You are in the Special Features section - Eddie Phillips of The Creation

( ........... Phone rings )

Eddie: Hello...

Digger: Is that Eddie?

Eddie: Yeah.

Digger: Hello, how are you? It's Digger.

Eddie: Alright. Ok!

Digger: This is very kind of you.

Eddie: That's alright. That's alright!

Digger: Glad to hear that you're working in the studio tonight.

Eddie: Yeah, shortly after I got your email, I decided to see if I could resurrect some of the old Creation stuff. I was in me 'jungle' dusting off the shelves. Dug out me old records.

Digger: Oh, that's brilliant.

Eddie: Dug out me old reel to reel. And Kenny Pickett and I, we got together and we wrote some songs in the eighties. Um .... we went and did a studio album together which we never released. It would be great if we could get it out.

Digger: Mmm, it certainly would.

Eddie: And it's something where I just sat down with the guitar and loads of gear and Kenny came in and sung all over it, you know.

Digger: Lovely! Do you have any film or video of your old performances?

Eddie: Um, the German beat ... beat ... beat...

Digger: Beat club.

Eddie: Beat club, that's it, yeah.

Digger: Oh, I've seen a couple of bits of you on that. That's brilliant because to see you guys doing your stuff in the middle and then to see all the Germans sitting very quietly applauding and being polite.

Eddie: Very strange. I can remember doing that. I mean, God, we were raving around acting like loonies.
And they'd be sitting, as you say, ever so polite and...

Digger: I wonder what that was all about?

Eddie: "That was jolly good!" ( laughs )

Digger: But, what was this German thing about, you know - being able to latch on to stuff that's gonna be good? Why do you think they were doing that? I mean, they picked up on the Beatles before we did and they picked up on you.

Eddie: I dunno. Yeah, I mean, it's the first time really, as you've mentioned it, that I'm starting to think of it in that way. But, they do seem to, still actually, love that period of music 'cos I got a guy - a friend of mine who writes a magazine in Germany, 'Good Times', and it's quite a nice, glossy magazine and there's a bit in the back that's like a gig list of all the people that are currently working over in Germany at the minute. And it's like going back in time.

Digger: How do you feel about that when you see all of these groups on the retro circuits?

Eddie: Um, sometimes now and again I think it would have been nice to have had a crack at it. We had the chance - a few years ago we got back together and we did a ... we had a reunion and we did a few gigs and we did The Mean Fiddler a couple of times. And  as you know we made an album with Creation records. And, it all went a bit pear-shaped really. The weird thing about it was we were always squabbling in the van ( laughs ). And unfortunately, it was still the same. It was like, it was weird - we all got together and we argued and then we started rehearsing the songs for the first time in thirty odd years and we only had two rehearsals and we went out and did it. Then we started this sort of weird bit and it's like a self -destruct button we had, I think. It was really strange. But, I mean, there were a few things in the offer like a German tour but I personally couldn't get me head round that, you know. 'Cos I seem to look back at the Creation and it was just like a nice little thing at that period in time. In the mid-sixties there it was a great time to be around. And there were like loads of people doing creative things. All the music scene was changing and you could sense the change and we .... I think we were one of the bands that were in the change and making it change.

Digger: I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Eddie: I think what I'm saying is that 30 years later,  to go on tour playing that kind of stuff, you know. I mean, I can still play with the same, you know, the same........... 

Digger: Verve, vigour?

Eddie: Yeah, that wasn't a problem but it's almost phony, innit, what those guys are doing? They're just making a few quid out of it really.

Digger: I can't say too much because some of them are helping me out with my website ( both laugh ).

Eddie: Alright, say no more, let's leave it like that then!

Digger: I know what you mean. It is a sort of chicken in the basket thing and when you get bands who claim that they're so and so but actually there's only one guy who knows the original guy's brother who's still playing in the band or something,
then you think...

Eddie: Yeah, you get that as well. But, some of the names on this gig list were .... amazing and why I mention that was that the, the Germans still love that kind of music scene.

Digger: Harry Enfield does a good thing, I can't remember what the name of the character is. I think he's probably Dutch rather than German, but it's the same sort of thing where he's saying 'I am liking your Tremeloes very much' ( Digger laughs ).

Eddie: Yeah.

Digger: And it is this sort of snobby thing that we've got that the Europeans are sort of twenty years behind us in sort of music taste but I think they were ahead of us then, you know, certainly in some ways.

