I Talk Too Much

by Francis Rossi

  Fate it seemed had other plans in store for me – and Status Quo. A year before, I had been working in Dublin with Bernie, writing songs and turning into the rock version of Al Pacino in Scarface, when Quo’s manager Colin Johnson phoned to tell me he’d said yes to an enquiry from the Boomtown Rats singer, Bob Geldof, for Rick and me to take part in a single for a charity project he was working on, which he was calling Band Aid. Colin was a bit vague on the details, just that there would be tons of other major league stars involved and that, on that basis, he thought Rick and I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to be involved.

  I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. But with the 12 Gold Bars Volume II album steaming up the chart, I agreed on the basis that it would be a good bit of promotion to do for the record.

  The record, of course, was ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, written by Geldof and Ultravox singer Midge Ure, and it was about to alter the course of music history. Not that any of us knew that the day we all assembled to record our vocals and be filmed doing so.

  Geldof was moved to act after seeing a harrowing Michael Buerk report on BBC News showing the effects of famine on starving children in Ethiopia, which sent anyone who saw it into shock. Geldof conceived of a simple but brilliant plan – to gather together as many big names as he could from the world of pop and make a one-off single, sales from which would be donated to the various charities operating in that part of the world, to try and help feed these poor people and their children. I was later told that it was Geldof’s then partner, Paula Yates, who had really been the driving force behind getting all the names together. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter who did it or even how, the cause was undeniable, and the potential money that could be raised inestimable. It’s worth remembering that unlike now, where your record can go to number 1 with less than 5,000 sales, in 1984 a hit single could still generate millions of sales.

  So it was that on 25 November 1984, a Sunday, Rick and I and about forty other pop and rock stars turned up at Sarm West Studios in London’s Notting Hill Gate, and did our bit for Band Aid. Four days later ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ was released and went straight to number 1, selling more than a million copies in that first week alone. It stayed at number 1 for about five weeks and eventually sold something like four million copies.

  You can’t argue with a phenomenon like that. Nevertheless, I have to confess that Rick and I were nervous turning up at Sarm West that day. We knew Phil Collins and Sting, so that was all right. We also knew Paul Weller, or rather Rick did. He had actually known Paul since he was a young unknown and had been a Quo fan. His father would bring him to Quo concerts and Rick would show Paul his guitar. But we had only met Geldof once before, bumping into him at the offices of Phonogram. We didn’t know most of the others, all these young guns like Simon Le Bon, Boy George, Bono, Tears for Fears, Paul Young, George Michael, Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet and various others. We wondered if they would just see us as these incredibly old farts, like Mum and Dad turning up and ruining the kids’ party. We needn’t have worried though. Everyone was as nice as pie. It turned out that the first gig Paul Weller ever went to was to see Quo perform. He said it was so loud and exciting it was the final clincher in him deciding to form his own band.

  The future Sir Bob was another kettle of fish, obviously, running around, looking as frayed round the edges as he would soon become famous for. He was very stressed out to find Phil Collins setting up his full drum kit, telling Bob, ‘We’ve got to give the song some bollocks.’ He was right, too. It’s Phil’s drums that really drive that song. I’m still not too sure how many of the other people in the room could actually play a musical instrument. (Kidding!)

  What I hadn’t expected was how much many of us had in common when it came to cocaine. Naturally, Rick and I had ensured we would get through the day feeling as little pain as possible and brought our own not inconsiderable supplies. Very soon, our little corner of the studio became the go-to hangout for quite a few others.

  The only one that I took a dislike to was Marilyn, Boy George’s ‘companion’. Marilyn was living proof of what an air stewardess once told me: that it’s not the ones in First Class nor the ones in Economy that give you any bother – it’s the bastards in Club Class. They have made it just far enough to escape Economy, but not far enough to fly First. And for some reason it eats them up and they become the most demanding pains in the arse on any flight. That was Marilyn. He’d had exactly one hit single – what in the business we call a two-for-one: his first and his last. But the way he carried on you’d think it was the real Marilyn Monroe standing there. He was making such a big thing about being gay and being unsure which toilet to use I felt compelled to give him my own personal suggestion. I told him to use the gents but to put the seat down and sit on it. That way he could have the best of both worlds. Oh, the look he gave me! Like I’d never had ‘dealings’ with a gay person before. Never mind that I was the father of a beautiful gay son.

  As the day flashed by and Rick and I were finally called to add our vocals, poor old Rick had shoved so much powder up his hooter his voice had cracked. So I ended up overdubbing his part. It didn’t make any difference. I’d had Rick’s voice singing in my ears for nearly twenty years so I could do a passable imitation. Being Rick the rock star, he did manage to push himself right to the front for the group picture afterwards though, standing next to Sting like they were the best mates in all the world. Or maybe it was Sting making sure he got his picture taken with Rick.

