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Status Quo interviews and international press reviews

Taken from different newspapers, magzines & web sites and compiled by Patrick Specht.

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RAM MAGAZINE - OCTOBER 1975(ROSSI / COGHLAN INTERVIEW)

STAY STUMM SAL-OO-ER THE FINGS SHE DID WIF THAT TOOF!

An afternoon with Status Quo - And the Quo-etts.

Let's call the Quo-ettes, They are about 15 years old, their hair is scraggly, (So is your cub-reporter's by the way), and they wear half-open mouthed expressions of pilgrims who just know Nirvana is close at hand-if only they knew what to do, they could be there. The Quo-ettes are about 12 in number and they are drifting around the foyer of the Commodore Chateau in Sydney. They should be at school some of them, some of them have taken the week off work, some of them have no jobs at all. At the moment they are clustering around Francis Rossi, Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan - watching the three eat a very ordinary breakfast of bacon, sausages and eggs. Rossi and Lancaster and Coghlan are good ol boys and they don't mind at all. The strange thing is though, the Quo-etts are hanging onto every mouthful - from knife cut to fork lift and every chew and swallow from then on.

"Are you really going to speak to Status Quo" asks a combine of male and female Quo-ettes.

"Uhha".

"I mean really speak to them ....."

"Well, yeah. I suppose so".

The Quo-ettes dissolve into near euphoria at the thought of someone really speaking to Quo.

"Can we have the tape afterwards ... can you ask them ...."

A very awkward pause here.

"But you're going to put down everything they say aren't you ... dont' leave a word out. Every word is important!"

The truth is , the Quo-ettes are totally overwhelmed by Quo. They are in some state approaching shell shock after the previous night's concert. And Quo, to them, approach the near mystical - thus the ritual watching of Rossi and Co, atttack bacon and eggs, thus the half-open-mouthed expressions. And definately it's the reason for insisting on THE TRUE WORD from Quo. Whatever that might be. Quo themselves don't know what inspires this sort of near religious fevour.

Yet in RAM NO6, it was related that Quo Moosic did indeed save the soul of one Swiss maid, Ruth Siengenthaler.And as Francis Rossi will relate later, the salvation of a 45 year old British matron is also credited to the band.Quo don't understand any of this. What they do understand, perhaps better than anything else, is 'aving a good time and sending up themselves (and everyone else) skyhigh.The other thing they understand is working hard. They still do 6 hour sound checks for instance. And a piece of malfunctioning equipment during a concert will piss them off mightily for days afterwards. Just the night before in fact, during their first Australian concert, Richard Parfitt's guitar amp had farted and distored throughout. And after the gig he went straight out of the stage door, into the limo, back to the hotel where he brooded. Come four o'clock in the a.m, the whole band was still brooding.

"It's Deff Row upere" explained Francis Rossi to a late night visitor. "Which cell d'yer wanta viset?"

And it was too. Four Quo rooms with occupants sitting on the edge of beds nattering nasitly to themselves. Sally the PR lady for the tour worked hard on the angle that everyone in audience-land had, after all, got off on the concert - and after a while the lads cheered oop a bit. This afternoon, some 14 hours after the gig, Richard Parfitt is almost back on form.

"Ere then, everyun's gotta look-alike. You look like... like .... yeah, got it ... you look like Dave Edmunds.

"Dave Edmunds, yeah saw him in Stardust.".

"Real ansome feller, dave Edmunds" ...

A pause. Obviously there's a punch-line. Ok, your cub-reporter'll be the straightman. Uh gee thanks...

"Yeah, real ansome feller Dave Edmunds - what appened to you I wonder. Haw Haw.

After that, there's the old shake-hands-scratch-the-head trick, which means Richard proffers his hand in a shake position then just as the victim brings his hand down to scalp the Parfitt palm - he scratches his head instead. We can both play this one and the score ends up 2-all. The Quo-ettes watch the ritual from a respectful distance. Something very significant is going on, they are sure. Richard then tra-ras off to buy guitar strings and look at jean shops. And onto Francis Rossi.

"My God.....NO... "back of hand pressed against forehead indicating great suffering - "The press.I cannot give another interview ever again .... it's all too much.... the .... the "Cor wot's the bloody word?" He remembers the word. "The pressure ....the pressure is too much. Not another word Tell em to put it on my grave that I said "not another ....." Tough luck Francis.

"I stuided to be a tap dancer, " he remarked sagely.

But you kept falling off the tap, I replied - having read that one before.

A few jokeroos later and ....

"The next album?" says Francis. "Is that the one we're goona do strait arfer the Australian tour? Oh, that un! Load of old rubbish that's gonna be ".

"Load a old rubbish." he repeats dreamily, making 'orrible faces at lensman Phil Morris to help pass the time.

"A well, it might not be that bad" he relents. And we chat about the Quo system for recording albums.

(Could this be THE word)

Much of the writing is done while Quo are on the road. And the songs come together slowly. After the basic toons are down, they then go into rehearsal.

"If it passes the test sort of" says Francis, "we word it ooop for the stoodio then, But it goes through a lotta tests before it gets in the

stoodio - and once it's in the stoodio ....

"Well we try to do et in r'hearsal y'know, get it down to a recoding form. Obviously it's better if yer kin do et in yer own time - cause stoodios

cost money y'know.

"But sumtimes a song changes in the stoodio y'know and y'gotta get ta know et all over agin. Lotta messin aroudn to get a good tape y'know...

And he shakes his head sadly. Then makes a loud farting noise by blowing a raspberry against his elbow.

"Oi, stop that," he admonishes drummer John Coghlan who is sitting, perfectly innocent, keeping four/four time (with variations and fills), by bouncing hands against kneecaps. Coghlan stares blankly at Rossi, refusing to rise to any sort of bait.

"We're not 'avin' that sort of fing on tape" warns Rossi.

"Disgustin' you are" He is prepared to develop this theme at some length, but is headed off by a few fast questions.

Have they got a title for the album? Any songs in a state of readiness to be talked about?

"Nah" says Rossi. "We aven't got any titles for the songs yet. "Ave we gotta title for the album yet?" - this is directed to John Coghlan, Quo drummer.

"Not unless you know something I don't" says John

'Sorry abaht that " ses Francis. "We aven't gotta title for the album yet,

We were finking of callin it A Road Full of Cobras - but we're still finking abaht it. Now it's your turn agin."

"Next question." sez John Coghlan.

"We're bin nasty now" explains Francis. "Gotta keep oop the image for the puberick y'know. We're all servents of the puberick ... we try to be a 'orrible as possible."

But I tell you, compared to Lou Reed, these guys are baa lambs. Hold yer tongue Rossi I tell him. And he does his best. Really he does. But his fingers keep slipping off and he damn near chokes himself. If they're really such loons, how come they managed such a polished studio

sound for their last albut On The Level"

"Yeah tha't the fing the album are gettin... agrees Rossi.

"Especially On The Level, the sound is ... well we figger it's good to appoint to get a good sound. Arfta thet yer just goin for a teknikly betta

sound ... but we don wanna lose that early raw sound ... that's good - and 'opefuly it''ll progress. But on the noo album we 'ope to get the rawness bak too. Being too aware of the teknikal sound, yer start to lose the basis of wot the record's all abaht. Like Alan (Lancaster, Quo bassit) ee's like thet, 'ees' got all this teknik'ly great equipment et 'ome y'know - bot arfter a while, yer just list'ning to the equipmeht, yer startin 'to lose th ' ole point of the records....

"I mean," eh explains very seriously. "You start listening to the teknikalites of the record - which we're 100% agenst.

But teknikalities (damn! talking to Quo is doin 'nothin' good to mispelling, I assure you). ahem .... technicalities must be important to the

band. Why else would they get so upset over Richards Parfitt's malfunctioning amplifier the night before?

"Yah, thet's different ennit," says Francis. And he blows a loud fart noise to viva la difference. "Wot I was talkin' abaht see, was gettin'

carried away and puttin fings into numbers, makin em incredible complicated like. Real teknikal involved. Y'get so wrapped up in doin that, yer no long.... flowing. It may be brilliant and rilly clevah, but fuck me ... where's the flow mate....

"Moosics from the eart' he sez, punching his left breast to show he knows where his heart is. Its may sound corny ...

It does sound corny.

"Yah, I know it sounds corny. But it's true, it's in everyone, we arl gotit ....

"Like I saw a program recently ... an ' this band was doin' a march. Then they took away certain frequencies, then a few more. And the basic fing behind a march is ... it's the heartbeat ... just sped up ...."

At this very moment John Coghlan is hearbeating hands against knee cap in very speedy time.

Anyway, I happen to agree with the power of heartbeat and we take at some length about 4/4 time - heartbeat time - quoting Yoko Ono who pushed aside her years of avantgarde classical piano training after linking with John Lennon and discovering "hearbeat music"

"I really like it to cum aht freely" concludes Francis

"Like when we all sitown togever, that's the way it cums out - an that's wot we like t'carry on stage y'know - the fing is't get across to

th'aduience, I get wif the audience... we can't elevate ourselves aboove enyun' .... we don' reckon eyun shud say. "Oh ain; they wunnerful!" and put us on pedi-stalls or enyfing lik thet. We can't work like thet. It's not us - we need t' be in there, feelin' wot they're feelin' that's us"

In rock and roll terminology it's called being a People's Band.