Eddie: Like the yanks to a certain extent they know how to enjoy themselves and at the end of it all that really is what everything's about, isn't it, really? People buy your record, enjoy it, or go and see your show and enjoy it. They have a good time and that's it innit? I mean, we always used to say that British audiences were one of the hardest. We used to leave here, lots of bands will tell you this, that you leave here as, sort of, virtually nobody and you get off the plane in Europe and they'll give you flowers and things. It's like that, you know. It's all a bit strange. The old British scene always was a bit, I dunno .....

Digger: I wonder why that is though, because there was so much going on here creatively, in all sorts of fields ......

Eddie: Difficult to put your finger on it. It's like there were two .... there were almost two things going on, you had the ground level things going on with like the bands and the kids and the dancers, you know, that was all the great things and then you had a side with like a business side of it, the press and the TV. They were sort of manipulative...

Digger: And there was a lot of crap with bands getting really dodgy contracts and really being shafted.

Eddie: We nearly got one ( laughs ).

Digger: Yeah, I mean what happened to Badfinger, you know what ended up happening there....

Eddie: No.

Digger: Oh well, I mean they, the reason that two of them ended up committing suicide basically was through contractual wranglings. You know,  which obviously caused a lot of problems with the band themselves and the two guys that wrote 'Without you'. I mean, that was a huge hit, international hit twice for Nillson and recently for Mariah Carey. But they never even saw a penny of it which is, why they both killed themselves in the end. Sorry, I don't want to get depressing.....

Eddie: Yeah. It's a shame when it gets you to that extent. I could imagine, I mean I've been pissed off many a time when I got a royalty cheque, and I'm saying ...."Well!" Shel Talmy bless him, a nice guy but he had his head screwed on right. With his "50/50" deals which would be 50% for the band and 50% for him - it was really stupid wasn't it, but we said "50/50 sounds fair"!

Digger: 50% split 5 ways! ( both laugh ) So you didn't make your fortune then?

Eddie: No, no. Far from it!

Digger: But you've had a good life out of it though?

Eddie: It's been nice. It hasn't affected my life in any way and every now and again through the years something has cropped up. Twenty years ago they re-released the album, didn't they? And it's been around ever since.

Digger: But don't you feel special though? ....... We haven't even started going through the questions yet, I'm not sure if we will or just carry on chatting. You ARE a cult. How does that feel, if you'll pardon the pun?

Eddie: How does it feel? ( Digger laughs ) I like that! ....... I mean, it's the sort of thing ..... you can't actually set out to achieve that, can you? You do what you do. It's great if someone 20, 30, 40 years down the line still likes what you did then, I mean let's face it, it can't get better than that.

Digger: Apart maybe from being one of The Beatles!

Eddie: Possibly, yeah.

Digger: Would you have liked to have had that level of fame? Could you have coped with it?

Eddie: Oh yeah. Yeah!

Digger:  No hesitation there! ( laughs )

Eddie: No, no worries.

Digger: I've got a great picture of you here out of this book called Mod, A Very British Phenomenon. I don't know whether you've seen that? And there's two or three pages dedicated to your band here. There's a Mark Four picture and you lot look really cool in this one. 

 

The Mark Four - Eddie second from right

 

Eddie: Is that a recent publication?

Digger: I think so, yes. It's quite an expensive one - £20.

Eddie: Eh? Bloody hell!

Digger: It's quite a big one though with some brilliant pictures in it. There's also another picture of The Creation in '66 'with Dave Preston in the band for only three weeks'.

Eddie: That's right!

Digger: And there's you looking like a Gallagher! With the dark glasses.

Eddie: Yeah!

Digger: It's exactly like one of the Gallaghers - it's spooky!

Eddie: Yeah, mind you when Dave was in the band ( laughs ) I think he drove us all to dark glasses. Dave had a problem with the old booze and didn't tell us. And the one and only show he ever did with us only lasted two minutes. The curtains opened and we kicked off with our opening tune and it started getting slower and slower and I looked round just in time to see the bass drum come flying past my head. He was on a rostrum behind me and he'd just collapsed totally out of his brain and as he collapsed he took all the drum kit with him and that was on a Walker Brothers tour. ( laughs )

Digger: 'Cos you also toured with David Garrick, didn't you?

