Monocled Alchemist

Article published in Rave magazine – November 1967

Alan Freeman in an exclusive RAVE Heart-to-Heart interview

The Hollies: Transition to Maturity | Pop music has moved on, and so have the Hollies. From the frenzied era of screaming audiences, where fame and success were almost certain, they have steered themselves precariously towards a new image and a new type of audience. And they’ve made it. Here two of them talk about why they made the big move.

Last time the Hollies came round for an evening chat they were dressed in gear like denim shirts and Mighty Mouse sweatshirts. But that was well over a year ago. In the interval the career of the Hollies has escalated . . . and so has the clothes scene.

With a drift of airy draperies and a soft tinkle of love-bells, my guests came in from the night looking like the Three Kings in cinerama. Or rather, four kings. Drummer Bobby Elliott, the fifth Hollie, was still getting as much rest as possible after his appendicitis operation.

The boys’ off-duty rig was well up to the exotic standard of the caftans and what-all they’d been wearing in their stage act this year. So, in keeping with the general flavour of the mysterious East, we sat on the floor and lit an incense stick. (MEMO TO MY SECRETARY: If sitting-on-floor Heart-to-Hearts catch on, remind me to buy low coffee table. Keep banging my chin on ordinary coffee table when pouring drinks).

Sly wit

The royal flavour, I discovered, wasn’t entirely accidental. Graham Nash produced the latest Hollies’ disc and said, “Like to hear it, Alan?” I slipped the record on the hi-fi and concentrated. The intro rang out with the typical Hollies rhythm and tunefulness—but the story and the words had the sly wit and depth that marks so much of the latest stage in the pop revolution.

As I listened, I thought what stunning progress and maturity Chart-type records show now, compared with the juvenile sentiments that were supposed to be “commercial” before the Lennon-McCartney era.

This number measured up to the modern “must” for a good song—which is that the song has to be about something that matters, and not just a lot of scribble-words that happen to rhyme. And what the Hollies were singing was that if you get too greedy you’ll goof up your life.

The Hollies: Transition to Maturity

The song is about King Midas, that unfortunate old-time eastern gent who was like a good many groups starting out today. He prayed that everything he touched might turn to gold. The gods granted his wish. But Midas had said “everything”.

And pretty soon he was the unhappiest man on earth. Because even the food on his plate and the wine in his goblet turned into solid gold. What happened to old man Midas later on, by the way, doesn’t come into the Hollies’ clever lyrics.

But It’s a warning to anyone who happens to get on a Juke Box Jury panel. Midas was asked to judge a musical contest between a couple of gods—and the loser got his own back by turning the royal lugs into a pair of ass’s ears. Bad Times

“We were sparked off by a phrase,” the boys said, as I switched off the player. “There’s a bit of King Midas in everybody.” Graham said, “Everyone goes through a period like that, when you feel that nothing you do is right. Just when you think you’ve got it made, it starts to go bad on you.”

“Do I detect a personal note?” I asked. “Well,” said Allan Clarke, “a lot of things have happened to the Hollies in the last year or so. There’ve been some changes.” “Nothing physical, though,” Graham explained. “A lot mental. Physically we’re a lot healthier, probably because we have to rest our bodies more so that we can stay fit to work.

Mentally we’re a lot more relaxed In our outlook.”

“Has the sun gone out of any of it for you?” I said.

“No, it’s only just beginning,” Graham replied. “I wouldn’t be in it otherwise. If something isn’t fun, forget it.”

The Hollies: Transition to Maturity

As I knew from earlier talks with the Hollies, they had struggled through plenty of frustration and setbacks to evolve the polished, swinging machine that delights their public nowadays. As Midas had hankered for his gold, the Hollies in their younger days had craved for applause.

But the time came when Graham could no longer stand playing to hordes of screamers. “We’re getting so commercial we’re becoming uncommercial,” he said at that time. And he talked with boredom and weariness of the “screamagers”.

His ambition was to steer the group into more adventurous, more original fields, playing to less frenzied audiences who would listen and dig. Tony, on the other hand, had grave doubts about throwing over the loyal young following which, noisy or not, had helped the Hollies to the top. And he mistrusted any move away from the clear, simple themes of everyday relationships.

Gradually, however, the Hollies swung towards the less safe direction. The Beatles had shown convincingly that a group could act its age, using increasingly more subtle and complex musical and lyrical ideas, gaining millions more entranced listeners than they lost.

“When I began to take notice of the Hollies,” I said, “you had this lively, pretty sound.”

Said Allan, “That’s just it. It took me a while to see that we had certain talents that weren’t being recognised, because we weren’t giving people the chance to understand what was underneath, what we could really do. That could have been the story of our lives.”