But is has it puzzling moments, this business of being People's Band. For to get in there and feel wot the people are feelin' you gotta know wot the people are feelin, If yer know wot I mean. And on their fourth tour of Australia it took Quo a bit of time and some

headscratching to work out wot the People Were Feeling'

"Ole lotta new people this time" sez Francis, blowing a fart noise for emphasis. " Like we figgered the 'b awl be old people - people that knew

wot we're abhat from albums like - but no, ole lotta new faces there - a new feelin altogether. I fink Roll Over lay Down (from the Hello album) and Down Down (from the On The Level) gota ole lotta new people that 'adn't cum t'see us befor'. Like its totally new for us to be screamed et y'know - and that's wot was ' appening last nite. All the front rows wer jest screaming and frowing streamers and brown rice - very unusual that, Took oos alf way fru th'gig to work oot where the feelin woz - get everfing in

line y'know.

"But that is such a buzz at the end of the gig t'realise they are noo people and you've won them over ... ooops sorry abaht that ... " he says as

he accidentally bashes shit out of the tape recorder while trying to reach an ashtray.

Suddenly he spots Sally, the PR lady.

"Not a woid abaht lest nigt now Sal," he winks. "Stay stumm(quiet) girl, ah woint say a woid if yer dahnt .....

"Ohhh the fings she did wer er toof." eh sez ludly, pointing to an ornamental shark's took pendant arounf the lady's neck...

" I never nu" he continues earnestly. " Anyone could do such fings with a toof... stay stumm Sal, not a woid now.

"Only jokin', eh adds. "Would'nt want yer to git the wrong idea now...

"But ooo-er .... that toof! th fings she can do wif thet toof!...

Two Quo-ettes peer round the corner, blink in amazement and keep staring Rossi laughs so hard he nearly falls off the chair and breaks his fool neck, Is this the man who saved the soul of Ruth Seingenthaler?

Sally, who has heard this particualr untruth all morning shrugs, doesn't even blush," sez Francis.

"Next question " obseves John Coghlan

You'll rember in the first part of our afternoon with Quo and the Quo-ettes, it had largely been fun and games played in a cockney accent.

But now, suddenly, some straight talk emerges.

"Ah, touring" sighs Francis Rossi, "We love it, but it's real wearing too. Like we all got families and all that ... but apart from all that,

yer got th' physical fing of building up .. buildin up , up, up ... all the time. But we don ave a gig tanight so we're takin it a bit easy..

"A bit laid-bak too we are today, " sez John Coghlan.

"But on a gig day, yer can rilly feel it " continues Francis. "It's buildin up up all day. We do a few fings t'get ready.... well. we dahnt do

a few fings rilly ... lik we don drink, don smoke ... always go on stage straight ... always ave a long sound check to warm up ... then wen we 'it'

that stage, it jus pours outa yer, y'know?

"Baht, ez soon es th' sho's over... it's not so much yet sweatin' n' tired ... it's gawd.. yer so drained yer know...

After 13 years, the strain of booogie-ing is starting to slow you down?

"Nah .. yer can always do it .. it jus builds automatic every time yer gotta gig... after a while yer ain't got no control over it... it's a bit

scarey sometimes when yer rilly tired at the end of a tour and yer fink ... well I wonder if tanigh's gonna be a bit laid bak" and then ... christ

these surges, start goin frew yer ... jus buildin up. buildin up...

"Very 'ard workin' boys we are' observes John Coghlan sagely.

"Wen it rilly hits yer, is wen yer get 'ome" sez Francis. "Yer jus moon aroun in a daze for a week or more ... sleep a lot ... ave lotsa cup of

tea in bed ... yer aren't much company for yer family jus arfter yer git bak from tourin ... yer finished .. it's ridiculus ...

"It's a ard life alright" laughs John Coghlan.

Possible the aftermath tour blooze is the reason why Quo have given some interviews where they've said they'd like to make it in America, earn some rilly big money and then break-up. It seemed a joke at the time, (see the

Quo article in RAM No6) but..

"Oo said that?" exclaims Francis

You said that, I point out.

"Nah, I nevah meant that" quoths Rossi

"Wot I woz on abaht see, it's such a drag bin on tour all th' time... well, not a drag... but the strain rilly catches up to yer"

"Wot'd be rilly great see, is ta be able to go 'ome every night. I mean, we can't do it... but we don wanna be away from 'ome for months at a time either....

"We always wondered where these rumours abaht us breakin up came from" sez John Coghlan. "Like I rang up m'old man from America las' month and 'ee kept on sayin' "Wot's this I 'ear about yer awl givin up?"

"We may muck abaht a bit" lays down Francis. "But if we say we're gonna break up, we nevah meant it" And then,. onto the subject of America.

"Everyone seems to want us to make it in America" explains Francis "Like we built oop from nothin in England an the Continent an Australia. So Now, all the papers in England say "Well, yer gotta make it in America

before we start takin yer rilly seriously'. "But we got our own system fer America. We go over there and we support

uvver bands. Lik we could headline and fill stadium wif 2,000 - 5,000 people. But wot we lik doin' see is getting wif sumone that goes inta

25,000 stadiums. Believe me, we get th' same response from those 25,000 people as we do from our own 3.000 puntas."

"England, France, 'Olland, Australia, America we get the same response,"

agrees John Coghlan.

"Where the differecne cums in" sez Francis, "Is we're not gonna say to our families - 'Ok luvs, we're off to break America, see ya in six months" "Cos it may sound rilly nice livin' outa suitcases, from the outside, but

in stinks inside...

"That's cos they're closed mosta th'time, explains John Coghlan. "We got this fing for customs, see," grins Rossi. "We always put our dirty

stuff right on the top. All the customs guards know us y'see an' everytime they see us they say, "Yeah, just cum this way please".

"Then they' ave to open the cases... when the smell its em, it don' af put 'em off, I cin tell yer. They let us go real quick arfter they've ad a

wiff...

"A dirty pair of socks never let's yer down, heh, heh, ..

"Yeah, well ... meanwhile back in America.

"Well lik I sed," explains Francis. "It's mostly other people 'oo pressure us abaht America. Like we've proved ourselves in so many ways now .. I say that not cos I wanta be clever or flash, but cos it's th' trooth. Like we're big in England, we're big in Australia, we're big right through Scandinavia and France and Japan...

"When it comes to the States most bands have to go out there for three-six months and shit or bust ... but we're not prepared to leave our families fer that long. We could do it, but we won do it. Most bands are prepared to do it for the money that comes after yer broken in the States ... that's all it is ...

"We jus do it slow" sez John Coghlan. "It may be the wrong attitude, but we don care. We do well in America when we go there, we sell albums every town we visit. But we'll build it up in our own time, in our way... we've been firteen years comin to where we are now so we're not suddenly gonna go crazy or change the way we do fings ....

"Gawd", sez Rossi. "Them words are gonna sound right defensive when they're down on paper ... there orta be a way ter show 'ow' we're saying 'emm...

And true, the words about America do appear defensive - even though Coghlan and Rossi's attitude is not at all defensive. Rossie quite sagely

develops the point...

"Once you got the words ...l just the words ... and yer put em down wifout explaining the way they're said, yer maybe gittin' a wrong impression. Like I once read this interview wif Steve How of Yes and 'ee's reported to 'ave said... (puts a pukka emphasis on the wrods), 'When I die... when I die, I want by Gibson to be buried with me' ... ooo amazin! Wat a wonderful chap 'ee mus be... like do yer wannt be buried wif yer tape recorder? stupid ennit?

"Fair's fair, I dunno Steve Howe ... great guitarist, great band ... but wot use is 'is guitar to im wen 'ee's dead? yer don need all that

bullshit. Dunno if ee meant it or not ... but suddenly it woz a headline..."Steve How wants to be buried with His Guitar".

"I wanna ta be buried wif me drumkit right next ta President Kennedy" opines John.

A change of subject here. Did Quo ever get any satisfaction from their seond Australian tour - the one where promoter Nick Adrian left them stranded in a hotel while he made a sudden exit with the proceeds. (He hasn't been sighted since, incidentally)

"I still remember that day" sez Coghlan,

"Arfter we'd found out he'd scarpered we were sitting in the lobby wondering wot the hell we were gonna do. And suddenly abaht 200 reporters came in - all askin' the same question, 'Wot' appened?' Wot deryer fink of Australia now? Wot deryer fink of Nick Adrian? ..

"We tol em wot we fort of Mr Adrian but they never printed that part"

"$12,000, it cost us" observes Francis. "But it wasn't that bad rilly, yer gotta take fings lik that... no sense in goin crazy abaht it.. wot's the use. Maybe 'ee ' really needed the money"

"But it woz pretty shortsighted" adds Coghlan. "Cos we were just gettin' bit then, and if ee'd ung abaht' ee woulda made good bread next time we cum out"

By the way lads, have you saved any souls lately?

"Oh-er, yer on abhat that Ruth Siengethaler bit agin" sex Francis and blows a fart noise to announce the change of subject "Th' fing is see, the geezer ' oo wrote that story for yer... 'e' just happend to be there when this Ruth bird came in an told us how she'd bee on 'eavy drugs an' in a bad way til she eard our moosic... and she just wanted ta thank us ... an' well, if Tony (Tony Steward, the writer) adn't bin there, no one woulda known.... coz it's not th' sorta fing you go round sayin' 'I saved someone's mortal soul yestaday....

