ONCE DESCRIBED BY ROD STEWART AS “ONE OF THE FINEST LYRICISTS BRITAIN HAS EVER PRODUCED”, THE ENDURING AND INSPIRING STEVE HARLEY SHOULD NEED VERY LITTLE INTRODUCTION…

Since first finding success in the 1970s with his band Cockney Rebel and hits MR SOFT, JUDY TEEN, MR RAFFLES, SEBASTIAN and the worldwide smash MAKE ME SMILE (COME UP AND SEE ME), Harley has continued to write and record, releasing thirteen original albums (with a new one due early next year), and has played thousands of shows all across the globe. He’s about to embark on a ‘trio acoustic’ tour. “Playing the songs in an acoustic way gives me time and space to enjoy every second. It gets pretty exciting during the acoustic sets,” he says. In this new interview with The Mouth Magazine – conducted by telephone, when Harley was in Sicily – we discuss his life and career…

 

STEVE, YOU’RE OUT IN SICILY AS WE SPEAK – IS THAT A HOLIDAY OR DO YOU HAVE A SECOND HOME OUT THERE?
I’ve never had – ever – a second home, and I’ll tell you why… In the ’70s, when I could well have invested in a second home somewhere, a lot of people around me would have a second home – EMI executives or certain well off musicians. It could be in Wales, it could be in Scotland, it could be in Spain. But it was the only place they ever went to… and my wife and I are real explorers. I’m away an awful lot – I travel around half the world playing music – so I see a lot of the world, professionally. I’ve taken ten flights in the last four weeks. But my wife and I, we have a holiday in a different place every year just about, because we like exploring. We rent villas – ‘cos if I bought a house here in Sicily, for instance, it’d become the only place we came to.

HAVE YOU BEEN TO SICILY BEFORE?
Actually no. We haven’t. This is our first visit to this island. We know mainland Italy very well. Across the bay from here you’ve got Amalfi, and we’re often there.

I WENT TO SICILY WHEN I WAS 12, AND MY ABIDING MEMORIES ARE OF MOUNT ETNA, THE VOLCANO, WHICH HAD RECENTLY BEEN ACTIVE… AND OF A T-SHIRT IN A GIFT SHOP WHICH HAD A CARTOON OF A GANGSTER AND THE WORDS ‘I AM MAFIOSO’ ON IT!
Ha ha, blimey… That’s brazen! Well, yeah, the volcano’s still active. Next week we’re going up Mount Etna in a couple of jeeps. I’ve brought my children and grandchildren – there’s eight of us here – and we all want to see Mount Etna. We’re looking forward to that enormously… You’ve gotta tick those boxes, haven’t you? [Editor’s note: See photo taken a few days after this interview was conducted]. So I’m in Sicily, but where are you at the moment?

I’M IN LINCOLNSHIRE… YOU’RE BRINGING YOUR ACOUSTIC TRIO SHOW TO LOUTH TOWN HALL – WHICH IS NOT THAT FAR FROM WHERE I’M SITTING, AS WE SPEAK?
Well, we live near Sudbury, in Suffolk, but I know Lincolnshire pretty well, actually. My son’s best friend (from the age of about eleven at Grammar school all the way through to today) was, until last year, a Tornado then a Typhoon pilot. His parents lived in Singapore so he ended up being family to us. My wife and I were his surrogate parents whenever the base had some special thing on, inviting family. So we went up to Coningsby quite a few times, which is where the Typhoons were based.

I SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT FOR MANY YEARS THE RAF BASE AT CONINGSBY – OR PERHAPS NEARBY SCAMPTON – HAD A BEAUTIFUL OLD DECOMMISSIONED LANCASTER BOMBER JUST SITTING AT THE GATES, AS A DISPLAY PIECE…
Well, they’ve definitely got one there at Coningsby – but it flies! The only flying one in the country is at Coningsby. It’s in the Battle Of Britain Museum, and it’s the one that does all the fly-overs and things… Me and my wife have been all over that Lanc, ‘cos we got special dispensation for her to climb all over it. Her father was a mid-turret gunner in a Lanc through twenty-six operations during the Second World War. So she’s very closely associated to the Lancasters. It’s all very interesting, yeah…

