Verden Allen interview Oct. 5, 2009

How does it feel to be back in front of an audience with this band?

It’s been very natural. It’s how it was before, it feels exactly the same…better, in fact, than it was before for some reason. We’re more mature now. I’m really enjoying it, it’s great up there, the Apollo and the crowd is so great.

Are you aware how loyal your fans are? They waited a long time to see this?

Yes. Well, Ian kept doing his bookings with his bands and I know that he had quite a following coming but there’s a lot more people who have come to this reunion obviously. There’s sons and daughters and people who have never seen us before. They’re amazing because they’ve come from all over the world.

Did you realize that people were going to travel from so far to see you?

We’d done the Mott The Hoople convention a few years back and the same thing happened then so I expected people to come from certain paths, you know. They certainly turned out this time.

What do you think it is about the band that attracts such loyal fans?

I think it’s that we go out to the audience and get them to participate with us. It’s like one big thing.. We’re playing for ourselves and the crowd and it’s always been that way. That’s what it’s always been about for us. There’s a looseness about the band as well, we sort of change things as we go along from night to night. I think that’s what it is, something’s coming off that stage and it’s certainly getting to them. It always was the way. The crowd was a part of the band in a way.

Was it that way in the early days of the band?

Yes, it always was.

Was that something that you guys talked about?

No, that came natural to us. It’s through playing in the smaller venues, starting off like we did years ago. You’d be doing large pubs and clubs, cause there was clubs all over the place then, right throughout the year and maybe only go back to the same one twice, three times maximum. There were that many clubs before the disco scene came in. And of course playing close to the crowd you get…it sort of sends you off to the bigger gigs. So it came natural to us, a progression.

A lot of bands go through the same thing but don’t have that connection. How much do you think it has to do with Ian’s songs?

Yes, a lot of the songs he wrote were about “you are one of us” and numbers like that. It was about the people, about the crowd, about our fans. I think that probably has a lot to do with it, they could relate to the songs in that way. I don’t know, we just had a good name for being a live act to go and see and people could get involved with.

Have you met many fans while you’re here in London for the reunion?

Yes, there’s quite a few people who’ve been coming around. It’s difficult to see everybody. Things are moving all the time with us, they’re changing things around and we’ve got things to sign and all this sort of thing. It’s quite a busy time.

It must be strange to see your audience has grown older and are now mostly men in their fifties.

Well, I don’t know, people are still looking good to me. Of course there’s a lot of younger people around too. It’s very surprising, a lot of younger people have come up and said that they like the band. I think there’s a turnaround, people are going against the contrived bands that are being put together now. People are going more for this loose sound and it seems to be coming back in again.

I know you had rehearsals in Wales a few weeks ago. Can you tell me what it was like when you first got back together again?

We had two weeks in Rockfield, but prior to that, I wanted us to rehearse with the four of us…Mick, Buff, Pete and myself, like we did in the old days before Ian came…because we were a band before...for us to get ready for when he came from The States to Rockfield. I thought we would be leaving it a bit late if we’d just done the two weeks in Rockfield, which we would have done. So we rehearsed in Ask, in Wales, a town called Ask, the people were great there. When we first got together it was getting a few songs. Once you’ve done two or three songs, you start playing. There was an awful lot of talking, catching up to be done.

What did you talk about?

All sorts of things. It never stopped for about a month. Of course Mick has been touring, our guitarists, with Bad Company, so he had to learn the chords again, learn the songs again, because it had been so long. It took a bit of time. Without that groundwork, by the time we got to Rockfield we could play. Ian had been doing his homework, he’s been getting together his side in America. So, from the word go in Rockfield we could just play. We only had to sort out things like the endings, beginnings and endings and breaks in the middle. I think it’s worked perfectly.

It sounds like it and I’ve been to all three shows so far.

The first show was a bit…the sound on stage wasn’t all that good. I couldn’t hear a thing that was going on. I couldn’t hear anything I was playing at all most of the time.

I saw Ian gesturing to Overend to try and get some monitors working from the soundmen.

