greetings hope you're doing well and
staying safe i'm really excited to
present the first ever you can't unhear
this interview
with a special guest robin mayhew whose
life intersected with the early days of
the beatles and the rolling stones
and continued in the 1970s working with
david bowie lou reed
and many other artists i hope you'll
stick around as robin has some amazing
stories to share from his time in the
music industry
and if you have any ideas for future
interviews let me know in the comments
or shoot me an email
without further ado join me as i get to
know robin
okay one two three testing
first before we even get started i just
wanted to ask you
um how you found my videos
you know i had a screen of youtube
videos up
and i saw this one which tweaked me uh
about the beatles and who was singing
this line and that sort of thing
and i just got interested and came and
watched and watched it through
and it just inspired me
that um you know somebody was looking
back at all those things
that were going on back in the day so so
that's where we start back in the day
yeah
you were born the same year as john
lennon in fact
i believe i think so yeah describe a
little bit what it was like
growing up in that era that takes me
to the beginning now i'd like to start i
mean i'll show you this
this is mid-50s now in the uk in the mid
50s just about
every well thousands of boys
picked up a guitar started playing
including the beatles
you know john lennon paul mccartney
george harrison they started strumming
away because of
lonnie donegan playing all these things
like the rock island line and all these
other
skiffle things
and then you had this invasion
um from america of like little richard
and uh jerry lewis uh
a more obscure artists teddy randazzo
charlie rich these sort of things
and these guys strumming their guitars
started to play this rock and roll this
blues and stuff
so you had this like beginning of
amplifiers and electric music
started you know and the beatles too
in the cavern cup were playing away to
their crowd
and they were doing all covers all
covers
and we were a covers band i mean we
worked
you know we had we had regular jobs all
of us in the band
there we go there the band
that was taken by deca when they signed
us a picture they took for the release
of our record
we were playing you know five nights a
week around the london
clubs some pubs we were earning more
playing the clubs than we were with our
jobs
so this is the the red line pub in
sutton
and uh this is a club we played every
friday night
and you can see how crowded it is we get
300 the council would probably say it's
it's good for a hundred people but we
used to get like 300 in there
rammed and ian stewart
who was the sixth rolling stone he was a
good buddy of ours he lived
in team just around the corner from the
red lion
and he was uh playing with keith
richards and
jagger and brian jones and uh
our bass player colin who was our bass
player then
sat in with them and played with them
and begged us to play it so we let them
play a few friday nights there
so the promoter booked the stones
and us managed to fill the hall
but can you see the price five and six
that's about 50 cents to get in to see
the stones man
I have to say: The Red Lion was deserted but then The Stones made it
to write their own stuff
which was the secret same as the beatles
they started writing their own stuff so
that they started to make a name for
themselves
so it was very tempting but we didn't
write our own stuff we blew it now
i mean a lot of groups at the time were
doing mostly covers
r b covers and i think the rolling
stones their first album was mostly
cover songs that they had heard so it
seemed pretty normal to do that right
i mean everybody wanted to hear the
familiar songs yeah but
but the stones when they here we are
yeah
i don't know if you can see that uh i
want to be your man
written by the beatles and come
on which was uh chuck berry or somebody
don't so they picked up on that and the
beatles
passed them a number and bush if if the
beatles have passed us
a number i probably wouldn't be here
so speaking of um of passing a number to
another band
so you your your group the presidents
did candyman
yeah we we recorded it uh with glenn
johns who was an old school buddy of
mine
and he had started work as a tape at uh
ibc
studios in london and he would invite us
up at the weekend
to have a go mixing and stuff and he
heard uh he heard our version of
candyman and he said
let's record it so we recorded it
um and he gave it to decca
and they signed us immediately and then
apparently decca played it to their top
band of the day brian paul and the
tremolos
and they cut it and
released it forcing us to release ours
as a b-side
how'd that make you guys feel we were
disgusted but we carried on
we enjoyed playing and we we did it
and then shortly afterwards two of the
guys left
and we recruited a new guitarist and i
started singing
um and then still signed to decca
we recorded um uh rory jackson
and the late sonny bono song she said
yeah
with glenn with glen johns he gave it to
decker
and we never heard a thing and we we we
didn't know
you know we carried on for a few months
but then we just gave up
but but then ray i had this email from
alec pauloa in los angeles
and he said i found the acetate in
shel talmay the legendary producer in
his
collection and he worked for decker in
the mid 60s
and they played it to roddy jackson
and he gave it the thumbs up and it got
released
in 2018 53 years late
a little girl where did you come from