… SO THE SHOW YOU’RE ABOUT TO TOUR WITH… IT’S AN ACOUSTIC TRIO SHOW, WITH BARRY WICKENS AND JAMES LASCELLES… I’D IMAGINE YOU HAVE TO ALTER THE ARRANGEMENTS OF THE SONGS TO SUIT, SO IS PUTTING SOMETHING LIKE THAT TOGETHER VERY DIFFERENT THAN A FULL BAND TOUR?
Yeah, it’s obviously different to being in a seven-piece rock band – but we’ve now played maybe, crikey, a thousand of these trio shows so we do play this way an awful lot. We did a thirty-three date tour earlier this year, in the spring. We’re so used to the arrangements, and to each other. It’s very exciting – it’s not like a trio doing laid back jazz or something. It’s quite rocky. We still improvise a lot. It’s not rigid. I’m quite flexible, and they’re both virtuoso players – those two guys are very respected. So it’s easy for me to just give them a bit of space and see what they come up with.

… AND BEING AN ACOUSTIC TRIO MEANS IT’S A MUCH MORE PORTABLE VENTURE, SO IT’S PROBABLY A MUCH MORE RELAXED WAY OF TRAVELLING AROUND?
Yes. There’s usually six of us in a splitter bus – a Mercedes Sprinter, with airplane seats around a table. And our backline – which there’s not a lot of – is in the back. One big keyboard, four guitars and some bits and pieces. It’s, as you say, pretty portable. It’s a light and easy way to travel. When it’s a full rock band, you’ve got fifteen people together on the road, and you’ve got all these timetable and itineraries that the Tour Manager has to come up with. When it’s the acoustic trio and there’s just two or three other guys with us, we can make plans at the last minute. We book hotels just two or three days before we’re due in town. We kind of like checking into a hotel at midnight and saying to each other “Well, breakfast isn’t until 10, or 10.30 – or 11 (God-willing, ha ha ha) – let’s meet in the lobby at 11”, or “Let’s leave at 10 and have breakfast on the road”… It’s all very relaxed. We just look at each other when we’re checking in, before we go off to our own rooms, and we make those sort of decisions then. It’s a nice way to tour – it’s very flexible, it’s very laid back.

YOU’VE DONE A LOT OF TOURING OVER THE YEARS…
Yeah, I have. I’ve done it for forty-five years, so I know enough about it to know that to make it work you really need to be around like-minded people. Relaxed people who don’t need an OCD approach to tomorrow’s itinerary. We can’t have that. “I need to know, I need to know”… Well, we can’t tell you… If you’re like that, you’ve got a problem. You’re OCD and you can’t work with us. And you don’t want guys coming on the road with their baggage. You want guys who’ll keep their problems to themselves – or not have any problems, preferably, ha ha. It sounds a little callous, but when you’re on the road it’s not all about you. This is a team, and you have to be a team player who can have a life of his own. But you can’t have a situation where there’s too many chiefs and not enough Indians, either…

… SO IT’S RELAXED AND IT’S PORTABLE – SO I GUESS YOU COULD ROCK UP AND PLAY JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE, ANYTIME… ARE YOU THAT KIND OF PERFORMER, AT HEART?
No, no. I’m not. It has to be really really professional. It’s 100% professional. There is absolutely nothing remotely ‘folky’ about me. We stay in a lot of Travelodges or Premier Inns or whatever, and we basically check in at midnight and go to sleep – so I’m only talking about decisions about what time to leave the hotel, or where we might have breakfast or things like that. Everything around the shows is really really professional, believe me. Everyone around me behaves properly. I haven’t had an agent for three years. I dropped my agent three years ago, for various reasons, and I thought about getting another one after I’d had a sabbatical. But it’s turned out that my office e-mail never actually stops pinging. We get approached a lot – nearly every show we play is from the promoters or the venues approaching us. My office has a bullet-list of five or six points. It involves a totally private dressing room backstage, totally private toilet and washing facilities. If a venue says “We’ve got everything except for a totally private loo”, my office is “You think Steve’s gonna pee with the audience just before going on stage?” – nah! I’m easy going to a point – but it all has to be respectful and private. I’m in my mid to late sixties, ha, and we need comfort. I was a rock star in the ’70s you know, ha ha ha!

