you know, it's a good thing.

10:20And it's good. But you know, you can't buy in a store. Yeah. If you buy one in a gas station like people do in Canada, they usually fake. Usually fake. What do you mean by that? They're not the real band. They're usually sort of remakes by, you know, whoever. Speaking of which, did you not kind of make a fake then in a way of one of the songs for the Naked Gun movies? Yes, I had to. You know, the people who own the original asked for a million dollars. So the people had already used it in the movie. So they said to me. So I said, Oh, that's really a shame because they were fans of Hervens, the two producers. And and they and I said, Well, why don't we just cut it again? And they looked at me, you know, I think I was like 45. Well, maybe able to sing it. Yeah, well, let's have a go. And we did it. And it was, it was very good. And then we were afraid that the people who owned it would think it was we were using the real one. So we had to put that sort of dodgy, more synthesized guitar solo.

11:15So they wouldn't sound like everyone because it was really close. It was a great, great recording. I thought, I don't know if you want to talk about it. I've talked to a lot of people about it, like Bo Diddley and stuff. And then you mentioned the dodgy people, Alan Klein, the main one, basically. Did you make it all right? At the end of the day? Yeah, you know, I'm one of the odd ones. I made out really well because I, I think if somebody say Alan Klein, who was a scumbag and a thief, I mean, he's famous for being a stone money from Biafra, from everyone, concert for Biafra. You don't want that money. Now, it's bad karma. So I think he got his already. There's a lot of people dancing at his graveyard. It's an Irish joke. But in my case, you know, and I did know Bo and all those people, my argument always was that if somebody had come to me when I was 15 and offered me this career, this kind of career that would go on for 46 years, 15, whatever it is, then you would do all this

12:15stuff and get to travel the world and stay in hotels and meet people. And I said, I would have probably asked, can I put it? Can I put some of the payments on my credit card and stretch it out? Most people would pay for my career. So I'm a grateful sort of survivor of that whole thing. Because if I wasted any time thinking about that, I would be really in bad shape. I'd be one of those. And I'm not one of those, you know, I got to get on with it. I think that the next record I make, which I'm not even planning to make one should be the one that I really get a shit about, you know. So you mentioned a record though, so it's got to be somewhere in your mind. There's a chance that, you know, my audience would buy. What I did on my website was I did a little test because you don't know. So I said, if I recorded this song, I'll never dance again, which we do in the live show. It's not really available recorded.

13:07Because when Herman Swimmons recorded it, we forgot one of the verses and it's like an important verse. So the story doesn't work without that verse. So we do it on stage. Look, here's the song with the real, so you can work out the story. And it's very popular. And then people wanted to. So I said, I said on my website, I did a test, I have a little poll thing. And I said, if I record, re-recorded, I'll never dance again this song. And I made it available only as a download. Two questions. Do you know how to download songs? And two, would you? And 80% of the people answered in the thousands that they do know how to download a song. But three years ago, it would have been only 2%. It's quickly moved, you know. So now me and the band are putting together a new version of I'll Never Dance Again. It's really just a question of finding time between concerts to go in the studio and sing it really well.

14:01You wouldn't do it, you wouldn't just take a live take? They don't want a live take. They want a studio. Yeah. The studio has to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a little bit more thought to it. You know, there's, you can, you know, what's happened is hundreds of versions of it live on YouTube. If you want it, if you want that version, just go to YouTube. The brilliant thing about YouTube is that I go and harass the band. Look, what were you doing here? It's the wrong note. You're singing wrong. What are you jumping around here for? You'd be concentrating on the guitar solo, not kicking. And, you know, this is fun stuff, you know. It was fun for me, actually, to go on YouTube today and watch some old videos of you guys playing. And I didn't know you did for your love and by stop and all these songs that other bands. Well, we did them first. You know, what happened with those two songs was Graham Gubin wrote them for us. But they just didn't work out in the studio. If you listen to them, they didn't work.