I tell them about the Quo-ettes I'd met earlier in the lobby and how they seemed to regard Status Quo as being possessors of life giving force, so fervent was their admiratioin.

"Wot, those kids? sez Francis. "Nah, we've ad some rilly strange ones.

Like abaht a week arfter the Ruth fing there's woz another one ... abaht 45 she woz...

"Oh" sez John Coghlan. "That one"

"She waz a bit of a peanut. "continues Rossie, "definitely sumfing missing up there. Apparently she used ta travel round wif her father and 'ee died, then the guy she woz gonna marry 'ee kicked the bucket. And she woz definately finished y know.

"Then summon gave 'er as a present ... to try and perk 'er up... the Piledriver' album. An' she sez from that day, she's bin fine.... no

problems at all...

"Really?"

"Gwad's trooth. But when we say fings like that - or wen yer read 'em in print, it looks like a right load of bullshit. Just like that bizness

'baht Steve Howe wantin' to be buried wif 'is guitar...(he leans down to the microphone) that's OK Steve,... yer OK wif me mate, we'll chuck in yer amplifiers too.

"Nah, it wounds lik bullshit, but it really 'appened see. THose two people came up ter us and said, 'You've really changed my life, you've really made it worthwhile living agin"

"Well, gee ta luv, but... we never actually set out to change anyone's life yer know.. We're jus out ther trying to be honest and as basic as we can"

"That's right" ovserves John Coghlan. "Like I rilly fin it 'ard to believe anyone can find enlightenment from wot

we do" continues Rossie. "Apparently a few people 'ave, but we don't wantta get a reputation fer it"

"On th' other and, last time we played in Germany at a big Festival there woz some Hells Angels rumble down tha back, and four people got 'nives in the froat an' snuffed it for they got to hospital"

The last time this band played boogie, four people died... does that qualify as a headline?

"Yeah" sez John Coglan, "that's a good headline"

"Its bullshit" sez Francis, "but it's a good headline. Th' trouble is it ad fuckall ter do wif our moosic. It woz a bikie's rumble."

Ah yes, the moosic. Let's talk about that.

Fr'instance quite a few of the letters RAM has recieved about Status Quo ask about the band's 60's Hot Hitz sucha as Pictures of Matchstick Men and Ice in the Sun. Very psychedelic that period was for Status Quo. And they used to perform on Top Of the Pops in matching velvet suits and looked very clean lads.

"Matchstick Men, yah, well that was just a song ... rilly it woz. We were pounced on by outside interests so to speak and tol "yer need a hit... yer need a hit... we didn' ave a lot ter do wif wot we were doin' We jus' put down th' songs and ovver people would add effects and strings... it wasnt wot yer'd call a basic sound, "explains Francis. "Sometimes, someone will play us the old records, and we all say 'Ah common, take it off. But sumtimes we listen to it and we don' mind at all.

"That's when you re-live wot yer were trying to do bak in those days, and it starts to make sense like that.

"But there were a lotta outside influences which we didn't need. Like we rilly were moulded inta a pop group fing yer know. An the crunch came wif a song Are your Growing Tired of My Life which woz a single and Richard (Parfitt) woz told ta sing it ... and they gave im Bee Gee records to mould his voice around.

"We're finking we might play Pictures of Matchstick Men again on stage sumtime. adds John Coghlan. "It'd be a lot different to wot it used ta be though. It's a strange tempo but, an' the problem is where ta put it".

"Ma Kelly's Greesy Spoon, is where we got pissed off wif wot woz appening ta us, "sez Francis Rossi. (Who's definitely not one to be side-tracked from a rendition of Quo's musical career once started). "You listen ta Ma Kelly and you'll find it very dry, very basic... no overdubs no strings... just the basci band sweatin' away in th' stoodio. "But it showed th' direction we wanted ta go... like it woz the start of

wot we're abaht... th' start of us cummin' aht and saying this is rillly us...

"Dog of Two Heads - that's where we started to take over arrangin' and producin' ... rilly taking charge of th 'ole fing...

And Piledriver wos where we swoz gettin a bit more confident abaht wot we could do.

"The Hello album... that's the one I like the most of all actu'lly ... dunno why, I jus do... it's gott nice feel to it I reckon :

"The Quo album woz more polished... like we learned a lott noo tricks on the road and they all cum in'andy when we were makin' Quo.

And On the Level... There's a pause here. And you get the feeling both from that pause and from a few throw away comments during the talk, that On the Level is Rossi's least fave album. On the other hand, it's definitely been their most successful.. So why the pause gov'nor?

"Well, it the best stuoodio album we've dun.. like it's gotta lotta nice guitar bits and melodies and the sound is clean.. and ther'es lotsa

variation... lotsa different feels... but "

"But"

Well lik I sed before... next album is gonna have all those little fings in the playing and melodies. But wot we're lookin ' for is gettin' bak to

that roughness... we don' wanna be jus basic or anyfing... but we wanna get that dirty sorta chunka-chunk fru it...

"Yeah" sex John Coghlan, and pumps out an impromtu backing beat on the table.

"Yer've mad me dry up now" Complains Francis. "I can't say anuver word... I've dried up .. I've said it all. Not another word ... not another

fuckin' word..." "I didn't say that". He bends downs to the microphone and says, "Yer wouldn't catch me sayin' words like that. Me ol mum would be ashamed....."

"Gotta set a good example for the public" confides John Coghlan, his head also bending down to the microphone...

And well, talking of having heads down... y'see I have this fantasy. "You dirty bastard, do yer rillly? and Rossi does a mock horrified double

take.... Well I do, I have this fantasy that when Quo's collective head is down and somehow that dirty underlaying beat is getting dirtier and more low down and more itching under your skin every bar - that what is rilly happening up there is an energy transference. The combination of body electricity and guitar electricity scrubs up into an irresistible, near magnificient

contact high.

I mean you can judge them by the sum of their musical parts and resist being impressed. But it's damn near impossible to stary seated and /or still when Quo play. If you do you're really resisting the prevailing atmosphere.

In other words, just about everyone who sees 'em ends up boogie-ing. "wel it awl started" explains Francis, "when we frew away the frilly

clothes and all that crap. An' we stopped playin' in fronta the ballroom crowds... abaht 3,000 yusta pack inter those ballrooms - but most of'em

were there to pcik up a girl - it didn matter 'oo the band woz - as long asthey'd bin on telly. So we stopped all that and went inta th' clubs

playing to abaht 40 ... 50 people, 'oo'd cum ta ear the moosic."

"Once we started that, we gotta chance ta lissen ta th' moosic ourselves, And our head would start nodding in time yer know.. and then we started to realise that the closer we got ta each ovver the more we could actually feel the moosic... and our 'ole bodies would start movin' ... you'd rilly start gettin' that vibe 'appening... and it would spread to th' people too.

Fuckin' incredible it was learnin all that. The ' arder yer went, the more it developed.

"And when we started chasin' each ovver... that woz a buzz too... cos yer know if yer stop, you'll 'ave the ovver person over... it's awl real yer

see, yer can';t get it ' appening if yer just play footsies.

"Fuck me, it woz a change ter playin' in fronta 2,000 peopole ... 200 of 'em were up the front coz they'd seen yer on telly and th' rest were chattn amongst themselves. Everyone 'appenin' wif the moosic... that's woz a real buzz.

"An it's just built from there rilly... Like on stage, yer see 5,000-6,000 people doing the jig durin' Roll Over Lay Down... it's incredible... mostamazin' sight you'd ever see... brings a lump to yer froat sumtimes it does...

You're an old softie Francis.

"No rilly, it's incredible... a real rush. It's wot it's all abaht.. nuffin surer.

About half an hour later I'm walking trhough the lobby and the two Quo-ettes who'd come up before the interview come up again.

"You spoke to them for a long time, " the Quo-ette girl says, looking enviously at the tape recorder containing the Word As Spoken by Status Quo.

"Can we hear it" says the Quo-ette.

So I flip the switch, run the tape back a few stops. It starts playing at a part where Francis Rossi and John Coghlan are looining abhat, blowing fart noises in unision. The Quo-ettes fail to bridge the credibility gap and look like pilgrims who've found a sideshow where they were sure Nirvana would be. You've really to to hear the whole thing, I explain. Maybe they'll find the True Word in here somewhere. But as Francis Rossi would tell them, feeling is more important enyway.

Anthony O'Grady

REPORT FROM AN AUSTRALIAN MAG 1976

STATUS QUO DELIVER THE GOODS

For 13 years Status Quo has been rocking the world with their tight, gutsy music. Australia has seen the boy in action four times over the past three years - and they've never been better.

And now, to consolidate their position as one of the world's great rock bands, status Quo has released a new album - Blue for You. The album had its world premiere release in Australia on February 20, two weeks before it was released in their home country, Britain. Early reports say Blue for You is a boomer and already headed for a double gold in Australia.

Although struggling in the early days, Status Quo has been right there at the top since 1962, picking up dozens of gold records and thousands of fans along the way. Why is the band such a success? Colin Johnson, Quo's Manager since 1967, told Scream all about the formula of the group's raging success.