STEVE, YOU’LL OBVIOUSLY HAVE BEEN ASKED ABOUT MAKE ME SMILE (COME UP AND SEE ME) MANY TIMES OVER THE YEARS, BUT I’M REALLY INTERESTED TO FIND OUT WHAT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THAT SONG IS NOW… IS IT SOMETHING OF A CHORE TO PLAY IT? IS IT SOMETHING YOU FEEL OBLIGATED TO DO?
Well, I don’t have to do anything… But if I was to play a two-and-a-quarter hour show and then say “goodnight” and walk off, having not performed that song… y’know… First of all, why would I do that anyway? It’d be so churlish to do that. Spiteful, even. It’d be weird. It’d be ridiculous. Nobody would understand it if I did that… Really, it’s a signature tune to me and my audience. It’s an important song in our lives. I’m really really proud of it, and I genuinely love it when we kick into it. And the thing is, sometimes it’s gonna last ten minutes ‘cos the audience just takes control of it, which is great! It’s still, to this day, a wonderful feeling playing that song. Uplifting.

YOU HAD OTHER HITS, OTHER SONGS – BUT WHY THAT PARTICULAR SONG, DO YOU THINK, AS ‘THE ONE’?
I dunno, really… It’s just got a life of its own. It kind of controls us rather than the other way round, to be honest. It was a huge hit, remember, so maybe it’s lasted so long ‘cos it still gets played a lot everywhere. In fact my publisher turns down all kinds of requests for its usage (for various reasons). But we do accept a lot of the requests – and we say “the song is doing its job”… It’s there to earn money and it does. Also the more a song is played, erm… it’s…

… IT’S AN AMBASSADOR FOR YOU? IT’S GOOD PR…
Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. It’s good PR… To be honest, next spring when I release my new album I could have a number one album. It’s unlikely, of course, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. But what I’m saying is, it’d only be number one for 24 hours and wouldn’t make any real money – certainly not ‘life changing’ money… But what happens is, when you’re in the public consciousness via airplay, it sells tickets. So that song sells tickets, year after year. After family – after family – that’s my raison d’etre. Selling tickets. Why? Because it’s lucrative – and don’t forget that it’s my livelihood. After family, playing live is the love of my life. All I want is an audience.

I’M GOING TO ASK YOU ABOUT A COUPLE OF COVERS OF THAT SONG, BECAUSE I’M REALLY INTERESTED TO HEAR YOUR TAKE ON THOSE… IN 1990 THE WEDDING PRESENT RELEASED A VERSION OF IT, AND I THINK THE SOUND OF THAT RECORD WAS VERY CLOSE TO THE SENTIMENT OF THE SONG…
Yeah, it was, it was. That song is finger pointing… and The Wedding Present totally got it. They played it accordingly. I’ve met people who’ve worked for The Wedding Present – crew or whatever – and I always say “please do say hello to the band, to David [Gedge]. Please do tell him that really is my favourite version of that song”… And it is! It is a very very good record.

 

… DURAN DURAN RELEASED QUITE AN INTERESTING VERSION – SLOW AND ALMOST SULTRY?
Ha ha, yeah – it was almost romantic wasn’t it? It gave the song a very different mood. It was their keyboard player Nick Rhodes who arranged that – and he did it very imaginatively. I admired Nick and the Duran Duran version immensely. It was terrific – quite a different way of doing it…

… AND THEN THERE’S THE ERASURE VERSION…
Erasure. Vince Clarke. They had a Top Ten hit with that song. Their version was disco, it was in 4/4 time. It was very odd, to me, when I first heard it, ‘cos he didn’t have all the gaps in 6/8 that I’d put in, and all that. So I was fascinated by how that worked, and what Vince and Erasure did… I do love the way people put their own slant on the song, I really do. I love to hear how people reinterpret it and maybe ‘take it somewhere else’. But I do still say The Wedding Present version is the best version, I think…