14:52We played them better than anybody now. But at the time... When you say we, I mean, rock and roll folklor, you had your band, I mean, Lex, a great guitar player. Right. But Paige played on those songs, Sean Paul Jones played on those songs. Well, no, we do the songs that didn't work out strangely enough, probably the original guys, Carl Keith and Barry and Lex. Like, Bust Stop and For Your Love. And what we would do, we would try things out. And if they didn't work, they'd become album tracks. And sometimes there was an opportunity like silhouettes where we knew that we couldn't play that really well. So then we would use session men. By the time we got them on stage, we played them better than the session men. Do you understand? But it was a question of speed. You know, in those days we would say like, Wonderful World Jimmy Page plays on. So you'd say, we've got to get this record out on Friday. This is Monday. You know, Sam Cooke has been murdered, killed in Los Angeles.

15:44And we want to get a record out. We did Wonderful World and the animals did bring it on home to me. We didn't play on the record because it was quick and good thinking to get the best players in the world and get it done quickly. Doesn't happen anymore, though. Like, it boggles my mind that you can get things at the click of a button now. Yeah. But records take months to come out. Whereas back in the day, you recorded two days of it. Yeah, but that's what happened to the record business. I think what happened is, in this odd way, because we didn't have a plan, it made it very fresh. And a lot of people didn't have a plan. You know, we were kind of independent at the time. The Stones were independent. The Beatles were independent. And Herman Summits were independent. You know, we didn't have to ask the label what they think.

16:31Because if you, I think about it in retrospect, if we'd have offered Henry VIII to the label, I think you should go home and write a second verse and put some strings in it. You know what I mean? And have a real ending. So labels eventually got involved in the final production. And it should always be the music. If you were a painter and you finished a painting and then somebody came in and added a few touches to it and then put it in the gallery, it would be odd, wouldn't it? You know what I mean? So that's what's happened to the record business. Too many people get to what you think is the end product and then mess with it or promote it in a way that you don't want. It's happened to me, you know, that it's something that you have an idea and then they promote it in a completely different way.

17:19You know, you've got to... It's lost all the fresh thing. The freshest thing now is like American Idol and stuff like that, where people have an opportunity to fail in front of a lot of people. You had a chance to pick one of those, too? Yeah, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed hanging out with people. The people who are in there, people who are in American Idol, have more experience than they play. You know, they were usually in a band or they played a lot of nightclubs and things like that. So they're all much more able to... It's not their first time out there, if you know what I mean? You can tell the difference. So that's what I think. American Idol is probably in England, it killed the record business forever. Because whoever wins it doesn't even sell any records. It ultimately goes there, you know.

18:10It's just, okay, they won American Idol. That doesn't mean I have to buy their record. They were the best out of the 26 people. But you know, what happens is people... Now people are singing in a karaoke bar and people say, you should be on American Idol or Canadian Idol, whatever. You should be on American Idol. And they show up for the audition. Well, that isn't part of the process of being a musician. Part of the process is to go and fail. Not in a karaoke bar, but with your own musicians. And try a couple of songs on your own without a pre-prepared Kyoto track. I know they're starting stuff over here, but I got a couple of names for you that I just wouldn't mind getting some quick thoughts on. Okay, great. The people you've met over the years kind of thing. And let's start with Derek Lekkenby. Derek Lekkenby was a really underestimated, underestimated guitar player. He was a really good guitar player.

19:02We got him out of another band. We had a guitar player and he wasn't making it out of it. It was actually Keith Hopwood who was playing me guitar. And it wasn't the first time that he was playing me guitar. And he was a really good guitar player. And he was a really good guitar player. And actually Keith Hopwood was playing me guitar. And it wasn't the kind of guitar. Keith is an absolute genius guitar player by the way. And he's still around. He's still a great guitar player. But Lek could learn a song and nail it. You know, one of those guys. He didn't really have good... He couldn't sing a song, but he could pick it up and play it and remember it. Yeah, but he couldn't even sing a background vocals. He didn't have a voice. You know, he couldn't sing in tune, but he could learn songs. And he was just a great guy. You know, his dad was a policeman.