"Well, initially I think it stemmed from the excitement they generate as a live act, "he said. "Quo had a scruffy image - they were a street band and they always had a rapport with their audience. "The fans were paying their money to come in a be a part of something - and they weren't disappointed. "That's one of the big things that made Quo - loyalty.

And the fans a loyal because Quo always delivers the goods - raw thumping rock and roll.

Rick and Francis interwiew (1998).

Stop us if you´ve heard this one before, but STATUS QUO promise VALERIE POTTER that the album they´re finishing is "full-tilt" Quo. Besides this, FRANCIS ROSSI and RICK PARFITT have some interesting opinions on the glory days of ´Piledriver´ and ´Blue For You´. Would you believe "a few moments of brilliance and 60-70 per cent shit"?!

They´ve had 52 British hit singles, sold more than 110 million albums worldwide and spent an 20 years away from home on tour - and yet it´s hard to think of another British rock band that has had so much media scorn and ridicule poured on their heads. For they are Status Quo - the terminally unhip, denim-clad, headbanging, three-chord wonders. Or so their critics would have you believe.

Nevertheless, taking a break from recording in a Surrey studio, founding vocalist/guitarists Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt are hopeful that their next album may lead their detractors to change sides. Their first album of original material in seven years, more recent releases having been covers, collaborations and compilations, Parfitt believes it harks back to the 70´s heyday of ´Piledriver´, before bassist Alan Lancaster and drummer John Coghlan left Quo´s original line-up to be replaced by John Edwards and Jeff Rich respectively.

"Musically, we´ve been through a few changes of late," Rick says. "We´ve leaned a little bit towards country rock and the fans didnt´t take too kindly to that.

But this album has gone back to really full-tilt Quo. It´s quite hard-rocking and I must say, it feels excellent. It´s probably the best album we´ve ever done, without a word of a lie".

Francis isn´t quite so sure about the ´Piledriver´ comparison, though he believes the new album will provide a good meeting place for fans of the band´s older material and those who prefer the newer songs.

"People always say, ´Why can´t you make albums like ´Hello!´and ´Piledriver´?´ But to me, we´re not that band, so you´re never going to make that again," he comments. "I suppose in terms of the bluesiness of it and it´s a kind of synth-free zone... but it´s difficult [to talk about], because I don´t think anyone would say, ´You should hear my new album - it´s shit!´ But we´re more excited than we´ve been for some time and it´s been more of a concerted band effort, so we´re very happy with it so far."

The discrepancy in the pair´s response is more evident when asked how they feel about Quo´s early albums when they listen to them nowadays.

"I love them," says Rick. " When the first band was good, it was really good.

I´m pleased that´s how I feel about it, rather than listening to some of the really quite simple early stuff and thinking, ´Christ, that was crap, wasn´t it?´!"

Francis is less enthusiastic. "To me, there were a few moments of brilliance and 60-70 per cent shit, but I think that´s the same for everybody. There have been a handful of albums over the last 30 years that you buy and every single track yu end up liking. For me, ´Hotel California´ was one, so was ´Rumours´ and a few Beatles albums. Generally, you buy an album and if there are two tracks on there you like, you consider yourself lucky."

Pantomime Dames

One thing the pair do agree on is that 1998 has been one of their busiest years to date. The recording of the new LP was slotted in between tours of Europe and Australia, plus summer festival dates. Fie days after this interview, the band were scheduled to fly to Russia for shows before touring Germany again, then, of curse, concluding the year with British Xmas gigs, which have become as traditional as pantomimes and the Queen´s speech.

"Sadly, they are," Rick agrees. "It´s a thing we´ve done for 20 years. If we had our way, maybe we´d do it every other year, but there´s such demand to see us at Christmas that you can´t let the fans down."

As in previous years, these shows will be packed with punters whose ages range from eight to 80, which is something of a British phenomenon, as in Europe, Status Quo play to a much younger, rockier audience.

But I´ve always said, what does it matter how old or young people are, as long as they enjoy it?" Rick argues. "The critics have said, ´Oh blimey, Status Quo have got pensioners in the audience...´ So what? If you see an old boy and his wife enjoying themselves, we really get a kick out of that."

Francis agrees. "When you were young, if there was a granny in the audience, it was like, ´Get her out - if someone sees her, we´re dead!´ and you go, ´What are you talking about? It´s a person. And that person was dead hip a few years ago, and now she´s not, because what? Because she´s old and has glasses and is grey? What´s the problem? She´s not hip because of somebody I think I am?"

"We did some European festivals with Reggie - sorry, Elton John - Rod (Stewart) and Page & Plant. As Reggie walked into the site, he and all his camp were saying, ´This is not my audience!´ So the promoter looked at him and said ´What do you mean? I only booked the band , I didn´t book the audience! They´ve turned up to see you, how can you say they´re not your audience?!´ Reggie was effing and blinding: ´I´m never playing a fucking festival again!´ And we were going, ´But this is the audience you want, isn´t it, to broaden it?"

"Which is why I´d love to play Glastonbury, even free of charge, actually - I don´t think they´d want to pay us! That used to be the most fringe hippie festival of all time, now it´s mainstream with people like Robbie Williams, which is interesting. I´d like to goin there as the underdog where they think, ´This is going to be funny - watch this lot!´ and then they´re like, ´Sorry, I didn´t realise you were quite that good.´ It doesn´t mean we´re fantastic or we´re gonna change the world, but we´re a darned sight better than people think we are."

In The Army Now

The passion with which Rossi continues his defence of the Quo and their Army is some indication of how, cheap though many of them may have been, those press potshots at the band have really hurt.

"It´s difficult to take in all the press things about Status Quo - it´s the standard joke - with the reaction that we get onstage," he says.

"I get out there and I watch these people going fucking apeshit and I think, ´Well, they´re not coming out just to say, ´Poor old sods, we better go and see them, they´ll feel lonely...´ They come out because they think we do something that that enjoy. I don´t understand, but I´m grateful that they´re there, because they make me feel so good.

The age, the baldness, everything, goes straight out of the window, because you can see these people are so excited.

"I could take all the criticisms about it being limited, it´s three-cordy, it´s samey - but then I listen to other acts and go, ´Well, so´s everybody else,´argues Rossi. "Once you´ve heard one Spice Girls record, one Radiohead record, one Oasis record, you know - because if you didn´t, they wouldn´t be successful. It adds to the success that it´s recognisable and people can identify with it quickly."

Fair comment. But then there´s always the hipness factor to take into account. Mere mention of the ´H´ word has Francis up and running again.

"I find it very, very odd that ´Rockin´ All Over The World´ is an acceptable record and certain other records of ours weren´t," he complains. "And yet that record had "I like it, I like it..." and "Giddy up and giddy up..." in it - and that´s cool? I find that really odd! But it must have been quite hip at the time [it was originally recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival (it´s written and performed originally by John Fogerty, founder of CCR - the webmaster)], because about six months afterwards, The Rolling Stones came out with "It´s only rock and roll/But I like it, like it...""

Old Vs New

The Quo anthem, ´Rockin´ All Over The World´ is, of course, a dead cert for inclusion in December´s shows. But with such a vast back catalogue to choose from, the pair admit that finding room to include new material is an ongoing problem.

Otherwise, you´d just play for yourself in your front room. It´s the reason you and I are talking. You´re trying to get the best for your magazine, whether it´s sensationalism or whatever it is, talking to some old bloke in some passé band: ´Let´s get a dodgy picture of them two on the front, making fools of themselves, and there´ll be X amount of people who buy this, just to say, "What a pair of twats they are!" The reason you have your job is not because they think, ´She´s a nice bird - let´s give her a job!´ Bollocks! It´s ´Does she sell magazines?´ But that´s show business."

Again And Again And Again

We´ve talked earlier about the age of Quo´s audiences - but both Rossi and Parfitt themselves are now the wrong side of 50. How do they feel about the views of one young shaver residing not a million miles from the Classic Rock office, who thinks all musos should do the decent thing and shoot themselves when they turn 30?

"When I was in my twenties, someone said to me, ´You know fuck all until you´re 45´. I thought, ´You´re talking out of your arse.´ However, I now think he was right!" Francis grins. "You wouldn´t buy the computer with the smallest memory, would you? Ask me about anything and I´ll say, ´That happened to me in 19-dah-dah and I think this... ´You ask a 20-year-old and he says, ´Dunno, never done it..Mmm, fancy a shag?´!"

No immediate plans for retirement then?

"I´ve been making plans since I was twenty-something!" chuckles Rossi. "In ten years´ time, I´ll be coming up to 60. I couldn´t see me doing this at 40, but surely it´ll all be over when I´m 60?!"

Sometimes I look at the schedule and I go, ´Are you kidding?´" adds Parfitt, "but I know after three weeks or a month off, I´m just bursting to get back on the road. When that urge and that urgency goes, that´ll be time to hang up the old guitars. But it´s still there, so whether people want to see the back of us or not, we ain´t going anywhere!"

When asked what ambitions they have left to achieve, both reply, with perfect synchronicity, "To do it all again"

"That´s what keeps us going," opines Francis. "There´s always this feeling that the next record´s going to do - something, whatever it is, I don´t know. I remember desperately wanting ´Marguerita´ out as a single, it was going to prove such a point. It was a big hit and - I had to go and do another one! It´s that carrot in front of your nose."

