A Bird’s Eye View of Dave Dee

Article published in RAVE magazine, October 1968

The world of a pop star as seen by RAVE’S bird on the scene, Dawn James, talking here to DAVE DEE, on how he sees himself and others.

A Bird’s Eye View of Dave Dee | DAVE DEE is a pop star. He has had ten hits in a row and is twenty-five years old. He owns a three-quarter acre plot on which stands his home where he lives with his parents. “I get on very well with my parents.

They are not in my way and I like their company. I’m able to do as I want and they don’t normally interfere with me. I wouldn’t say they are very modern, not way out, but I guess they have the same views most parents have.

Parents

They certainly don’t try to force me to share their way of doing things. “That’s where parents go wrong, when they make hell children copy them. Who wants to? I don’t. There’s plenty of room for all sorts of people. if everyone is allowed to think freely.

My parents never did insist I do certain things, because they knew that once they told me to, I wouldn’t. Of course, when I was younger, about fourteen or fifteen I had to be in at a certain time. But once I joined a group they knew I’d be out later, so they didn’t worry me.

“I don’t want to marry yet”

“When I was younger I needed discipline as most people do, but I wouldn’t have liked to be ordered about. Nowadays, I have to discipline myself, and if I’d never had to put up with it before it would come hard.

You think when you are very young that as you get older you will do just as you like, but you can’t. Each year that goes by gives you more responsibility. Being a pop star I have to be careful what I do because there are so many things that would upset my fans.

“Of course. I’m not a goody-goody. I’m a normal healthy young man with all the male instincts.

I don’t want to get married yet because I like my freedom and don’t know when I’ll be ready for marriage, but when I am I want that marriage to last and I’ll do everything I know to make it last.

I haven’t had a serious girl friend since I was eighteen. At that time I thought I’d found the love of my life but it wasn’t. Recently I went out with Miss World, but that’s over now.”

He is casual about his girl friends tossing them off lightly with a pale goodbye. He is the sort of boy that’s hard to reach but is friendly, smiling at people around him, but deep down ever a loner.

A Bird’s Eye View of Dave Dee

“There is nothing mixed up about me. I’m a loner because I like it that way. I rely on myself because I trust my judgment. Of course, I listen to advice about my career, because that concerns the other four too. We have a great team going including Steve Rowland our production manager, and Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who write our songs.

It’s great to work together, helping each other and pooling ideas. “I like a challenge, and believe me, each new record is a challenge. We have had ten hits in a row yet if we had one that didn’t get into the top twenty, we’d be considered slipping.

When you do well you have terrific standards to keep up. That’s why we don’t want a number one hit. That is a drag and it doesn’t make you any more money than a number three can.”

He likes to make money because he likes material things. He owns a Bentley car, he buys lots of clothes and invests his money in property. “I like to be rich. I’ve been very careful with the money I’ve earned. I never knew how long we would be successful and I was determined to gain materially from my career, so I started saving early on.

A Bird’s Eye View of Dave Dee

Pop has given me security. It hasn’t bought me friends, but I don’t want them anyway. I’ve always got lots of people to visit and go out with when I feel like it but no one I need. I don’t want to need anyone.

If I died who would cry? My managers and agents because they’d lose money? Pop is a rat race, full of people like me who want to get on. I like these people, but I wouldn’t be able to love them, or cry for them.

We pass on our way up or down. each obsessed with himself. I’ve got a lot of good fans whom I’m ever aware of. When they ask me for autographs I gladly oblige. They put me where I am, they bought my house and my car.

“At the moment I don’t find pop exciting. There is not a lot going on in the way of sounds. Our group is progressing quietly, without jumping on any band wagons. We have three different acts, the cabaret act being the most sexy.

This Christmas we are doing Dick Whittington at Stockton. We have to branch out slowly because we can’t hope to be pop stars for ever. Each new generation chooses its own idols.”

“I’m never lonely”

Time off for any pop star is a rare and precious thing. For Dave it’s something to guard jealously against all interference. Too many stars tend to live their role night and day, on duty and off. When he isn’t working Dave is at home in Salisbury.

He likes to walk his dog, and go to football matches with old friends. “I like to be happy. I’m never lost or lonely, I enjoy my life.”

Is there anything he fears?

“Not too much. If I am frightened I don’t show it. At the dentist I pretend I’m fine even if I’m being killed with pain. I swear at him to myself, and when I leave I say. That didn’t hurt at all.”

I don’t fear being ill and don’t mind what a doctor does to me. I can pretend I feel all right, and in the end I do. I’m really very controlled in every way.”

He’s also rich, successful, sexy, sought-after— and happy. And he spends his life with Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Which can’t be too bad!

“Pop has given me security. It hasn’t bought me friends, but I don’t want them anyway. I don’t want to need anyone. If I died who would cry . . . ?”