you fight a little bit
you make your mama say come on baby by
the way
did you have a copy of it yourself
before they found this acetate or
was this a first time you've ever heard
it in 50 years no
we had nothing that's remarkable the
acetate was given to decker
and we never had a thing we used to play
it live you know
used to play it live but um we never
heard the acetate till we got it in
2018. so
that must have been that must have been
remarkable to hear it after all those
years
oh it was fantastic and i got the band
back together the guitarist
martin who lives in australia was over
here for a summer holiday
and i managed to get us all together and
we made the video which you've probably
seen on youtube
lip sync's not bad after 53 yeah yeah
i would have believed it was live i mean
it was good oh good feeling
that so were you ever considering
writing original songs with the
presidents and
you were any of you songwriters we got
some
demos from uh somebody who was writing
music but we couldn't make head or tail
of it you know
and we we were just hopeless we didn't
do it were you always musically inclined
as a child or my mother always played
the piano my sister played the piano
my mother would always be singing so
there was this
you know always music in the house but
when lonnie donaghan hit the scene and i
was
in my teens i just had to get a get to
go
and so it just developed from that you
know what were some other
you know groups that people might know
that you that you either played with at
the time
or you or you listened to or you went to
congress on the same s on the same
circuit we did there was a band called
the detours
who became the who i mean i'll tell you
a little story
we were we were at the old fields hotel
greenford
doing our gig and the who had a nut all
the detours had a night off
and they were in the bar and we were
talking with them
and pete town said says we're not
renaming the band
i said what are you calling it you said
the who i said the what he said no the
who
and he said that's why we're doing it
because everyone says the who
let's talk about the end of the
presidents um you know what happened you
you reformed you said you knew some new
members but then what happened
yeah after we recorded she said yeah and
we heard nothing
and we carried on and uh
we probably carried on for uh three or
four months
and then just said no let's just give it
up you know
we were tired of it when was this 1965
65. my father had bought a uh
a business from my mother's uncle
in cape town so we up sticks
and went as a family just before we went
i got engaged to my lovely wife margaret
went out there sadly my father died just
after we got there but
my mother and my sister and her husband
we all got together and managed to get
it running uh
then i sold my sg gibson sg
guitar to get the ticket to fly home to
get married
uh got married and marty and i returned
to cape town
he lived for a year and then we got very
fed up with apartheid
and there's the the way the country was
run you know it was
dreadful you came back to the uk um
and by this point i mean the music scene
had changed quite a bit i mean this is
what 1967 or so i mean that's that's
the beatles are doing their psychedelic
stuff and that's all because of the rage
um what did you what were your
impressions coming back to the uk at
that time versus when you'd left
uh i remember i remember my old bass my
original bass player the one who played
with the stones a couple of times
and ian stewart we got together
and we played a few things like in in a
church hall somewhere
and i went round to the bungalow
which was originally rented by the
stones in epsom
uh where ian stewart used to
live and met this guy nikki graham
uh and nikki graham um
was with a band called the end but they
just formed tucky buzzard
and bill wyman because of the connection
was going to produce their new album
which is called
warm slash nikki said you know i said i
haven't got a job at the moment and we
were chatting and he said look
we need a roadie because we're getting a
new pa system
i said well okay i'll give it a shot we
did a very short tour
of of uh europe spain and germany
and a couple of gigs in france came back
to england
and went to america came to america and
tuckie buzzard
signed with tony dufrese
who had just signed david bowie i i knew
space oddity david bowie but i had no
interest
whatsoever tony dufrese who was managing
bowie and kentucky buzzards said
i'm laying on this gig for some record
executives to listen to david's material
he said well take your buzzer dude warm
it up
so we did that and we set the pa up and
we did our set
now tucky buzzer were pretty heavy metal
we did about four numbers
and uh which were great came off but we
couldn't leave we had to wait there
and david who had very long hair
and big flared trousers and all the rest
of it
got on stage to do his bit and it was
very poor a lot of feedback howl and
whistle and
noise and just terrible and they
finished
and then i we started to pack our gear
away
and i had this uh knock knock knock on
the shoulder and it was angie bowie
and she said can you come and talk to
david and
so i said okay so he said how the hell
could i hear what your singer was
singing
with all that noise going on i said well
it's just
me and the pa and he said
i'm putting a band together we're going
to go on tour we're going to do a
rehearsal
dufrese said yeah yeah go and go and do
it so we went
to beckham rugby club set the pa up
and when bowie walked in
totally transformed he had his red
mullet
uh totally different and it was like