YOU’RE A SUCCESSFUL WRITER OF MANY YEARS AND MUCH STANDING, SO I WONDERED HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT COVER VERSIONS, AND WHAT THE COMPULSION IS TO DO SOMEONE ELSE’S MATERIAL… IT SEEMS TO BE A REAL ‘THING’ AT THE MOMENT TO DO COVERS ALBUMS – EVEN MORRISSEY’S DONE ONE.
Yeah, that’s right. Morrissey has just done a covers album, that’s right… You and I have just talked about three different versions of MAKE ME SMILE (COME UP AND SEE ME), but there are in fact one hundred and thirty three! Roughly, ha ha… That’s just the ones we know about, anyway, all around the world. Obviously I haven’t heard them all – I’ve heard about thirty or forty in my life. Mostly they’ve just been replicas of the original – but without our wonderful production which was thanks to Alan Parsons. I was the producer, but Alan Parsons was the mega-talented and magnificent engineer. So that record was a really great record mostly thanks to Alan – I’m not trying to take the credit…

… IT DOES STILL SOUNDS GREAT… IT POPS OUT AT YOU… IT’S FRESH, SOMEHOW…
Yeah, it still sounds really great, doesn’t it? You hear it on the radio and you still go “What?! That’s something new“… But that’s down to Alan… Anyway, I also had a big hit with a version of HERE COMES THE SUN. Love it or hate it, I made it my own. It’s nothing like The Beatles, it’s nothing like George’s version. We still play it live, my version – and I swear some people do think it’s actually my song. If you’re under 40 you might not know The Beatles’ version… So, yeah, the big thing about cover versions, for me, is that if you do a song you have to really really try and make it your own.

INTERESTINGLY, STEVE, YOU ACTUALLY BEGAN YOUR CAREER AS A REPORTER ON A LONDON PAPER… AS A YOUNG REPORTER, YOU DID ALL THE USUAL STUFF – WHAT I LIKE TO CALL ‘COURT REPORTS AND KITTENS’…
Yeah, I spent a lot of time – I mean ten hour days – in Magistrates Courts. At Bow, in London, for the East London Advertiser. In the East End there were stories, you know what I mean? A photographer and I once did ten days on one story in the East End… We sent stuff off to Fleet Street. As soon as our paper went to bed, we sent stuff off for lineage payments… I had a great time – it was three or four very happy years as a young man. Three or four of the guys that I did my journalism training with are still, really, my best friends to this day. One is the Editor of the Mail On Sunday, one is an Associate Editor at both the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Mirror… Yeah, Christ, they’ve done so well. Right up at the top in Fleet Street.

I HAVE WONDERED HOW YOU GOT FROM THAT TO BEING ON TOP OF THE POPS – WHAT DROVE YOU… ‘COS I DON’T IMAGINE THAT WHEN YOU STARTED AS A JOURNALIST YOU’D HAVE WANTED TO BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN A BRILLIANT JOURNALIST..?
Yes indeed. You’re dead right, you’re absolutely right. To be a newspaper reporter was all I ever wanted – from the age of twelve or thirteen. There was no question about it. It was absolutely what I was going to do. And I did it – but I got tired of it. I grew disillusioned. But I was also always playing music. I had a guitar when I was twelve, and played it – and then Bob Dylan came along when I was thirteen! I immediately realised you could put these amazing words to it – it didn’t have to just be Buddy Holly or Elvis anymore. It could be serious literature… Well, serious pseudo-poetry – Dylan’s early work had a massive effect on me at the age of thirteen. So when I gave up journalism, I was already busking and also playing in folk clubs in London… So, I don’t know… But what I do know is that it broke my Mum and Dad’s hearts when I gave the journalism career up…

DO YOU KNOW THAT STORY ABOUT BONO..? U2 ARE PLAYING SOMEWHERE ENORMOUS IN AMERICA – MADISON SQUARE GARDENS OR SOMETHING… AND BONO FLIES HIS WHOLE FAMILY OVER FOR THIS HUGE SHOW. AT THE MASSIVE AFTERPARTY THERE’S, LIKE, JACK NICHOLSON AND BILL CLINTON AND ABSOLUTELY LOADS OF REALLY FAMOUS PEOPLE, AND BONO INTRODUCES HIS DAD TO THEM ALL… AND HIS DAD JUST TAKES THEM ALL IN HIS STRIDE. LATER ON HE TAKES BONO ON ONE SIDE AND SAYS “YEAH YEAH, THIS IS ALL VERY WELL PAUL – BUT WHEN ARE YOU ACTUALLY GOING TO GET YOURSELF A PROPER JOB?”…
Ha ha ha… Yeah, ha ha ha… That’s great. Well, my Dad was alright in the end. Once he’d seen me on TOP OF THE POPS singing JUDY TEEN he went “Well, Steven had a point”…

JUST THINKING ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO WERE AT THAT PARTY… WHO’S THE MOST FAMOUS – OR IMPRESSIVE – PERSON YOU’VE EVER MET STEVE?
The two most impressive people I’ve ever met were… my English master, Anthony Harding, who is in his mid-to-late eighties now. He’s a very good friend of mine, still, and he inspired me massively.