"We´re happy to carry on in the groove that we do," concludes Rick. "I know Quo is never going to be the biggest band in the world, but the level of success we´ve had is enough is enough to fulfil everything that I could have wanted. I don´t think we were cut out to be a U2 or a Rolling Stones. We´re Quo, we are what we are. "We´re happy to carry on in the groove that we do," concludes Rick. "I know Quo is never going to be the biggest band in the world, but the level of success we´ve had is enough is enough to fulfil everything that I could have wanted. I don´t think we were cut out to be a U2 or a Rolling Stones. We´re Quo, we are what we are. "We´re happy to carry on in the

groove that we do," concludes Rick. "I know Quo is never going to be the biggest band in the world, but the level of success we´ve had is enough is enough to fulfil everything that I could have wanted. I don´t think we were cut out to be a U2 or a Rolling Stones. We´re Quo, we are what we are, we´ve had success everywhere in the world - what more can you want?"

"We´ve been knocked so heavily over the years and we´ve come through it. I´ve always had this internal picture of Quo being like a powerful old steam train, steaming down this track, and all this criticism and other trends in music come along and hit it and just bounce off. Nothing will stop this band unless we take the coal off the fire of the engine. Otherwise it will just keep rocking."

"I always relate it to when I went to see The Eagles," Francis recalls. "They played ´Hotel California´ and all the best tracks from that album so well, but I hadn´t quite orgasmed. I was still waiting for ´Already Gone´ from ´On The Border´ and when they did it, I nearly fell off my seat. It was like, ´Someone´s played with my nuts! Ah, do that to me!´ So I relate that to our people."

"I mean, I hate doing ´Caroline´, I hate doing ´Down Down´, but when you play them, people´s faces... It´s like, ´Yes, you did it to me, I´ve just come - thank you very much!´ Whereas before that, they´re kind of, ´Yeah, you´re touching me in the right places, but you haven´t quite got there yet´ - like most women with men, I suppose! it would be great to say, ´We don´t do that material any more´, but that´s muso rubbish, I´m afraid."

"We´re in show business, although some musicans don´t like to admit it.

Rick Parfitt

Born: 12th October, 1948.

From: Woking, Surrey.

Now Lives: South West London.

Personal: Divorced, two children from two marriages.

Plays: Guitar, vocals, songwriting.

Rick is one of Englands' greatest rhythm guitarists, his rock solid style has always been the core of the Quo sound.

Also known as 'The Womorr' (The Wild Old Man Of Rock and Roll) , he has written some of Quo's most memorable songs including '"Whatever You Want", "Backwater","Living on an Island"' and "Rain". If you've seen Quo live you'll know the rush you get when Rick steps up to the front of the stage and hammers out the intro to 'Caroline' or 'Paper Plane'.

The enduring partnership of Rossi and Parfitt is the thing that keeps Quo rocking and even though they are very different characters, after more than 30 years together they are still the best of mates. Once known as the 'Wild Man' of rock, Rick insists that he has learnt to relax and now is a 'Mild Man' of rock, (If you believe that you'll believe anything!!)

Equipment

The White Fender Telecaster... that is Ricks main guitar is a 1965 model with all the original Fender pickups and parts except for the bridge which has been changed to a Badass bridge, because he attacks the guitar and plays so hard he would tear his wrist on a normal Telecaster bridge.

The gauge of the strings Rick uses are: .14 .17 .26w .36w 46w 56w. (these are heavy gauge strings!) He also uses an original Gibson SG which is tuned to an E chord. Both Rick and Francis use a number of open tunings and capos in the Quo set, between them they have 18 Guitars on the road and they are all looked after by Tonto, their long standing guitar tech.

Apart from the famous two Telecasters, They also use a 1981 Zemaitus for 'Forty Five Hundred Times' tuned to a B tuning with a .60 gauge bottom E string, a Schecter, a Fender Esquire that Rick uses on the medley tuned to G,G,D,G, B, D with a capo on the second fret, a Giffin and a Chet Atkins Acoustic used for 'Gerdundula'. For 'Whatever you Want' Rick and Francis use a normal tuning but with the bottom E string tuned down to a D.

As Francis, Rick uses two 4x12" 8 ohm Marshall cabinets, a 100 watt JCM 800 Lead Series amp and sometimes a JCM 900. For effects, Rick also uses a Roland GP8 signal processor, which has three different chorus/flange settings and three overdrive settings.

He also uses a Vox AC30, miked and fed out to the front system which when mixed

with the Marshalls makes the Quo sound.

Rhino:

Fifty-five British hit singles and a string of hit albums since 1968 have made Status Quo a household name in the U.K. and across the world. In fact there has only ever been one other band that has had more U.K. chart success than Status Quo and that, of course, were the Beatles. Then again, the Beatles broke up in 1970 and Status Quo still are Rockin' All Over The World in 2001.

I tracked down the band on their recent tour and spoke at length to long-standing bass-player John 'Rhino' Edwards, who has been with the band since the mid '80's. Prior to joining the band Rhino had already built up an extensive C.V. (Editor's note: No idea what C.V. means, probably 'Candy Vendor', 'Candid Vagabonds' or most likely a biography of successes. Andy has not been the same since the rocket sled accident).

Rhino: "I suppose Sandie Shaw was the first thing I ever did, which was horrible! After that I was in a band called The Sunday Band and I met a guy called Mike Paxman at a party and we were both completely pissed. They'd just been given the money by their record label to get a band together for Judie Tzuke and he said, "If you can remember my phone number call me tomorrow, you've got the gig". I can always remember phone numbers so I started to play with Judie and that got the whole ball rolling. I stayed with Judie for a long time, on and off I was with her for six years, in fact I've just done a track on her new album and she's still sounding really good."

Rhino went on to form his own band, 'Rhino Edwards', a three-piece with Canadian guitarist Richard Lightman, which Rhino described as 'very hooligan!'. The band began to do well and were close to signing a deal when Rhino got the call to say that Dexy's Midnight Runners were looking for a bass player. He took the gig and did two American tours with the band. At the same time Rhino was also playing with the Climax Blues Band and he somehow managed to combine the two, gigging furiously with both bands and even managing to squeeze in the Dexy's album, 'Don't Stand Me Down'.

Rhino: "By that time I was also with 'Kim Wilde', Rhino recalled, trying to put this multitude of gigs in some sort of chronological order. That was the best hundred and fifty quid I ever spent, I got an answer phone and the first message on it was from her guitar player to say that he'd been given my name and the next day they were auditioning for bass players. So I went along and got that as well. I've actually never failed an audition,' he mused, 'I actually didn't have an audition with Status Quo...."

So how did he get the gig with Status Quo is my obvious next question.

Rhino: 'Ooh, long story I'm afraid. Me and Jeff Rich used to try and work all the time together and we had a phone call from a friend who wanted to do some stuff at Chipping Norton Studios. The producer was Mike Vernon and he was looking for a rhythm section. So me and Jeff went up there and nothing came of that but the producer said that he'd like to use us on some other stuff. Later on, I got a call from him saying 'did I want to do an album with this Norwegian bloke?' The guitar player on those sessions was a guy called Pip Williams, who then said, "I'm producing Rick Parfitt's solo album next week, would you like to try out for a couple of numbers?" So me and Jeff ended up doing the whole album, during which time Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster had a big fall-out and Francis wouldn't work with Alan. So Rick and Pip persuaded Francis to try me and Jeff. I was just about to get married and I'd told my wife that I wasn't going to tour any more, so we did the album "In The Army Now" and the manager asked me if I fancied doing a couple of gigs and I said "No, not really, I want to try and carve out a living doing little projects in studios, how much is it anyway?...I'll do it!". That was in 1985. The first shows we did were in April '86, we went out to Dubai.'

When Rhino joined the 'Quo' he was replacing Alan Lancaster, who had been with the band for seventeen years. I wondered how the fans reacted to this young newcomer.

Rhino: 'Bad!' was the simple answer. 'I didn't know the score, I looked like some sort of Duran Duran reject and it wasn't exactly what they were looking for. In retrospect I think I would have stood a bit more still, I looked like Rudolph fuckin' Nureyev. I think that whoever was in was never going to be accepted by a lot of the hardcore fans, because for them Alan was the main man. He's a definite rocker, there's no doubt about that, I think he's great! Quo are one of the classic seventies bands you know.'

Fifteen years later Rhino is still there with Quo, having been with them now for almost as long as Lancaster, I guess he must be enjoying himself.

Rhino: 'Well it's better than working!' he joked. 'I love it, I couldn't be happier with what I do but I've got three kids and a wife and I do miss them. It is a very pampered lifestyle, so I think that anyone who does my job and moans about it is a twat! They should get out a bit more.'

About two years ago Jeff Rich left Status Quo for personal reasons. He and Rhino had played together for a long time, working together in the Climax Blues Band amongst other things. Rhino called up another drummer who had worked with him in the same band, Matt Letley. I asked him whether it was difficult for the band to adjust to a new drummer after such a long time.