  What I don’t think even Geldof had realised that day was quite how enormous this whole Band Aid thing would quickly become. The record became a hit all over the world, raising millions for the famine relief organisations. Then America got in on the act with its own USA for Africa single, ‘We Are the World’. That sold more than ten million copies worldwide. At which point Geldof was back asking if we’d open up a Band Aid themed live concert he was organising for the following summer. He was calling it Live Aid, he said, and we were one of the first bands he had approached. Though I know he said that to all the older bands.

  As you might have learned by now, I can be a cynical old sod at times, always questioning everybody’s motives, including my own. I admit I wasn’t too sure about agreeing to Geldof’s latest idea. It was one thing to organise a single day in a recording studio where everybody – including all the artists, roadies, the studio and the video crew – gave their time for free, but a daylong concert at Wembley Stadium? That required a much greater leap of imagination – and an even greater organisational skill. I loved Bob for what he was trying to accomplish. I just wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to accomplish something like that.

  Well, as we all now know, Bob Geldof pulled off the seemingly impossible that day in July 1985. And I am so thankful that Status Quo was able to be such a unique part of it. At first, we had told Bob, ‘But we’re not really a band any more. We haven’t even been in the same room for a year.’ Typical Bob, he just yelled back at me: ‘It doesn’t matter a fuck! Just get back together for the day. It doesn’t matter what you sound like as long as you’re there!’ I thought, that’s easy for you to say. Or yell. I wasn’t at all sure how Alan would react, though, being asked to fly over from Australia for a fifteen-minute gig with a singer he couldn’t stand.

  Fair play to Alan, though, he seemed to grasp the importance of the event before I did fully, and immediately agreed to come and join in for the show. He was happy to pay for his travel arrangements too. He was a complete gentleman about the whole thing. So now we had to do it. Colin phoned Bob with the news. He seemed unimpressed. I think in his mind we had already agreed to do the show. He had told us to be there and we bloody well better be. It was exactly this upstart Irish punk attitude that forced so many other stars to come out of their shells that day for Live Aid. Whatever you may think about Geldof, he was a king that day.

  By the time it was announced that we would be joining the show, Bob had lined up an Am
erican Live Aid to take place simultaneously at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, and persuaded the cream of the world’s musical talent to also appear: Queen, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Mick Jagger, Elton John, U2, Madonna … the list was long and hugely impressive. He had also somehow managed to oversee other twinned Live Aid events in the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia and West Germany. By the end of the show in London it was officially one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time. According to the stats – they still take my breath away – almost two billion people watched the live broadcast. Or put another way, nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population.

  What memories!

  Or rather: what memories? Yes, you guessed it. I vaguely recall the marvellous brass section of the Coldstream Guards regiment blasting ‘God Save the Queen’ just before we went onstage. And I think I remember the late great Tommy Vance – a Quo fan of old and a good mate – booming out the words, ‘It’s twelve o’clock in London, it’s seven o’clock in Philadelphia. This is Live Aid. Will you please welcome – Status Quo!’ Though that might just be because I’ve now seen the footage on TV so many times.

  We had met up that Saturday morning at a pub in Battersea, just down the road from the flash, new riverside flat where Rick now lived with his girlfriend, and soon to be second wife, Patty. Next thing we were on a helicopter heading for Wembley. We had helicoptered in to our final show at Milton Keynes Bowl the year before. We had headlined several big outdoor festivals over the years. But this was definitely a very different experience. The buzz wasn’t just confined to that huge Wembley Stadium crowd of over 70,000, it was everywhere you turned that day. The TV, radio, people on the street, everywhere and everyone was talking about it, vibing on the whole thing – and it hadn’t even started yet.

  At the time we hit the stage I was still straight. I saved my bingeing for afterwards, but the whole thing went by in such a flash I really don’t remember much about it now all these years later. The rest, as they say even though it almost never is but in this case absolutely was, is history!

  Credit where it’s due, it was Mike Appleton, then producer of The Old Grey Whistle Test TV show and the guy who was organising the BBC’s live coverage that day, who had been absolutely adamant that we should open with ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’. I know Bob has since usually claimed it was he that came up with that idea, and for all I know, he may well have. But that’s not how I remember it. I just know Mike Appleton virtually threatened us with termination with extreme prejudice if we didn’t do it. And of course Mike was absolutely spot-on.

  Keeping with Bob’s stated aim – repeated over and over until it felt like he had tattooed it on your face – to make the concert a ‘global jukebox’, we stuck to the obvious crowd-pleasers, following ‘Rockin” with ‘Caroline’, finishing up with ‘Don’t Waste My Time’. I know this because I’ve seen the footage. That is, watched it through my fingers covering my eyes. Don’t get me wrong, that short but sweet set is one of the proudest moments in the career of Status Quo. But what a state I was in for the rest of that day. What a state Rick was in, too.

  Or at least that’s how it felt to me. After we came offstage people were going ballistic – and in the days that followed, even more so. For a band that didn’t officially exist any more we were suddenly famous in countries that had never even heard of us the day before. It was the same for Queen and U2. Queen, our mates, had been on everybody’s shit list after playing at Sun City less than a year before. Now they were one of the most loved bands in the world again. U2 were already big but Live Aid made them into global superstars.