19:48He was one of those guys. He listened to me, which is quite astonishing. You could only be in my band if you quit your job because our competition was like full time gig. And they were all stupid enough to listen to me. Is that because you love you guys getting thrown into holidays and all this stuff? We didn't really do a lot of that. He didn't. Lek Lek didn't. He blamed it on me. That was OK. I was the person who got thrown out. You're the front man. You think of the blame. That's kind of the role. But you know, it's like Robert Plent says. You know, the front man usually was in bed because he was taking care of his voice. Yeah. The next one is actually Jimmy Page on the top of the Robert Plent. Yeah, I see Jimmy Page a lot, you know, because we meet at funerals. It's kind of the funny thing, isn't it?

20:34Mickey Mostu was our producer. He was also a good friend with Jimmy and his funeral. And Jimmy is great because... It's inappropriate, isn't it? Yeah, right. So we know that Mickey's funeral was great. He knew he was going to die for a long time. He had the from asbestos, whatever it's called. So he planned the funeral. And it was really good because he had like Bebop-a-lool-a as he came in the room. He didn't want any of those like sad songs. And then he had I'm into something good. Yeah. You know, when the fire... He had this like routine. And then he played. He played I'm Into Something Good and Whole Lotta Love by Len Zekling, the CCS version. And then there's a kind of harshing Jimmy Page that says, it's not fair. He chose two of your songs.

21:21He was a good guy. And John Paul Jones, you know, was the guy who really created all those like No Milkshakes and Dandy. Oh, really? I didn't know that. He did all the arrangements for a long time there. He was a... I tried to get him in the band, but the other hermits didn't want him in the band. Because I thought he could just play the B3 and just be there. He did one German tour and then they got rid of him. They didn't want to pay him. He did all right on his album though. He did all right still today actually. When they got in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they said, well, we had to wait for him until he finished with his own. That was that German tour. Have you heard, speaking of... John Paul Jones, have you heard the Dem Cooker Vaulters record? What do you think? The Watch record. He's got a new band now with the... No, I'm going to get it today. There you go. I'll go and get it right now. Cool. It's harder. So I wonder what your thoughts will be.

22:06I'm a big fan of his. Every time I see him, I see him again like Jimmy Page at Funeral. I go, there he is, my favorite musician. I think his wife likes that. He just sees you used to hearing it. But I think his wife... I mean, he's my favorite musician. I mean, he just... The Led Zeppelin stuff is like, okay. It really was Bonham and John Paul Jones who set. Like in all those big bands, there's always two guys like Fleetwood Mac and Stones. There's always a drummer and a bass player who sort of set, give those other people opportunities to shine. I was going to say the next one is Keith Richards, but you know Charlie and Bill better, don't you? I know Charlie. You know, I don't know Bill very well. I know Charlie. I knew Brian. There was a strange thing in the song. If you were friends with Brian, you couldn't be friends with Mick.

22:51It was like you had to make a choice. I chose Brian. I thought it was far more... Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they did get divorced, as you know. They kicked him out. But I like Keith. I think Keith is a real gentle spirit. I know you see this... But I know that's 80% acting. 20% reality. On the topic of acting, I was reading a quote, some journalists have this about you, that you were an actor playing a really good pop singer at the beginning. Did you ever feel that way? No, I think I was... At the beginning, I didn't have to act. I think I was Herman S. P

23:59I was famous. And I have to stay in the moment on stage, like in a play. I have to be the person. And it's kind of good for me because I get to be 17, which is an adrenaline... I say to my doctor, you know, I'm really sore. And he goes, what did you do? I said, well, I jumped up a drum riser. I was like, hi. He said, why did you do that? Because I can when I'm on stage. The thing that surprised me was I could jump up. I have trouble standing up, but suddenly on stage. And it's that thing that, you know, I become... When I sing Mrs. Brown, You Got a Lovely Daughter, I go back to the person who originally sang it. I can actually be in the studio singing it, which is Stanislavski.