Rhino: 'Yeah, it took everyone a long time because Rick and Francis tend to play ahead of the beat and they're always pushing it and pushing it. Matthew didn't know that the idea of the drummer in this band is to try and hold it all back, so when we were rehearsing everything was going faster and faster. Francis phoned me up that night and said 'You shittin' yourself?' and I said 'Yep, are you?'. But Matthew and I have a lot of mutual respect and I can say to him "No, you shouldn't play that, that's the wrong vibe". He really injects a lot of himself though, he's such a fantastic drummer, really powerful. I'm into football and I always think there's a lot of analogies between football and music. With Jeff we had Steve Perryman and with Matt we've got Tony Adams, he's very dominant in the band.'

If that analogy was lost on you, don't worry, it was lost on me too. When researching for this interview it amazed me to find just how many Status Quo websites there around the world, they must be one of the most documented bands on the web. Rhino himself is quite a prolific writer on the official site, with his extensive and amusing 'tour logs'. These notes from the road give a hilarious and frank insight into the life of a rock band and are well worth a read.

Rhino: 'I'm a bit behind with them, more behind than a donkey's tail,' Rhino told me. 'The guy who runs our website is a really good fried of mine and it's a really good website with a lot of personal input. It's a little bit from the horse's mouth so to speak and it can be a real laugh after a couple of drinks. It keeps people in touch, when we're on tour it gets a lot more hits but we're going to pout it out, basically as a "bog read", because you can pick it up, mid-dump, have a little look and put it down.'

Like so many bass players before him, Rhino succumbed to releasing a solo album. It's titled "Rhino's Revenge" and is available from the Eagle label. You can read my review of the album at the close of this article, meanwhile here's Rhino's story of how it came to be…

Rhino: 'I wrote this song called "Julia", and I really liked it. Sometimes when I've been writing for Quo it's been virtually impossible because I get this huge spectre of Francis on one side and Rick on the other and I'm thinking "Would they want to sing that?".

So I finished this song and it was a lot of fun. I decided to do an EP, just sell it over the web, 500 or so copies. I got together with Mike Paxman again and he offered to record it at Judie Tzuke's studio and to produce it. I wrote a few more songs, had about five or six and Charlie Morgan came down to play drums on them. He did all the songs and it was so wicked that Mike said to me, "This is stupid, we might as well do an album now."

It did take four years in total to do because of time off with Quo, and then I'd write one or two songs and spend time at the studio. I really love working at Judie Tzuke's studio, it's got the best vibe, ("man!") of any studio I've ever been in.

There's no clock. You finish when you finish and it's never a problem. Judie and Paul are lovely people. I called on a lot of people to come and play on the album, all the guys in Quo. I'd actually written one song with a part for Rick in mind which he enjoyed playing and Francis does a great guitar solo on one of them, Andrew plays keyboards, the guitar player from when I was with Kim Wilde, plays the main solos which are awesome.'

Rhino's band have been approached to do a small tour next year, which he's looking forward to. Meanwhile, in the Status Quo camp, Universal have just released a four CD anthology box set retrospective entitled, 'Rocker's Rollin'. Sixty-eight tracks covering their entire career, including most of the singles, some classic album tracks and a few rarities. It's going to be a great set for old and new listeners alike.

Rhino: 'I've had a bit of feedback from fans on the net and they were a little disappointed because there are only two things that the dedicated fans haven't heard before and I think they would have liked to hear a bit more than that, I think I probably would as well actually. What are really considered to be the classics don't really involve me and when I came along it coincided with the band taking a 'poppier' direction for a while because Alan Lancaster always wanted to keep it rocking. I like to rock, no problem there.'

On stage with Status Quo Rhino is always seen playing Status basses, I asked him for some details and he said, pointing, 'I've got that red one and that white one'. Fortunately, Rob Green of Status was able to fill in a few details.

Rhino: 'Rhino's basses originally started as Series-1 models from the mid 90's. These originally had graphite necks and molded bodies. We then re-made the bodies from mahogany at some point and fitted a new 2-band E.Q. which I believe is now totally bypassed, just running the bass passive. Strictly speaking these basses are not made any more but, being the set-up we are, it is possible to make just about anything. We have made replicas and similar basses over the years.''I think the red one's about eleven years old,' Rhino continued, 'I've been using that non-stop, since I got it, the white one is really just a spare. I've also got a Status Stealth which I used exclusively on the "Rhino's Revenge" album. I'm a bit of a collector I suppose, I've got a custom shop Jazz, some people call it sea-green, it's more like puke-green! I've got my trusty Alembic Omega from 1980, which is what I started off with, I've got a Status five-string headless, an Overwater five-string, a couple of Hohner acoustics, a Norwegian guitar which I can't think of the make of, it's really good, a Danelectro Longhorn, a Wal fretless, I've just got rid of a Spector which was a bit of a mistake. I'm thinking about getting another one, but mostly I use my red Status because I really love that one. For recording I use an Ampeg V4, that's really class, you can distort it nicely. It just sounds like it's having the shit kicked out of it as opposed to being overdriven, because I do tend to thwack it, I'm definitely not light fingered. Live, I'm using Marshalls, but after Christmas I might be changing to Hughes and Kettner. I've been trying out some of their stuff and it's really got some balls to it. Marshalls have served me very well over the years but I always liked the Ampeg sound that really filled the stage up.We're using in-ear monitoring now but before that my side of the stage was called "Death Row" and Rick's was called "The Wall Of Death". The volume! Jeff had 10,000 watts of monitoring, we were so loud, some places you could see people's hair being swept back!'

Rhino also plays occasional guitar, notably on the Quo classic 'Gerdundula' as well as on his own material.. He has an ESP Strat, a Steinberger and one of the new Status-Graphite guitars. The music press have often been, shall we say, less than kind to Status Quo over the years, criticizing them for their simplicity and labeling them as a 'three-chord band'. A couple of days after this interview the band had to cancel two or three shows because Rick Parfitt was suffering from repetitive strain injury, the press thought that was hilarious...ha ha ha...three chords...ha ha ha...R.S.I...ha ha ha. Come on guys, grow up will you, you're supposed to be serious journalists! I asked Rhino for his take on the 'three-chord' label.

Rhino: 'I just think that these people haven't got a fuckin' clue what they're talking about, it's all arseholes!' was his understandably acidic reply. 'I think the three chord song is the hardest song to write, if you've got a song that doesn't do very much, just concentrates on rocking, it's the hardest thing in the world to do. On "Rhino's Revenge" I've actually written one song with two chords in it and I'm really proud of it. Songs like "Caroline" are much more timeless than songs that are up their arse. To me this is what it's all about, it's organic music, it's inventive, the guitar parts that are worked out are really musical. My favourite bit in the whole set is a sixteen-bar section in "B" where you just go Duh-duduh-duduh-duduh, I get off on that like crazy, it's in "Forty-Five Hundred Times". You look at the audience and they're all bouncing.'

Regardless of what the often-cynical music press may think, Status Quo have a loyal fanbase, often fanatically so. I pointed out to Rhino that a friend of mine was seeing his fifty-seventh Status Quo gig that very night.

Rhino: 'I'm afraid he's got a long way to go', was Rhino's answer. 'We had a woman celebrating her two hundredth just the other night and we've got a few people who've done over three hundred. A few years ago in Finland we had four generations of the same family at a gig, from about two to seventy-eight. That's one of the great things about the band, a lot of people have been really into it and their kids have been brought up on it'

The band have been touched by tragedy recently with the sudden death of their manager, David Walker, from a heart attack as well as the death of keyboard player Andy Bown's wife. Andy himself has been on a leave of absence from the band for some time now, but is planning to return in the New Year. The fact remains that the members of Status Quo are not getting any younger. Francis and Rick have been there now since the band's inception in the late '60's. Rick Parfitt has had a quadruple bypass, so it begs the question, 'Just how long will the Quo keep rocking?'

Rhino: 'Well, we have set a date for splitting the band up.' Rhino revealed exclusively to Global Bass. 'Its April 3rd, 2034!' I suspect this may not have been an entirely serious comment. 'B.B. King was once asked when he was going to retire,' Rhino laughed, 'and he said "About seven years after I'm dead", that was class!'

So just to wind up this interview I asked Rhino, a football fanatic, how Brentford will do this season.

'Going up I'd say,' he said, optimistically. We'll see, mate, we'll see.

Album review

Rhino's Revenge - Eagle Records EAGCD143

First of all, this is not a standard Status Quo album. It doesn't have the Quo sound and it was never intended to, despite the fact that all the members of Quo are playing on it somewhere. What it is, is an album of hard rock songs in the classic British tradition. A powerful, guitar-driven edge permeates throughout and Rhino proves himself in the arena of rock writers.As well as all the bass parts, Rhino contributes a large proportion of rhythm guitar parts and is complemented by some fantastic lead work from Steve Byrd and Dave Goodes. Rick Parfitt is easily spotted on the satirically political 'Republican', whilst Francis Rossi slips a solo into 'Spend Spend Spend'.Finally for all those people out there who think of Rhino as a straight root-note player, you might be surprised to hear some pretty smooth fills on 'Spacemaker' or the fabulously funky line on 'Don't Come Around Here No More'. You might be even more surprised at the solo bass piece, 'Two Suns'.

An ambient, chordal piece with creative double-stops and a beautiful flowing melody. As Rhino says in the liner note, "To anyone that ever gave me any shit....this is Rhino's Revenge!

 Andy Long

INTERVIEW WORDS: PIPER TERRETT (oct.2001)

PRACTICE MAKES PARFITT

Status Quo are currently touring the globe, entertaining new and die-hard fans alike with their archetypal rock tunes. Piper Terrett brushed up on her air guitar with Rick Parfitt, still a wild man of rock at 53.