whoa you know
and anyway we no sound check we
just went straight into the opening of
the set
did about four numbers and it was
it i mean god i don't know
the combination of the of the pa
and the performance of the band and my
skills it just worked
mind you let me just point out i did say
uh to them and i with tucky buzzard as
well
instead of having all your gear stacked
up which was all
the norm in those days like the who had
piles of amplifier cabinets
yeah i said no no let's have it all low
down
cabinet side by side one cabinet here
you know so the microphone is clear
and it worked and so thank you
i got the gig so this is 1970
171 and you know this system that you
were working with the sound system the
pa system
what was what was so different about it
from what was
normally used and why was that so bad i
think a lot of people today are used to
you know uh very very sophisticated
pa systems back then it was a little
different right because of
bowie's theatrical presentation
it wasn't hard rock it was theater you
know
and so people when they came to the gig
they could hear everything it wasn't all
just you weren't stuck against the back
wall because the volume was so high
it was comfortable and uh
and full range you know it was there
weren't horns
shouting at you screaming at you it was
all
nice and you know just
it was it was a perfect mix for the
ziggy stardust and that insane ethos you
know it just
made it work had you listened to the
record
before this or did you just kind of show
up
these were the first time you'd heard
these songs and then you figured it out
live now at that rehearsal it was the
first time i'd ever heard them
and they played hang on to yourself uh
ziggy stardust
two or three three or four numbers they
did but i'd never heard them
but funny you should say that ray
because um
at at the gem headquarters before main
man was formed
defrees was working at gem he came to me
one day and he said here
robin sit down check the lyrics
to the ziggy stardust album because
we want to make sure they're right he
gave me the tight
lyrics and the acetate
and i played it and listened and
this is honest to god um
in ziggy stardust i heard leper
messiah with a p and it said leather
and i said no no it's leper so i changed
it to leper
and david's always sung after that
really
yeah and i didn't and i didn't
understand
what a water wall was so in rock and
roll suicide
when he says the water wall i thought he
said walter wall
as in carpet so i changed the lyric to
wall-to-wall
so i'm responsible for some of bowie's
lyrics
sometimes it is hard to understand what
his songs are actually saying because he
uses such
oh yeah you know dense imagery and and
metaphorical
lyrics so that's that's really funny
that you even were
suggesting lyrics i heard it as leper
messiah
and i thought that's a wonderful the
leper and the messiah
you know it just that makes more sense
actually yeah that's true
leather messiah okay on reflection
you get a guy all dressed in leather and
he's a god you know
but leopard messiah anyway so
you have that's a that's a big claim to
fame for sure i've never received a
royalty for it
well
so you you stayed with bowie throughout
the the ziggy stardust tour then
we did japan we never did europe
we did the uk the united states
and japan i think it's the last show of
that tour or one of the last shows was
made into a film
that's the one where where david says
this is the last show we'll ever do
do you remember that night
oh yeah there you go look at that that's
it not only is it
not only is it the last show of the tour
but
it's the last show that we'll ever do
well now mick ronson guitarist the late
mick ronson
he always insisted that i recorded the
show
every night for band review just in case
of any hiccups he could
reflect oh yeah yeah if if something
went wrong he would just say
it would be a laugh hey man you slipped
up there i heard it
and listen and it would just be over in
a moment there was never
any bad feeling but when we got to the
last
but then like an idiot i would record
over the show the next night and the
next night
and the next night so he got to the last
night and
i recorded the show and then he said
it's the last show we'll ever do
but uh there it is
there it is when it finished
at uh hammersmith odion that time we
went to the cafe royal afterwards
and it's it's always stuck in my mind uh
because mick jagger was there
with bianca and david was with angie
and i went to say goodbye to david
and and uh um mick jagger was really
rude
he went yeah at me you know
i said i'm sorry i'm just saying goodbye
to david you know
i wish i'd said to him it was me
that let you come in the red lion
back in the day but i never did that
would have been funny i wonder if you
would have remembered i mean that's
i think he would have done yeah that
must have been a very
wild experience to be traveling with
david bowie as he's becoming very famous
oh it was a roller coaster i mean it
really was
and david didn't like flying
so to come from the east coast of the
west coast
uh we ended up when i say we the band
and the crew
ended up in the beverly hills hotel for
10 days
with room service and the whole thing
just crazy but it was an absolute roller
roller coaster as i said the first gig
we ever did was a pub
and then a few universities and then it
within
just a few months we were doing big
venues you know an
audience we were just all captivated
by it and every night was just
a thrill to do i remember peter
peter hansley and i um we commandeered
all the printers at