24:46So I do that. And it makes the songs make sense to me. And I think the audience... I always thought the audience knew, because I was in the audience and I always knew. I knew, you know, like I go and see ZZ Top. And they know that I know. And that makes them different. A lot of people don't know if you know or not. ZZ Top know that you know. And when he does his finger on, he knows that we know. He goes, oh, that's cool. And he does it for us. Do you know what I mean? Whether he knows we're there or not, he knows there are people in the audience who would know. So, and I take a lot of that. I mean, I'm one of those stupid people who constantly worries about it. I wonder what they're thinking in and in. Because you don't want to trick an audience or disappoint an audience. You know, try never to say fuck on stage. You know what I mean?

25:34Well, thanks for saying the joke. Appreciate it. Back to the list, Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney is probably the best of the lot. I remember when I was a kid. I was already in a band, but I was a kid. See, it's hard for people to understand this, but Herman Sommit's finished recording about the same age that the Beatles started recording. We were that age when we finished recording. We were all 22 when we said that's it. And they were all 22 when they got in the studio. So there's a whole different thing. But he understood that and he was very gentlemanly. Him and I were the only two people that Sir Joseph Lockwood, who ran EMI, ever invited for lunch. From all those bands, because we were kind of gentlemen, you know, we were sort of over educated for the position.

26:20And he was unique because I saw him in Boots the Chemist. He said, Boots the Chemist up here? No. It's like a chain drug store. Okay. Right. And it's an English thing. And there's one on Oxford Street. Now Oxford Street is a very busy thing, but he used to live around the corner from there. So I see him in Boots the Chemist. I say, wow, you go. You know, not wow, that's maybe what I've learned now. I say, goodness gracious me. One of the Beatles in Boots the Chemist, you know, this chain store. How do you think you get it? And he goes, it's kind of easy. He says, watch this. And he goes to the woman and he goes, could I get some Colgate toothpaste, please? And she goes, oh, you're Paul McCartney. Could I get your autograph?

27:05Two Julie things here. And yeah, sure, Sir Joseph, thank you. Could I get some of that toothpaste? Some of that toothbrush, a blue purple one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we go out and they say, you see, it takes exactly the same time to be nice to people who would have to be an asshole. And the cop, you see, I'm eating. And I realized that if you'd have had two tall men with black coats like this, he would have drawn all his attention. But he was just sort of an insignificant shopper or another. But that's how it goes. So I've always run my game like that. I've always been a person. Like I get to the gig, I go for a walk. I've been all the way around Calgary. I've walked everywhere. I just walk down from here, it's like half a mile to Starbucks, walk down there and, you know,

27:50that looked like the guy we're going to go and see tonight. I can't be him, why would he be here? But you know what I mean? So I think that's the way it's got to be really. It keeps you kind of level. Because none of the girls in Starbucks have ever heard of her in sermons. Well, they've been selling your CDs. They seem to be selling CDs there. You know, I've only bought one record ever from there. And that was the eldest presently boy from Tupelo. Oh yeah. All the other stuff I have. What is this? Do you ever meet Elvis? Yeah. I interviewed him like you did. You interviewed Elvis. Yeah, it's famous. Really? He never did interviews, but I liked him and I got him to agree to do an interview. What were you working for? The BBC and KPOI, a radio station in Hawaii where he was when I did the interview.

28:35You know, it's really stuff. When you call it to England, you know, just real stupid. It was just a great opportunity, you know. I think we saw Tom Parker. I was friends with Tom Parker until he died. He was just a really interesting character. I said, I'd like to meet your client. And he goes, well, he doesn't meet people. I said, well, you know, I could, who are you? I said, well, I'm Herman from Hermann's Hermit. He was a hermit. I'm still starting to hear it here. Well, he didn't know that, you know. Where are you playing? You know, oh, we're playing here in town. Where are you playing? I said, well, we're playing at the Cooler Bowl. And he said, well, I'm going to headline you. Oh, what time do you want to meet? You know, we'd sold 50,000 tickets to a concert. He piqued his interest. And it was just like a, Elvis was a really nice guy, you know.