Eddie: Yeah!

Digger: That was a weird one for you to do.

Eddie: We did loads actually. We toured with Cream, The Walker Brothers......

Digger: I think that The Walker Brothers were good. They did good pop tunes.

Eddie: Scott Walker had an excellent voice. And he was a very serious guy. And I was one of the very
few people to actually make him laugh.....

Digger: What did you do?!!!

Eddie: We were sharing a dressing room on one of these tours and we were doing our spray painting on stage and we was about to go on and one of our cans of gold metallic paint - the nozzle got jammed. So, like an idiot, I said "Right, give it to me, I'll fix it"! I pulled off the nozzle, looked at the can and stuck something down the front of it. Of course, the whole thing exploded in me face and I'm smothered in gold paint - me face, me shirt. And I managed to rub some of it off me face quick but I couldn't get it all off and Scott Walker was in hysterics. And that minute a guy came in and said "Creation, you're on".

Digger: ( laughs ) So Creation had gone gold?!

Eddie: Yeah ( laughs )

Digger: That's odd because I have been trying to get an interview with Shirley Eaton for ages and she's just agreed to do one in a week or so. So there's you - the golden man and she's the golden girl.

Eddie: Yeah. Mine was unintentional though.

Digger: How did the band form?

Eddie: The band came from the previous band, The Mark Four who played from around '62 to '66.

Digger: Was this in north London?

Eddie: Yup. All up in the north London beat scene. And  southern England - a few coastal gigs. Then that split and The Creation formed out of that.

Digger: Who came up with the name?

Eddie: I think it was Tony Stratton-Smith. Because, Kenny, Jack and myself carried on with a friend of mine playing bass at the time, Tony Cook. And Stratton-Smith came to see us and he liked what we were doing but he had a bass player - Bob Garner who he knew and he had the right image for the day and he said. "Look, I wanna do something with the band but I want this bass player". So we went with the flow and he said "I've got you a great name and we're gonna do this and that". He kind of had an idea in his mind of what he wanted to do with the band, the name and the style. He might have looked at us and figured it out from there. I don't quite know how he went about it.

Digger: But it was you guys who were writing all of the material. He wasn't bringing in stuff from outside?

Eddie: Oh no. I mean, Kenny and I were writing together even in the Mark Four days in '63. So really we were coming up with the music and Stratton was coming up with the image. And as you know in those days the image thing was - well, it still is, very important. We weren't creating an image because we were what we were and we were playing the music of the day for the kids of the day and we were almost like one of them.

Digger: Yours was a couple of years ahead though, I'd argue, at least.

Eddie: Yeah. Well, I dunno. I hadn't thought of it like that but it's interesting that you should say that.

Digger: Look at the other stuff that was in the charts in '65. R&B and pop but you were doing this stuff that was 'off the wall' really.

Eddie: Yeah ...... maybe we never really wanted to be famous. ( both laugh )

Digger: Hmm.

Eddie: Maybe we didn't, maybe we did, I don't know! But looking back I think we wanted to be famous but we didn't want to compromise what we were doing. That would be nice, really - that is probably genuine fame, that is, when someone makes it big doing what they want to do without being manufactured or manipulated from above by management and so on.

Digger: I wonder how often that happens?

Eddie: Not much at all, Digger, I shouldn't think. I should think The Beatles probably did it, doing their thing, didn't they?

Digger: Yeah, but they had to pay the price in lots of ways to do it.

Eddie: Oh yeah.

Digger: So the stage set came from you as well?

Eddie: Oh yeah. I was into weird stuff as far back as '62. I can remember I had a solid bodied guitar - a Futurama guitar, and it was always going out of tune. So I bought meself a brand new Gibson - a cherry red. And I'm talking about pre-fuzz box days. And I wanted to get some sustain on this guitar because that's when I started using the feedback. And 'cos it was semi-acoustic, I was noticing that whereas with my solid-bodied guitar I was getting no feedback at all, with this Gibson I was getting this 'whargh, whargh'. I figured out that if you kept your hands on certain frets and moved your hands in a certain way, you could use the feedback. I'm not saying I invented it because there's probably some old blueser in the 1930s wailing away in Chicago doing it. But it was new to me anyway. And I figured out this hacksaw idea I had.

Digger: Did that do a lot of damage in the process?

