Part One

Good Morning Judge - The Dean & I

Nicky

Well, there we are, a montage of those classic moments of 10cc and in the studio with me heralding and promoting no doubt, a new album, a very good one too, 10cc Meanwhile... Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman and it's actually, Graham and Eric, on the publicity for this album, it says "the original line-up". That's a bit disingenuous, isn't it?

Graham

It's a bit disingenuous. It is in fact Eric and I wrote all the songs on the album except for one which was co-written with a Mr McCartney. Kevin & Lol in fact, I think the best way to describe it is they were like special guests. They did backing vocals on lots of the tracks and in fact Kevin sings lead vocals on one of the songs.

Nicky

Yes that's "The Stars Didn't Show"

Graham

Yes

Nicky

Yes, isn't it. Well, let's get straight into the music shall we?

Graham

Why not!

Nicky

Why not, we can waffle away later on. What is "The Stars Didn't Show" about? You can tell me since you are the authors because "we came from miles around just to listen to your sound - you made the night seem endless - you cast a magic spell - you played the part so well - your music blew away the darkness" Who cast a magic spell?

Graham

Isn't it obvious?

Nicky

No

Graham

Well, it's all our sort of heroes who have shuffled off this mortal coil. We were talking about Roy Orbison, in particular, the "figure dressed in black".

Nicky

Ah, there's a clue. The figure dressed in black, of course. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Graham

Of course you should have known that.

The Stars Didn't Show

Nicky

A lovely song there, and as you say, the lead vocals from Kevin. When you actually split up, and we're going to dot around time quite a lot, but when you actually split up and you two went solo, if that's possible, in 1976, what aspects of the Godley and Creme song-writing partnership do you think you miss most?

Graham

I think it was mostly in the lyrical way really. They were quite, um, acidic. I think we can take a side long view at things with the best of them but there's a certain aspect of their lyrics I think, that we don't sort of write like that.

Nicky

Is that the sort of quirkiness, an angular view. You've had your moments.

Graham

Yes, we've had our moments, yes. I mean, we wrote a song called "You've Got A Cold". Not a lot of people have written songs about colds, have they?

Nicky

Well, there are some quirky moments on Deceptive Bends, for example. I remember that song all about the guitar chords...

Graham

"I Bought A Flat Guitar Tutor"

Nicky

...and diminished responsibilities. Pretty clever, all that.

Graham

In a flat by the sea

Nicky

... bringing out all the augmented...

Graham

Yes, but somehow you know, I think we've always had that ourselves, but not quite in the same way Kev and Lol had.

Nicky

It's amazing actually, if I can just turn to you, Graham, for a minute. The Graham Gouldman songbook, the songs you've written over the years, I mean it's lie a Goffen & King (?) roster. It's incredible. You must have made a few bob before you even started with 10cc.

Graham

I'm comfortable in life - I'm with myself.

Nicky

I mean - the list is very impressive. For Your Love, Bus Stop, Look Through Any Window, both for the Hollies, No Milk Today for Herman's Hermits, Pamela, Pamela - Wayne Fontana. Do you see yourself initially as just a song-writer?

Graham

Well, when I started in the mid 60's, I always wanted to be in a band. I was in a band with Kevin called the Mockingbirds and we just sort of played and whatever I chose to record with the Mockingbirds was a failure and al the songs I gave away were hits, and I thought well I'm destined...

Nicky

For Your Love, for example

Graham

Yes, For Your Love, which actually the Mockingbirds did record but our record company turned it down and put something else out that was horrible. I thought I was destined to be just a song-writer. Not that that's such a terrible thing, but of course my dream was to be in a band, that I could contribute to as a writer, and sing and play guitar and of course when we formed 10cc that was it. It was like the ideal thing.

Nicky

Just to remind ourselves of, and to give you a few more bob in royalties actually...

Graham

Oh please

Nicky

If you can make yourself feel even more comfortable

Graham

Feel free

Nicky

We're having a few of those Graham Gouldman classics, it's impressive. Listen to this...

For Your Love - Bus Stop - Look Through Any Window - No Milk Today - Pamela, Pamela

Nicky

There's some more money for Graham Gouldman there. With me tonight, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman. Eric, your sort of beginnings were in the Mindbenders.

Eric

Uh-huh yah

Nicky

With and without Wayne Fontana

Eric

Yes

Nicky

You don't have to go too deeply into the split with Wayne but as a guitarist, were you actually responsible for 'bam bah bam bam bam baam'? (A Groovy Kind Of Love - opening riff)

Eric

Yes, that was I.

Nicky

That's one of the loveliest twangiest bits of guitars in the '60s, that.

Eric

It's a nice song isn't it.