29:23It's a shame that he didn't do tons of interviews because he was a really funny, uppity. He did have 10 people with him who laughed at everything he said and didn't laugh at anything I said, although some of my stuff was funny. He laughed, but they didn't. They knew only to laugh at his stuff. And I said, yeah. Well, no, I think they just, they were kind of primed. You know, Tom told me that what they had was the 50-50 deal. But he only got his 50% of the net. So Elvis would spend a load of money so that he only got, he said, I wish I had 10% of the gross now. And I got 50% of the net. There really wasn't a net because they would buy people cars. Elvis was very extravagant so that Tom wouldn't get all the money.

30:08Funny stuff. It was a very, very interesting interview because it was all my sister. I called my sister, I said, I'm going to meet Elvis. What shall I ask him? And she said, ask him, does he dye his hair? Which is, you know, so constantly all through the interview, I'm like looking at his hair instead of his face, you know what I mean? And it clearly was dyed. And the biggest shock was how handsome he was when he walked in. Shit, this is the most handsome guy I've ever seen. He looks just like in the movie, but he was made up. And the movie was all fit. He was making Paradise Hawaiian style. He was all fit with the makeup and the hair. And he was like, Elvis. You know, usually you meet John Lennon and he's like one of the boys. Elvis looked like Elvis. Well, what's good with John Lennon? I had a strange relationship with John Lennon

30:55because he was the one in the band who didn't have a girlfriend. He'd fallen out with Cynthia or Cindy, whatever her name was. And he was kind of on the tile. We'd do a television show in Birmingham, which is about 100 miles from London, and I was so cheeky that I would go to John Lennon and I would say, what are you doing after the TV show? He'd like to get rid of me. He says, oh, I'm going back to London. And I'd say, can I come with you? What would you... Yeah, all right. I'd go to London and I'd be there like with no bags or anything. You know what I'm saying? Nobody had credit cards. You know, they had a checkbook and no people would cash checks. So, and then we'd go to the Ad lib and you'd get in the... I remember we'd get into the elevator, the lift at the Ad lib Club, which was upstairs behind Leicester Square.

31:42And once we were in this elevator going up and then they played, I'm in with the in-crowd. It's kind of funny, I was like... I'm with us. I'm with one of the people and we'd go to the club and I was only 16 and they wouldn't serve me a drink. So, yeah, we can't serve... You can't have a drink. So John said, I'll have two recordings and he'll have two cooks. And then we switched the things and they knew we were doing it. It was kind of fun. The music was too loud so there was not a lot of chatting. And I realized that he was more interested in the kind of girls that I could pick up than the girls, the 22-year-olds that he could pick up. So it was a kind of... And I knew his dad, Freddie. You know, I got to meet his dad Freddie

32:27and go through all those discussions about... That was a huge breakdown. I had a great relationship with my dad. So I couldn't understand a lot of those. People didn't have good relationships with their dad. I did. Mick Jagger had a good relationship with his dad. So we did okay. Keith Richards had a good relationship with his dad. I think it's part of the... It kind of keeps it grounded. Dads. You know, you forget until you don't have a dad anymore how proud they are of every single accomplishment that you make. No matter how big or small it is, it's just an accomplishment. They just want you to accomplish them. Well, you let you go, but what are you up to? I know you're doing a big tour this summer. Well, you're always on the road, right? Yeah, we're always on the road. It's part of what we do. It's like we do 100 concerts a year.

33:13And it suits our wives and our families that we've gone that three days a week. You know, most people are lucky enough to have their dad around every night. I'm just around every day except when I'm working. Right. It's just weekends, isn't it? Yeah, you know, but sometimes we go away for a long run. But, you know, it's three days a week. I'm home three days a week. Two days, two days, three days a week. Not bad, is it? No, not bad at all. No. My daughter lives in Nashville, so when I go to Nashville, I do work there, you know. Yeah. Nice. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. It was a great fun.