… THAT’S REALLY NICE…
Yeah. And I also spent a strange and wonderful ten minutes talking with Bob Dylan… He sat down to talk to me and I didn’t know what to say. Dylan doesn’t talk. It was the most surreal ten minutes of my life – but completely and totally unforgettable. I remember every moment, every beat, of that ten minutes.

IS HE ALMOST ANONYMOUS IN A ROOM… OR IS HE A BIG PRESENCE?
No, no. His charisma is there in his work. But he’s not a big presence himself, actually, no. He used to visit quite frequently with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) when Dave was married to Siobhan Fahey, and I was with Siobhan quite a lot. I said to her “How is it when Bob Dylan comes round for dinner at your place in Crouch End”, and she said “Well, he just sits there and eats. He doesn’t actually say anything”… One night she asked Dave “What do you think’s going on in there?” – and Dave said “Everything“… Ha ha ha, wonderful…

HA HA HA… WELL, STEVE, YOU’VE BEEN MARRIED FOR MANY YEARS, AND AS YOU SAID EARLIER YOUR FAMILY IS A VERY IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR LIFE – BUT OTHER THAN THAT WHAT MIGHT YOU CONSIDER YOUR ‘CROWNING GLORY’..?
Ha ha… Well it’s not like I’m spending time looking back. I don’t really look back too often, my friend… Some people have asked me “When are you going to write a book?”, but I’m not really likely to. I’m not being glib. If someone asks me a question about the past I’ll talk about it and I don’t mind doing that – but I actually live for today and tomorrow. I’ve got two beautiful grandchildren, who as I said earlier are out here in Sicily with us. Life gets better for me.

IT SOUNDS AS IF IT HAS BEEN, AND CONTINUES TO BE, A GREAT LIFE… YOUR WORK HAS GIVEN YOU THE CHANCE TO SEE AND DO SOME UNIMAGINABLY GREAT THINGS…
Yeah, it’s a real pleasure. We’ve just come back from Norway, where we headlined a festival last week, and one night when we were there we were taken out by a very well-meaning fan, an industrialist who gave the gift of a trip out on his own boat… He took us out to see the midnight sun, which was incredible. We had such an amazing experience… [Editor’s note: See photo taken a few days before this interview was conducted]. I get that all the time – because of my career. We get to go to these places, and when we’re there things happen because we’re there. We get to see things that other people would pay a lot of money to go on holiday to see. So, there is no, sort of, ‘one crowning moment’, really – ‘cos it’s all of them… And probably I feel there is some sort of crowning achievement to come in my career. I’ve just come out from ten days recording at Rockfield studios…

… OH YEAH, MONMOUTH… I KNOW IT, I LOVE THAT AREA… SOUTH WALES IS BEAUTIFUL…
Yeah, beautiful Monmouth in beautiful South Wales. We’ve just come out from a residential at that studio, recording my new album with some fantastic players. One of them has been a hero of mine for the last thirty years… To think he was in the studio with me for ten days, playing these tracks, playing guitar that you can’t teach somebody, it’s so far beyond teaching… It was fantastic. I’m not telling you who it is, just yet. But you’ll find out soon. It was someone really really special… The record is 80% finished at the moment. It’s going to be a sort of ‘under-produced’ thing. And it’s going to be released next January. So I don’t actually know what will happen next year – ‘cos it could be the best year of my life because this might just be the best record I’ve made in my life… My engineer thinks it is!

 

LOUTH  /  Town Hall  /  Friday 13th September  :  Tickets here
BUXTON  /  Opera House  /  Saturday 14th September  :  Tickets here
ILKLEY  /  King’s Hall  /  Friday 20th September  :  Tickets here

For further tour dates and ticket links visit Steve’s website, here