Nicky

Yes

Eric

Carole Bayer and Tony Wine, who's now Carole Bayer Sager, married to Burt Bacharach

Nicky

Is that right?

Eric

Yes

Nicky

Of course, Phil Collins had a hit with it quite recently

Eric

He did, didn't he.

Nicky

What was the secret of that twanginess then?

Eric

Just er reverberation units in the '60s were quite crude but er I was using a nice Gibson stereo guitar. It was a stereo guitar figure, yes, that's right, actually it was. It was quite unusual - most guitars are recorded mono - this was a stereo guitar with two amps in the studio - first time I'd ever tried it.

Nicky

Two amps in the studio?

Eric

Yeah

Nicky

What? Two microphones?

Eric

2 microphones, so the left and right of the stereo track on the single itself. It had that er sort of cavernous sound.

Nicky

Was that something you developed yourself or had it been tried by other people before?

Eric

It might have been tried in America, I don't, no, I really don't know

Nicky

'Cause both of you, I mean, later on with Strawberry Studios, were very much creatures of the studio, I mean, it's that sort of innovation, it's very interesting when you chance upon something

Eric

Yeah

Nicky

I suppose the Beatles were the classic exponents of it, always pushing.

Eric

I was terribly frustrated working in those studios in the '60s at Phillips. It was a bit we would say like the BBC, they all had white coats on, and we weren't allowed to go in the control room, we had to sit outside in the studio and listen on the rubbish speakers out there. The control room was sort of...

Nicky

Sacrosanct?

Eric

Yeah

Nicky

Why weren't you allowed in there?

Eric

I dunno, I dunno...

Graham

None of your business

Eric

...and you couldn't touch the control desk or anything like that. I always wanted to get my hands on it

Nicky

Yeah

Eric

That's why we built Strawberry Studios

Nicky

Well, we'll get into that a bit later on. Let's hear some of that classic twanginess with the two speakers and that beautiful cavernous sound

A Groovy Kind Of Love

Nicky

And with me tonight, it's Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, there's the beautiful guitar playing of Eric Stewart from The Mindbenders, without of course, Wayne Fontana, who'd left. The new album is called 10cc Meanwhile and there's some very interesting tracks on this. I love the sort of Gary Katz production. It's Steely Dan, isn't it, that's his most famous credit.

Graham

Er, yes it is. He has done other things but he's most famous for his work with Steely Dan, and we'd always been, actually been compared with Steely Dan, 10cc had, and we'd always liked their records. We liked the craftsmanship, the production, the playing and the songs - everything about them of course and that was one of the reasons we chose to work with him.

Nicky

A lot of the stuff with Steely Dan is on an emotional level, it's a very flat emotional level. It sounds great and it's music for musicians

Graham

Yeah it is, very much so. I think our songs are more accessible actually than Steely Dan's songs but there were certain qualities of his production that we wanted for our record.

Nicky

I think it particularly comes out in Wonderland. It's even got that "tooh tif tif tooh", that sort of start. You can almost feel a Steely Dan song coming until you hear the vocals.

Graham

I think we should give credit to Jeff Porcaro for that

Nicky

Ex of Toto

Graham

Yes probably one of the finest skin bashers in the universe. He was someone who we actually wanted to work with many years ago but he wasn't available.

Nicky

Why particularly? Just from hearing his records?

Graham

Yes, I mean we've got loads of records, Toto records, I mean, he's been on so many other people's records, he's just one of the great drummers, and he plays drums o all the album, and we used a guy called Freddie Washington who played bass, who's also excellent. He's someone that we hadn't heard of but someone that Gary recommended to us

Nicky

Was it good having access to Lol and Kevin? I mean, Lol's on this particular track

Graham

Yeah

Nicky

Was it good having access to that vocal dimension, that extra layer that made some of the 10cc stuff so distinctive?

Graham

Yeah, I mean his voice is so distinctive, and quite different to our voices

Nicky

So why's it been so long since you actually worked in the studio together, the four of you?

Graham

We've all been doing other things. A couple of years ago, an album came out called Changing Faces, which was the best of 10cc and Godley & Crème

Nicky

Yeah

Graham

That did really well and we all et up again for a lunch

Nicky

A big business meeting, was it?

Graham

No it was to be presented with these fabulous platinum discs. Also round that time our record company made us a very nice offer that we couldn't really refuse, and the fact that we'd all come together again, and you know, we'd had such success although it was old stuff, like you know we'd sort of resisted working together again and it seemed like a nice thing to do

Nicky

Well the results are on this album. I mean, obviously the songs are by Stewart and Gouldman, but we do have the vocal sound which we remember from pre '76 10cc as on this track, this is the one we're talking about... Wonderland

Wonderland