gem and we made we got a photograph of
the band
david and we printed all these a4s off
and at those early gigs when he did wham
bam thank you man on
on uh suffragette city
we'd throw them up in the audience and
they'd all come down and people would
just grab them and it was
just amazing you know what was david
like during that tour i mean he must
have also been overwhelmed and surprised
by the
success i think he was as you just said
stunned by it
i mean i don't think he could believe it
but this was happening
this persona was just taking off but
he did the right thing at the end i mean
there was no point in being ziggy
stardust any longer
he'd made it he'd got there and i had no
when he announced it i thought
good on you what a sensible thing to do
you know
after i said goodbye to him then i
we did the 1980 floor show at the
marquee
and that was the last i worked with him
had you heard from him at all after that
yeah he did he played um
piano keyboard on the iggy pop tour
when iggy pop came to england
and i was engineering a band called the
vibrators
the punk band so about 1976
and david came up to the mixer
during soundcheck and we had a long talk
and uh that was the last time i spoke
with him
um you know rest in peace too i mean
he's now been gone
exactly four or five years now i mean
it's unbelievable but
yeah or lasting impact no doubt um
so the ziggy stardust tour ends um
what's your next step i mean were you
were you planning to work with
david again or did you want to work with
other artists
no i was it was extraordinary because of
i'd met lou reed working with david
and after david finished i
formed ground control went on from there
and i started
started engineering first of all with
with lou reed
then with motherhoop um who obviously
david was connected to with all the
young dudes
um and then we did one tour with blondie
her first tour of the the uk
and there are all these other bands that
like the punk bands the stranglers
all that sort of stuff was going on and
then there was david essex i don't know
if you know that name
i mean he had rock on a big hit in
america
but i was uh doing sound for all these
people i had a wonderful
wonderful time lou reed's an interesting
uh character in in rock music history
was your experience with him
what was it like absolutely great that
whole time
i worked with lou he was
as far as i could see absolutely
straight
and uh just concentrating on you know
doing his
you know the best he could for the show
um so
there you go and that is
this yeah this is uh
one of my recordings
of lou at the felt forum in new york
and at dayton ohio what was the last
concert
that you worked on and then
what was your next step after that the
last tour i worked on was
uh with david essex
promoting his uh
you know i'm going to make you a star
and all that sort of stuff
he was a he was a big star in the uk at
that time
but after that as you say we packed up
and
uh we opened my my
wife and i mahdi opened a shop we went
into retail
doing uh like a gift shop doing home
ideas and
gifts we ran that for a couple of years
then we moved to scotland and bought a
guest house
uh right on the river tweed and we had
um
like salmon fishing and this sort of
thing so we had people coming in we were
so lucky we had the money to buy this
place outright
and do it i mean did you miss being on
the road at all did you miss
working music not really i'd i'd really
had enough of
of that it was i mean i toured and
all that hardly seen my boys while i was
on tour for the whole
1970s hardy saw him you know
let's talk about some of the newer stuff
you've been writing so
um you know i've listened to some of the
songs and i mean all of it seems to have
a very
uh positive and and sort of energizing
you know upbeat feel to it you know is
that is that a reflection of
of your own state of mind i i just miss
i mean you know i just miss
the simple
rock and roll if you like do you still
stay in touch with the other um
the other guys from the presidents uh
yes eddie edited our old drummer
uh i spoke to him just yesterday
he lives quite close um tony finch
he he he's got
parkinson's uh and uh
he doesn't really talk very much ricky
tyrol the original
singer who did candyman um
i i email with him probably two or three
times a week
so we're in touch but uh dear tony
bussin the bass player
as i said died last february and he was
the closest one to us he just lives
a few miles away or lived a few miles
away
and do any of them still play or perform
we have done a few things together um
if if on on youtube there's one of my
songs
with ollie my son helping out on guitar
and tony and eddie and me playing
more love required it's called and
you know i
just think a bit bit more love in the
world is what we need
music is a wonderful thing it's it it's
you know whether you're listening to
classical music or rock and roll
um it's a leveling thing and
it can do so much for you well this has
been a real treat
uh thank you so much robin and we
appreciate you spending this well thanks
for your time
talking to me and i you know i think my
audience is gonna really appreciate
hearing these incredible stories from
your life but well i hope so
yeah uh thanks very much good luck with
all of your music
and all of your new endeavors and hope
you continue to make some incredible
tracks thanks very much i shall do my
best
watch this space take care and uh you
know if you're interested in robin's
music please check out the links that
will be in the description below the
video
thank you and listen to his work it's
awesome