There was an awful lot of bass coming through my side. Overend was sort of protecting himself and he laced into his bass playing and he’s quite loud. Martin, who was subbing in for Buffin, he couldn’t hear what he was doing either on the first night because there was so much bass coming over. We pulled it off, rather amazing.

I know Overend hadn’t played in quite a while.

No, he hasn’t. That’s the first time he’s done a gig for thirty years, maybe.

Was there any time when you thought, this isn’t gonna happen? This isn’t gonna work, we might as well throw in the towel.

Well, sometimes you do think about it, you think, “what’s it going to be like?” I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and think, “Ah, have we done the right thing here?’ Cause I sort of pioneered to get it going. I kept at it for a year or more trying to get back together. Because people have tried to do it before. It’s never quite happened, but this time we were all ready to do it. People had the time to do it and it’s worked out right. But there were times when I thought, “well, is it going to be OK?”

You mentioned Martin Chambers, who’s idea was it to select him to fill in for Buffin?

Well, we knew Buffin wasn’t quite…he hasn’t played for years and it takes a lot out of a drummer and we knew he wasn’t well. We weren’t sure if he could pull it all off, you know. He’s proven now that he can’t. He just comes out on the encores. So Ian said, “Why don’t you get your friend? Call your friend up, Martin.” Because after I left Mott The Hoople the first time, back in 1972, I went back to Hereford and teamed up with Martin and James Honeyman-Scott and formed a band called The Cheeks, who then became The Pretenders. We didn’t get a secure deal after three years together and I had a deal then with Ariel Bender. Jet records put a single out on the rebound for us. And then all of a sudden Chrissie Hynde turns up and The Pretenders were born. But I worked with Martin for quite awhile, three years, I knew him really well. He always said, “I’d love to play for Mott The Hoople”. So Ian suggested that and I though that’s great. So I rang Martin up and straightaway he was into it. It all sort of went from there. That was before Overend had even said he’d do it. I had to keep on to him for quite awhile.

What was Overend’s reluctance?

Well he never wanted to do it. He always goes, “I don’t want to play”. But all of a sudden he gets into it.

He looks like he’s having a great time.

That’s what happens, you see. He says he’s not going to do it and then he does. I didn’t ask him, I asked his mother. I waited for the right time. I went up to his house with him. He said, “My mother would like to meet you”. They were talking away and I waited for a gap and his sister Jane was there as well. I said, “Mrs Watts, how would you feel if Mott The Hoople started up again?” She said, “Oh, I’d love it.” He said, “Oh, I don’t know about that”. It went on for about an hour, this discussion, in the end you could feel that he was coming around to it. It took about another month or so but he was OK then. It took quite a bit of doing to get people to come and do it. It wasn’t that easy.

How did you guys decide on the setlist and which songs you were and weren’t going to do?

Initially, I thought mainly we were going to do all the early stuff, from the Island days, because we were going back to the beginning again. But then the boys said we’re going to have to do the hits, people are going to expect that, you know. Of course, I didn’t play on a lot of them. They used brass and things on the other ones like Honaloochie Boogie. I wasn’t there on that one and Saturday Gigs, I didn’t play on. So now I’m doing it with a Hammond and giving it a different touch, I reckon.

I knew you didn’t play on the Mott album, but I always felt you were there in spirit, like on Hymn For The Dudes.

I did write Hymn For The Dudes with Ian. Of course we’ve got one called Santa Clause, I would have liked to have done that.

Yeah, Death May Be Your Santa Clause would have been killer.

I would have liked to do that, but the boys went for How Long instead…not How Long, I mean The Moon Upstairs. I felt, “Why can’t we do the two?” They’re a bit similar but so are a lot of other things. But nevermind, we’ve done what we’ve done now.

Was there any discussion about you doing Soft Ground?

Well, I would have liked to have done it, but I didn’t push it. I just went along with it. I would have liked to have done one, you know, with some vocal on it. That would have broke it up a bit for Ian and it would have made me feel a little bit better.

Well, speaking as one of the band’s biggest fans, we really appreciate your organ work.

Oh, thank you.

I think once people see these shows they’ll realize how integral your organ is to the Mott The Hoople sound. It’s really what separates you guys from other bands.

Yeah, the old Hammond organ takes a bit of beating.