How's the tour going?

It's going great. We've done seven shows so far, including four warmup shows in Europe. It normally takes six to seven shows for the band to tighten down.

Are you going to the US this time?

There's talk of going to the US and the Far East next year which would be great. Next year is going to be just as hectic as this year's been. We've done 80 shows so far.

Don't you get tired of touring?

No not ever. You get physically tired at times but it helps to keep you fit. It's nice to chill at home after a spell on the road but then a couple of weeks later I just want to go on the road again. The two kind of balance each other out.

How's the ticker? (Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass a few years ago)

Great thanks. I don't smoke anymore and it's got a drug free time ahead of it. I like to think of it (the heart bypass) as a kind of midlife service.

Didn't it slow you down?

No. Not at all. If anything it sped me up!

Are you looking forward to playing Wembley?

London gigs are always a buzz. It's like a family outing. Last time we had 300 guests. At Wembley there's always a section on the right hand side of the stage for all the family, nans, cousins, kids. It's great.

What do you think of the new box set of cds released last month?

There's 80 tracks on it. It's great. I like the choice of tracks. It's ideal for the diehard Quo fans out there that just want to listen to Quo for 3 days. It'd make a nice Christmas present but I hope no one buys it for me!

What artists do you like?

Tom Petty, Bonnie Rae, Fleetwood Mac. I like some of the new stuff too, I just bought the new Wheatus album and I like some of the thrash metal stuff. It depends on what mood I'm in. If I've had a few drinks I might put on some AC/DC. Then again I might put on some Nat King Cole. You have to be careful when I'm in a thrash mood! I still have some wild nights sometimes. It just takes me three days to get over it now.

What got you into rock and roll?

My parents bought me a guitar when I was ten and I picked it up and played it the first day I got it. I don't remember how I was able to do that or how I tuned it. Academically I waivered a bit because I knew I just wanted to play guitar. When I was 15 I played at Butlins and met Frances. I was lucky that I was in the right place at the right time. I'm 53 and I'm still going. I'm not only lucky to do it but still be doing it now. I ain't complaining.

Why do you think your friendship with Francis has lasted so long?

What friendship?! I'm joking. Well, we've been through the mill together, haven't we? We've had our times. It's like a marriage without the sex. We get on fine for the most part. We make each other laugh. It's quite surprising that we've lasted this long. Most bands are completely sick of one another after 30 years.

What do you think of TV's Pop Idol?

I don't know what to make of it really. It's good that youngsters are getting the chances but it must be morally bombarding to be told 'no, you don't have a career, no you don't have talent'. That must really kill some people. I don't know how many more manufactured bands there'll be, it's like a production line. I find it a bit sterile. It's guaranteed the bands will get given a good song that'll get airtime and basically anything that gets played and is half good sells. I'm very pleased we're not starting out now. It was a lot more real years ago in the '70s. You had to have talent, you had to work hard. Not that I'm saying people don't work hard nowadays. But when you see some of these bands go on stage and they're miming, that's not what the fans pay their money to see. You're better off staying at home and listening to the record.

What's the strangest gig you've ever done?

We've played in some strange places but probably the strangest was a railway station in the Australian outback. About two hours into the bush from Brisbane the train stopped and we got on this flat wagon and played to a couple of hundred people. It was I20 degrees. Thinking back it was a pretty daft thing to do but a great treat for the audience. Very weird place. Very hot.

What work are you most proud of?

Our live work, we take great pride in playing live. We always give I00 per cent, well we try. We're a very good live band and we always try to give it our best shot. We've never been complacent about it, we always try to be better than the last record. And I don't think that'll ever stop. Once we stop feeling like that then that'll be the time to stop.

What tracks are your favourites?

All of them, Caroline, Whatever You Want they're all great live, especially when you've got an audience reacting. Playing live, it's different every night. There's all these people and there's often very strange things going on. People moving in different ways. You see some people in the front couple of rows with no timing whatsoever and it can be quite offputting sometimes if you look at them too long. There's some great characters so that's why you don't get sick of playing live.

What's been the best moment of your career?

There's been loads. The very first time you hear yourself on the radio. I was at home with my Mum and Dad and I went weak at the knees. When you see yourself on Top of The Pops and you think you've made it, and of course you haven't. Then when the first gold album comes through. Opening Live Aid and Knebworth. I hope there's more to come. We had a gold album the other day, people are still out there buying our stuff.

What lies ahead for the Quo?

Oh, work, work, work! We're working on a new album, it's untitled at the moment and should be out next August or September. We'll continue to tour and of course we're doing different territories.

What's the new album like?

Typical Quo. If we try and do anything else we get "where's the Quo that we know and love", from our fans. If we do the usual Quo then the critics go "oh it's all the same old stuff". We can't win so we just do what we like to do. We've got our little niche. There are people who like us and people who don’t. We’re happy with what we’ve got.

Rock legends Status Quo are about to descend on a quiet Yorkshire beauty spot. Jim Seton spoke to rhythm guitarist Rick Parfitt.

If you go down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise...well you will be if you head to Dalby Forest near Pickering later this month expecting a quiet stroll in the country. Those dinosaurs of rock Status Quo are set to send the wildlife fleeing for cover when they bring their Heavy Traffic tour to the picturesque location.
The Dalby Forest gig on Sunday, June 22, has been organised by the Forestry Commission as a vital way of raising funds for forestry conservation across the North York Moors, and will also feature a performance by Jools Holland and his band on the Saturday, June 21. For the Quo, a band whose legacy stretches back a record breaking 50 years, the Yorkshire date is something of a first. Having played in almost every venue conceivable, it will be the first time they have ever appeared in a forest. It's a prospect that rhythm guitarists and one of the original 'wild men of rock' Rick Parfitt is looking forward to.

"We've done the vast festivals in all sorts of weird and wonderful locations but we've never actually played in England in a forest. I'm really looking forward to it, Over the years we've found ourselves committed to doing European festivals and it's just lovely to play England,"says Rick.

The band are currently doing what they do best - playing live to sold-out shows around the world. Nothing can keep the Quo down, not even a dodgy roadside meal in Germany which saw frontman Francis Rossi laid up for a few days with food poisoning. So what can the Dalby audience - and the wildlife - expect from the Quo when they hit the forest?

"It will frighten a few squirrels and rabbits away but it will be the normal Quo show,"it will be rocking, it's 0 to 100 miles an hour right from the word go, and it pretty much stays there for an hour and 45 minutes. I was talking to somebody the other day who went to see Springsteen and he does three hours - all this walking off stage after 40 or 50 minutes which some of them do because they've had enough mean what a load of old b******.You've got a paying public out there who have worked hard to buy their tickets to come and see you, you should be honoured. We go out there and make sure they get their money's worth," says Parfitt.

And there you have the Quo's winning formula in a nutshell - hard work and a never say die attitude. Surprisingly for a band that has 'been there and done that' during what a career which has spawned more chart hits than any other British band, 2003 has seen them break new ground - most notably in the Quo hotbed that is Mexico. Apparently the band's work has never been officially released in the country but a thriving underground market in bootlegs and imports has seen them become cult heroes.

Parfitt says: "We went there recently and it was just wonderful, 15,000 people turned up. I think they got most of the stuff from America, they go over the boarder to LA and pick it up there. We've had this following down there for years which we didn't really know about. It was the first time we'd played Mexico and they're really crazy fans - we don't mind that."

Talking of fans, anyone who expects a typical Quo audience to comprise of balding old rockers could be in for a surprise. Despite having been shunned in recent years by the likes of Radio One, the band are still attracting young and enthusiastic rock fans who are rediscovering classic British rock following the rise in popularity of retro rock bands like The Strokes and The Datsuns. It's a situation Parfitt is pleased to see - although he cheekily admits it has the potential to get him into trouble.

"The fans in England are anything from eight to 80 and it's starting to get that way in Europe now, it's really great to see and it's a really varied audience. If anything in Europe the audience is getting younger, I mean it's getting quite difficult sometimes because there's some lovely young things out there and you feel like a dirty old man looking at the birds at the front, but they're all into it and really loving it, so it's really great,"he says.

Parfitt is no stranger to the excesses of the rock 'n' roll life and is quite open about the "mistakes" he has made in the now distant past, but despite still living life to the max he does admit to having calmed down somewhat. All-night parties are a thing of the past - but only if there's a gig to play the next day, he says with a chuckle.

"I still have my nights but not like I used to. It sounds a bit boring but you pay a bit more attention to the gig now, whereas 20 years ago you could go out and get completely slaughtered and do the gig the next day."

Despite 'calming down' as the years have passed by, Rick says there are no plans for Status Quo to finally hang up their guitars - and in fact he says there's still just too much to do. After the Dalby Forest date the band, who have so far toured Brazil, Mexico, America and mainland Europe this year, have dates in the Channel Islands to complete before going into rehearsals for their legendary Christmas shows and more of the same next year.
Status Quo may well be the dinosaurs of rock, but extinction is still a long way off

RICK AND FRANCIS EQUIPEMENT

The White Fender Telecaster...Rick

that is Ricks main guitar is a 1965 model with all the original Fender pickups and parts except for the bridge which has been changed to a Badass bridge, because he attacks the guitar and plays so hard he would tear his wrist on a normal Telecaster bridge.