Eddie: It did. And I didn't know! I put in a guitar string instead of a blade with the windings of the string n the blade reacting with the strings on the guitar going in the opposite direction. And that was my theory that I'd get this weird sound. And it did sound quite weird, in actual fact, it was quite good, but what happened was the ends of the hacksaw were catching on the guitar and I didn't know. And I'm raving away looking out to the audience. These few kids at the front were looking at my guitar and pointing and there were bloody holes in it! I'd only had it about three weeks and I'm talking about the equivalent of a three grand guitar these days. So I was totally mad, but it was worth it. So I dumped that idea and figured out the bow. 'Cos I thought that wouldn't do any damage - the rosin on the bow might totally cock-up the strings and make them go dead, but it won't damage the guitar. And it worked in actual fact.

Digger: Did you play the violin?

Eddie: No.

Digger: 'Cos I'm sure there was some violin on some of your stuff.

Eddie: There is, on Life Is Just Beginning.

Digger: I was listening to it earlier on and I thought who's that playing the violin then?

Eddie: Yes, a string quartet. We had them playing on there.

Digger: Oh, so it wasn't you then?

Eddie: Oh no, I couldn't play it like that.

Digger: No, it was very pretty. I just thought surely it wasn't one of the Creation guys.

Eddie: Too good for that. ( laughs )

Digger: So, what was Robert Stigwood's influence?

Eddie: Robert Stigwood really wasn't part of our set-up really, no. He was like...

Digger: Bee Gees?

Eddie: .... looking after the Who wasn't he?

Digger: The Bee Gees as well, I think, wasn't he?

Eddie: And the Bee Gees, yeah, that's right, yeah.

Digger: So, tell me a bit about Shel Talmy, then, if I'm pronouncing his name right.

Eddie: Yeah, he was a great producer. He kind of went in the studio and I think was kind of - he knew what sound he wanted to come out with, and he got it. He was quite disciplined in the studio.  

Digger: So, it was a touch of the Mickie Mosts?

Eddie: Well, I never worked with Mickie Most but I think, if you're a producer, I think you've got to be disciplined. 

Digger: Yeah. They seem quite tough.

Eddie: Yeah, you've got to be tough and you've got to say what you like and you don't like and if someone's not doing it right you've got to be able to tell them, haven't you? But, in actual fact most of our, well I suppose all our recordings were like performances because there wasn't a lot of over-dubbing you could do then. I remember doing Making Time and I played the first part of the solo, like a solo, then I picked up the bow and carried on with the solo live. The whole thing is just live, just picked it up and started with it. Whereas, if you were doing something like that these days you'd use an over-dub,
just put it on later. But, then it was like as, pretty much like a performance.

The Creation single releases

 

Digger: So going to see you in concert you wouldn't get that many surprises. It would be very similar to the album then?

Eddie: Pretty much, yes. I suppose that's what's quite nice about that period of music, isn't it really? And there were no session men involved and we all played our bits whereas a lot of bands in the day were getting in, like, new drummers and guitar players and you never really knew who was playing on it half the time. We'd had Nicky Hopkins with us a few times. In actual fact most of our sessions we had Nicky Hopkins on the piano and his piano was mixed just underneath the surface of the sound to sort of give a kind of a body to it. It was great!

Digger: Where would I be able to hear that, on which track in particular do you think that's quite strong?

Eddie: Nightmares, it comes through on there.

Digger: Ok.

Eddie: Cool Jerk. If you listen for the piano, Nicky was great! I mean, he never really had any music, he just came in and we'd play the song once and he'd sit down and just play it along with us.

Digger: Did he get a credit?

Eddie: Well, he got a session fee. That's how it worked in those days. He should have got credit, actually, in some of our songs, somewhere down the line. He was a really nice guy as well, Nicky. He was really quiet and unassuming. He'd just open up that piano and he had this great style with it. Sort of a rolling piano thing he did. I spent the rest of my life trying to perfect it but I never have actually done it ( laughs ).

Digger: So you play several instruments then?

Eddie: Yeah. So that's how Nicky became involved, really. He was friends with Shel and a great engineer at the time, Glyn Johns. He was the first man I knew to drive an E-type ( laughs ). He engineered Making Time.

Digger: Where was that recorded?

Eddie: IBC, Portland Place.

Digger: I know that area quite well.

Eddie: A pretty historic building, that. Loads of good stuff went on in that building.