Is that the same one that you’ve always had?

Yes. It’s the same one. I put it through direct. Sometimes people get it mixed up for a guitar sound sometimes. I put it through an amp. Mick and I alternate on the solos. He’s getting more confident now, Mick. He’s getting into it more now because he’s been doing the gigs with Bad Company and of course his mind was full of the Bad Company songs. He’s gotta get rid of that like I did. I’ve got an album out called My Masochistic Side, which is distributed in New Zealand by Southbound Records, I believe. On it, I’ve written one called Apollo 09 which is about this reunion. There’s one called In The City which is about Mott The Hoople again. That one, forty years on, we still rock & roll. We’re not doing new stuff, but that would have been a good one. I think I sold a few yesterday. People are starting to buy one or two.

I think people were disappointed that there was no DVD being shot at these shows. Was there discussion about that?

Well, that went a little bit pear-shaped. There was one offered to us but it didn’t seem quite right. Because we’ve got our own manager, Peter Purnell, and Ian’s got a manager named Brady in America and I think Mick is represented by somebody, it takes a bit of time to get these things sorted out. It goes around in circles, you know. Everybody’s got to agree. So that one sort of fell through. But on Tuesday night now, they’ve got Starlight Productions, they’re doing a documentary about Mott The Hoople. Yesterday I went around London with them to where we started off in Denmark Street, then to the Pied Bull in Islington…she’s now called The Bull… where we rehearsed. And back to the first flat we had in Lower Sloane Street. They’re coming on Tuesday and they’re gonna film and it’s going to be added to this documentary.

What did it feel like for you, going around to those places yesterday?

It was incredible. I was a bit tired. I wish I had gone to bed a bit earlier the night before. I didn’t get to bed til after three. When I got to Islington, I started to wake up a bit. Then I went in the Pied Bull. I couldn’t quite recognize it. There’s a skylight in the back…cos they’ve altered the place a bit…it all came back to me then, it flooded back. As I was going through London, all these memories are coming back. When we went back to the flat, it was great actually. If they wanted to do it before, I don’t think it would have worked the same. Actually being together with the band and playing and going there, it all made sense now.

It seems like the shows are progressing. On Saturday night you sounded a lot looser, like you were on tour and more like a band.

That’s right, yeah. I was starting to think a few chords ahead which makes you react more and play things in between. Mick was opening up a little bit more. It’s just being familiar with it all, that’s what it is, really.

Yeah, Mick’s playing on Walking With A Mountain and Rock & Roll Queen was just incredible that night.

Yeah, that’s great, that’s great. That’s because he’s getting into more now.

There are some rumours about you playing at Glastonbury next year and things like that. Have you guys discussed any of that?

Well, I think to do some real good prestige gigs would be alright. It’s keeping a legend going in a way. The band was always well known for its live act. We’ve got it again and people love us but rather than get too familiar with it all it’s best just to let the good work go if possible.

You’ve had some fairly well-known fans show up. Joe Elliott was on stage with you and Jimmy Page was in the audience and Mick Jones. Have they come up a talked to you?

It’s great to see Mick Jones because I remember they used to come around in London, they used to follow us around in the beginning, before The Clash. They used to stand on one side of the stage on one gig then they’d go to the other side of the stage and then they’d be in the middle. It’s like watching three different bands. They used to get trains and follow us all over Scotland as well. They used to hide in the toilet of the trains and not pay. Then there was Guy Stevens, who was our great producer, he started them out in the beginning. And of course Jimmy Page, yes, he was great to talk to. That was the Friday night he came to the changing room. Apparently he was there again last night. So he must have liked it.

There was some kind of run-in with Led Zeppelin back on Broadway.

I wasn’t there then. I think it had something to do with Bonham and Buffin.

Some of the other ex-keyboard players are in town doing something this afternoon. Are you aware of that?

I won’t be going to that, no. We’ve got a soundcheck and I was knocked out after everything yesterday. Ian’s son and daughter were playing at Dingwall’s, but we didn’t go. It’s hard to sleep in the night. It’s nice to see the name up again in the Apollo, Mott The Hoople, across the top. I’ve haven’t got a photo yet, I’ll have to do it today.