  After our set, and the obligatory round of breathless interviews where I did my best to hold it together long enough to seem at least semi-coherent, I headed for the VIP enclosure set up by the Hard Rock Café backstage. Rick jumped straight back on the helicopter and headed back to his local in Battersea, the returning hero.

  Back at the show, Freddie Mercury treated me to a bear hug that nearly broke my ribs, then picked me up and swung me around like a rag doll. I remember thinking: if Freddie decides to shag me now there will be nothing I can do about it. He was so strong. Freddie had no intention of wasting his charms on the middle-aged likes of me though, at least not in that regard. He just told me how well we’d done going out there first and braving the storm. Bless his heart.

  At the end of a very long and crazy day we were all rounded up and taken to the back of the stage, ready to try and find a place for ourselves onstage to sing the final song, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, which I really didn’t want to do. I was sitting with David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist – and, years later, one of the stars of The Sopranos – ‘Miami’ Steve Van Zandt, when they came to round us up. Then just as we stood up all the lights went out and the table we were sitting at collapsed. We were all laughing hysterically, bumping into each other trying to make our way to the stage and only just getting there in time. As I got onto the side of the stage I saw Rick, who had helicoptered back to the show with Patty. He seemed to be having the time of his life. Meanwhile, I was stood at the back, very uncomfortable. At least, I assume I was, as once again I couldn’t remember much about it when I woke up the next afternoon, or whenever it eventually was.

  It was only after reading about it in the Sunday newspapers and seeing my picture that it started to dawn on me what a great day it really was. We had fed the world. And somehow revived the name Status Quo in so doing. What we did next to the world was another thing.

  One I would now have to think about long and hard. As would the others …

  Chapter Nine

  Army of Two

  I always look back now and think of the career I’ve enjoyed with Status Quo as falling into two distinct categories: Before and After Live Aid. In the decade and a half before that incredible show, Quo had enjoyed its greatest successes, in many ways. We released sixteen new studio albums in that time, almost all of which were hits all over the world, selling more than fifty million copies along the way – more if you included all the hit singles we had too. And we wrote and recorded some of the songs that are still the fans’ favourites to this day, from ‘Caroline’ and ‘Down Down’ to ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ and ‘Whatever You Want’. But what a miserable time we ended up having when it was all over. Long before it was officially all over, actually.

  In the nearly thirty-five years now that have passed since Live Aid, we have also released sixteen new studio albums, selling another fifty million copies – and more, again, if you include the combined sales of all the singles. We have also pushed the boundaries far more musically, and we have toured in more countries around the world and sold more tickets to our shows than ever before. And, by and large, we’ve been a bunch of incredibly happy people. Well, there are always a few moans and groans, that comes with the territory as you get older – the occasional moments of you-must-be-joking! But by and large this has been the golden age of Quo for the guys in the band, me especially, and for a whole new generations of Quo fans.

  And yet it so easily could have gone another way. If Rick and I had stuck to our guns and absolutely insisted that Quo was behind us and that we were now determined, come hell or High Court action, to continue with our solo careers … well, you wouldn’t be reading this book now. Because I wouldn’t have had a very interesting story to tell, other than how I had once been a famous musician in the seventies, but blew it in the eighties big time.

  Not that I was sure I knew what I was doing in the crazy weeks that followed Live Aid. The pressure to reform the band and cash in on our new sky-high profile was being applied from all quarters. I got word once again that Alan and Rick were up for it, and had even let it be known to the record company that they were prepared to get someone in to replace me if necessary. But that wasn’t what the label executives wanted to hear. Nor was it what the various big-name tour promoters were interested in either. They a
ll made it abundantly clear that the only line-up of Quo they thought could still be successful was one with both me and Rick in it. That they weren’t that bothered who played the other instruments, as long as the two of us were there to front the band still.

  I got all that but I was still holding out. I knew Rick was hurt and confused by all this, could never really see what my problem was. But I didn’t care. I wanted a clean break. Or thought I did, anyway. My second single with Bernie, ‘Jealousy’, was scheduled for a late summer release and we still had the Flying Debris album ready to go. I decided that at the very least I owed it to myself to see that project through to its logical conclusion. What if those records were hits but I’d already committed myself to doing another Quo album? I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot. That’s what I told myself, not realising how close I was to shooting myself in the head if I didn’t reconsider the Quo situation.

  I even agreed to do a handful of ‘evening with’-style shows with Rick, billed as ‘An Evening with the Music of Status Quo’, in which we just pitched up and sat there talking to fans, answering questions and just hanging out and having fun. We weren’t required to sing and play. We were just there to chat. How we got talked into this I really don’t know. But somehow Rick and I were on the road again together – at least for a few days. It was fun, talking to the Quo fans. They really know their stuff and certainly had plenty of questions to ask. The main one being: why did we break up? Followed even more urgently by: when were we getting back together?