Digger: Have they put a plaque up yet?

Eddie: I doubt it. It's probably some office now, I'm not sure if it's still a studio, do you know?

Digger: I'm not even sure exactly where it is.

Eddie: Come up from Marylebone Road and it's about half way up on the right-hand-side about 2-300 yards before the BBC which is on the left.

Digger: I'll have a wander down there. We're not very good at looking after our recent musical history, are we?

Eddie: No. Everywhere else in the world they seem to but we just chuck it away.

Digger: Yes, they have people's handprints in pavements and all the razzmatazz and here we got a load of
fuss when they were putting the Hendrix plaque up.

Eddie: Yeah, it's weird innit? It's like, in the States - I went to Sun studios a couple of years ago, in Memphis and there's a big cross where Elvis stood. That sort of thing. They really make a bundle out of it with people going on tours all the time....

Digger: Are you a big fan of Elvis?

Eddie: ............. Yeah. Anyone who is into Rock and Roll, then Elvis is Elvis! I love the band though - I love the Scotty Moore/Bill Black Combo thing. The Sun label - the early days.

Digger: What did you think of Dusty's stuff when she went over there? Did you hear Dusty In Memphis?

Eddie: No.

Digger: That was pretty good. Were you into Dusty Springfield or was that a different sort of thing for you?

Eddie: No. I liked ALL of the music, really. I never hated anything.

Digger: You haven't got time for these snobberies that crop up about music?

Eddie: No! Music is music, isn't it?

Digger: Yeah, that was proved when Boney M. did one of yours.

Eddie: That's right. ( both laugh )

Digger: What was your relationship with the other bands at the time? Rumour has it that Pete Townshend tried to 'woo you into The Who'! Can you tell us about that?

Eddie: Well....... I don't know much about that, quite honestly! ( Digger laughs )

Digger: It's just one of these myths, is it?

Eddie: A myth or a legend! Something like that, I don't know. If it was a reality, they kept it from me!

Digger: It was a strange idea, having two guitarists in The Who.....

Eddie: The weird thing was with Pete - we actually did a couple of gigs together and I don't suppose he realised but I did. How alike we were in off-stage things. I remember at the time we were both into slot car racing and things like that. That was a weird thing with The Who as well, 'cos we were doing our feedback thing - almost a pop art thing with The Mark Four really in '64/'65 and I can always remember a great friend of mine Bill Fowler, who said "Here, I've heard about a band in west London called The High Numbers and they're doing an act like yours". And I thought "Oh shit!". I really did think that we were the only ones kicking that stuff around at the time. It turned out it was them and the rest is history.

Digger: They'd probably been along to one
of your gigs.....

Eddie: Yeah!

Digger: It's gonna happen isn't it? You're kids really aren't you? And kids imitate anything you really
like the look of.

Eddie: In fact that's how you've got to think of it. We were all kids and if we knew then what we know now we'd all be going around with briefcases and lap tops, wouldn't we? ( laughs )

Digger: Listening to your work now it seems incredible that you weren't up there with the big names. Your peers all admired you, the Europeans seemed to appreciate your work. Your music was unique, fresh and imaginative. Have you any explanation for why you didn't go higher here and, more particularly, in the US?

Eddie: Er.........no.....

Digger: ( laughs ) That's a simple answer, that's okay!

Eddie: .......... It's just like a bit of a mystery when you look back on it.

Digger: You mentioned the self-destruct button back there.

Eddie: There was a bit of that in it..... There was a little bit - the band was never really invested in financially. It was always down to us to finance the things we wanted to do. If we needed any new gear - it was all a bit like that. If we'd have had possibly a lot more investment.....

Digger: From Talmy you mean?

Eddie: Yeah, Talmy or management.

Digger: Because he says in this book I was mentioning earlier on that it is one of his big regrets. He can't see why you guys weren't as big as the others. He doesn't know what it was and it's such a shame.

Eddie: It is hard to put your finger on it. I honestly don't know why.

Digger: You spent a lot of time in Europe. So maybe the fact that you were there when most groups would concentrate on getting well-known in England first and then 'bouncing' to America.

Eddie: Yeah, maybe. I don't know if America would have been right for us at that time. Maybe, in later years. If we'd stuck together for another five years we'd just have evolved into the 70s thing just a little bit. We could probably have done quite good business in the States.


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