“We’ve always tried to get a happy sound,” Graham said. “Even ‘Bus Stop’, which was a tragedy, was happily done. The secret of the things we’ve done is that the enjoyment we had in making the record steps out of it when you play it, and everybody can sense that.”

The Hollies: Transition to Maturity

It’s always great when you realise that a group of young artistes, without learning it all out of books and theory, is unconsciously basing its approach on the truths that guided the giants of art in the past. For tragedy and heartbreak happening inside a happy framework is a truth as big as life itself.

The bad artiste’s technique is too limited to tackle the contrast, so he has to reduce things to a simple, narrow setting like a farce or a weepie. But believe me, it’s the ones who don’t try to fake life into a conveniently labelled minipack, the ones who acknowledge that it’s fun and sadness and who can get it into two and a half minutes of disc with taste, balance, control and originality—they’re the ones who go on being looked at and listened to.

Developing It doesn’t matter whether they compose, paint, write or photograph. When you come across people who’ve worked out these things for themselves, you know that they’re going to go on developing as artistes.

Strawberry Fields

The Beatles made everything possible for everybody,” said Graham. “Before them, the record business was in a sad sort of state, but they opened it right up with a breath of complete new life and freshness. And then they opened it right up again with ‘Strawberry Fields’.”

One of the things that has been opening up the Hollies’ own horizons is international travel. “We’ve been to America five times now,” Allan said. “We have to take account of what we learn and experience working there.

For example, if you want to do well in the States you’ve got to play the colleges, and the colleges want to be entertained. They’re not like a pop show audience. We’re not going to do a pop show in England again. We’ve advanced past that.”

Graham sat up and said, “Don’t take that out of context. For a long time most of our business was playing to screaming kids, and I’m convinced that a lot of them didn’t really hear us. So the next time I want to do something really different for a different age group.

College scene

The next time won’t be right until the Spring . . . so we’re not going to work till then.”

“A different age group?” I said. “Can you elaborate on that?”

“Well,” said Graham. “I figure there’s a college audience of a type in England. Universities, technical colleges and so on. And these people aren’t really catered for, musically. They’re the kind of people who’ll probably buy albums rather than singles, much the same as the college market in America.

“It seems to me they’re being missed out. So I’d like to play for them in the big festival halls. Take an orchestra and two or three really good acts.” “And nobody jumps about and screams,” Allan said. “They just sit and dig what’s going on and—well, they’re entertained. And they hear the sounds.”

The Hollies: Transition to Maturity

In the silence, while we digested the fascinating notion of an English audience sitting hearing sounds, there was a sudden hiss and a weird smell. The incense stick had fallen Into a dead coffee cup and drowned.

We went out on the roof garden for a moment while the air inside sorted itself out. It was less exotic out there —rather nippy, in fact. But in the crisp night the boys’ ideas seemed level-headed and sensible.

They were right. Pop isn’t just a young people’s passport any more. The time is almost over when we can go on pretending that it’s tied up with a youth revolution or a clothes revolution. Or that It Is any longer the private property of sons and daughters, to be guarded against trespassing parents.

“I’m thinking now of what music my son Is going to dig,” Allan said.

“We’ve grown up, and so have the audiences we had when we started out. There are millions of people who have grown up since they started to buy the Beatles’ records, and they haven’t deserted the Beatles. They still enjoy them, maybe more than ever. Wider Appeal

“It’s only natural that we should want to go on entertaining the people who like us. They’ll change. We’ll change. And so will the music we play.”

They’re bending over backwards to understand

Graham leaned on the parapet, looking across at the tall apartment blocks where hundreds of people were watching television, washing their hair, brewing cocoa, practising the guitar, reading paperbacks, planning their holidays and doing whatever else people do in apartment blocks.

“Know what?” he said. “I guarantee that before we leave this business we’ll be playing pop concerts to audiences aged thirty, forty and more. It’s coming already. They’re bending over backwards to understand.

“What used to split the two generations was that the parents had been held back and suppressed by living through the war. But the people who’re becoming parents now have had no war. So there’s nothing for them or their children to be sup-pressed about.

They’ll grow in their own basic, natural way. They’ll be able to dig and enjoy naturally.”

“Who knows,” I said. “Maybe you’ll be the first musicians in history to please everybody.”

“Well, there are a good few things wrong with England still,” said Graham. “But this year it’s looked like a very happy country. We’ve given a bit of happiness, I suppose, and we’re happy ourselves too.”

So we all went in, and the Hollies’ bells tinkled. Christmas was coming . . . and the cash registers in the record shops would soon be tinkling too, as managers with an eye for seasonable gimmicks built up window displays featuring the Hollies.

“Goodnight, kings,” I said, as my visitors trooped out in gay Technicolor. All the best, pop-pickers . . . stay bright!

More Hollies revelations on the Monocled Alchemist