Amps and FX

The gauge of the strings Rick uses are: .14 .17 .26w .36w 46w 56w. (these are heavy gauge strings!)

He also uses an original Gibson SG which is tuned to an E chord. Both Rick and Francis use a number of open tunings and capos in the Quo set, between them they have 18 Guitars on the road and they are all looked after by Tonto, their long standing guitar tech.

Apart from the famous two Telecasters, They also use a 1981 Zemaitus for 'Forty Five Hundred Times' tuned to a B tuning with a .60 gauge bottom E string, a Schecter, a Fender Esquire that Rick uses on the medley tuned to G,G,D,G, B, D with a capo on the second fret, a Giffin and a Chet Atkins Acoustic used for 'Gerdundula'.

For 'Whatever you Want' Rick and Francis use a normal tuning but with the bottom E string tuned down to a D.

As Francis, Rick uses two 4x12" 8 ohm Marshall cabinets, a 100 watt JCM 800 Lead Series amp and sometimes a JCM 900. For effects, Rick also uses a Roland GP8 signal processor, which has three different chorus/flange settings and three overdrive settings.

He also uses a Vox AC30, miked and fed out to the front system which when mixed with the Marshalls makes the Quo sound.

The Green Fender Telecaster...Francis
is an original 1957 model, which Francis bought for £70 in 1968 and has been his main guitar ever since.
Over the years he has had some of the original Telecaster fittings replaced, using G&L parts which help the sustain and the intonation. It now has three pickups, which work in a Stratocaster configuration.

Amps and FX
The gauge of the strings Francis uses are: .09 .11 .16 .26w 34w 46w.
He is currently using two 4x12" 8 ohm Marshall cabinets, a JCM 800 Lead Series amp and sometimes a JCM 900. For effects, Francis uses a Roland GP8 which boosts the signal to the amplifier, has five different overdrive patches and one patch which is a very tight straight double effect with some echo.

Between the output of the amp and the speakers are Palmer speaker simulators. The output of these goes out-front and is mixed with the miked signal from the Marshall cabinets and a miked signal from a Vox AC30 which is one of the new ones made by Marshall using exactly the same components as were originally used when they were first made in the sixties. You won't see the AC30's on the stage because they are kept behind the Marshalls.

Francis and Rick love the sound of the original AC 30's. In the old days these were loud enough to be the main stage amps but now the miked signal is sent out front to give the sound that extra fatness.
Francis uses Samson Radio systems on the guitar and for Radio headphones.

The following interview, conducted in conjunction with Status Quo's performance at The Warehouse in Toronto, Canada on March 21, 1997, is reprinted with written permission from both of the interviewers. It originally appeared in Kevin Julie's Uriah Heep fanzine "From Time to Time". The other interviewer, Martin Popoff, wrote a 540 page book called "The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal", which includes a great deal about Quo. The online version of this interview was typed up by Alex Gitlin.

This past March, legendary British rockers STATUS QUO played 1 of 3 North American tour dates in Toronto, Ontario. I attended the show with buddy) Martin Popoff, not knowing exactly what to expect. I had a few compilation albums of the band, but was not familiar with their live performance. Well, the show really rocked, to say the least! The band proved that after 30 years they can still put on a killer show. Prior to the show Martin and I were fortunate enough to meet and interview guitarist co-founder Rick Parfitt. Unfortunately, Rick recently underwent emergency open heart surgery. Let's hope for a quick and healthy recovery for Rick, and hope that we'll still get to see the Quo again in the future!

FT: It's been 22 years since you guys have been in North America. Why so long?

RP: Well, through no fault of our own, I think all those years - well I KNOW for a fact that the band was suffering from mismanagement at the time. And with the management we had, they couldn't agree with a record company or with promoters, and it just all fell flat! Coupled with that we received no airplay and the record company wasn't working hand in hand with the management, and nobody was working together. So, that's a great recipe for burying a band, when nobody's working together and doing anything positive for the band. So that's really why we haven't been here.

FT: Was there ever any 'close calls' to coming over?

RP: No, none at all. It was gutless really. Not only have we missed out on playing in this part of the world, but I think that Canada's missed out on a lot of good Quo over the last 20 years, there's been a lot going on! Of course, we've been working our asses off around Europe! So the purpose of this trip is to kind of generate some interest and get things going. We've eaten quite a lot of humble pie so far, and as much as the other side of the world thinks we're brilliant, on this side of the world it comes as a bit of a shock when you get here and, well as we've seen tonight you know the facilities ain't all that, but you just have to roll with it and just do it, and hopefully we can build it up. But it's gonna take a bit of work, I think! It's nice to be here.

FT: Do you seriously see yourselves feeling the ambition to build it up, or is this just a stop to 'test the waters' kind of thing?

RP: Well a bit of both really....

FT: Do you need to make it over here?

RP: Of course we do, I presume you're referring to financially?

FT: Yes.

RP: (pause) In that respect, not really. I mean, the success throughout the rest of the world has seen us into a fairly good position, as far as that's concerned. For us, it's been a long time that we've been together, and it would be a fulfillment for the band. It would be the icing on our 'personal cakes', as it were! I've always had a great belief in this band, and I know for a fact that this band is a good kick-ass rock band! It's good enough to go anywhere in the world, and it just really annoys me that because of managerial arguments and people squabbling behind the scenes, that we haven't been here, because I know the band is perfectly capable of going anywhere in the world and tearing it apart. And that kind of hurts. I think for our own souls, and also back in England you get the people who want to knock you all the while for being around for so long, and stuff like that. You know, they've said, 'ah they're good enough for this side of the world but they've never made it in Canada or America', and I'd really like to stuff it up their pipe as well you see. So, it means a lot to us in that respect.

FT: I interviewed Francis a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him sort of about the one big shift from the old '60's kind of psychedelic band and the 'Piledriver', kind of 'boogie' thing. What about the second shift that was maybe after 'Rockin' All Over The World'. Was there (and I know you guys have a high regard for Dave Edmunds), a bit of new wave / rock pile influence into it?

RP: Not so much a new wave type of thing. Personally I wanted to keep pretty much down the same track and keep it pumping hard, you know. But I gave and gave in to pressure and let's try different things'. And I'm not saying I dislike it, because I certainly don't. I like the country influence and stuff like that, and I particularly like Dave - he's a great musician and a thoroughly nice bloke. So we went into the mode of 'OK, let's give anything a try!', and see what happens. I think it was good; it was fun, but I think in one way it confused some of the fans, you know, 'where are Quo going?' And on the other hand, I think it pulled quite a lot of extra people in who wouldn't be out and out rock'n'roll fans, but preferred the light softer touch. Personally. I think if you can combine the two then you're fine, but I'm not really sure it works that well for us. And I think that it's time, now, to concentrate on keeping the band hard, because I think that that's what Status Quo's roots really are all about - the shuffle, the 12 bar, and the blues-rock tight thing. I'd like to get on record how the band is on stage because it's just so difficult to capture that energy on a CD, but we'll try, and the next album could be very interesting. It's gonna be all-important, maybe you're gonna ask me this but I'm jumping the gun, because with this territory and America, we're breaking it a little bit. Well, at least we're here to show what we can do. I think the next album is so important if it comes out here, and people get off on a firm foot of what Quo are up to now.

FT: Will it be a Castle Communications album?

RP: I don't know yet.You're ahead of the game now, aren't you? Ha-ha! I don't know really, there's a lot of talk going about, but what I'm pleased about is that there is a lot of talk going about, where as before it was dead and buried, you know?! It really crucifies us, when it's leveled at us, you know -'why? why?' , and you get so sick of telling people why you haven't been to America, or why you haven't broke America, and it really starts to grow on you, and starts to hurt. And doubling back to your first question - I'm not saying we're gonna move the world out here, because I'm not really sure there's enough time to do that. But as long as we can get in and prove to some people and build up a fan base out here. and let people know what we're all about, then we'll be just about satisfied. So it's a pleasure to come out here. no matter what the gigs are like. We've worked in Europe and lots of countries throughout the world, all this time we've not had any need to come to this part of the world. It's just a pleasure to be here. Before here, we did Japan, Australia, and then New York. But it is a pleasure to be out here, it's gone unbelievably well...until tonight!

FT: Can you give us an idea of what, for the North American audience Status Quo, for the last 22 years, has been doing year in and year out?

RP: QUO's always had a reputation for being a working band, which we are spend about six or seven months of the on the road, and the rest of the me is taken up recording and interviewing. We do have some breaks here and there but never normally for more than a month, because we do like to keep the machine churning, and a question often leveled at us is 'do you still enjoy it?' And being on stage, we still thoroughly enjoy that. The traveling gets to you, a bit sometimes, as it is today where everybody's a bit jet-lagged. Yes, we still love working, and over the last 20 years we've been working throughout Europe and South Africa, and some pretty weird places Russia, places like that!

FT: Do you see sort of a resurgence of the old British bands? I mean, in the past while alone we've seen Deep Purple, Rainbow, Heep put out a good album...

RP: I think it's great because not everybody is obviously into the new wave of pop; everybody's got their favorites in what they want to hear in their music. And sure, there are millions and millions of people who want to hear bands like Purple and ourselves, so I think it's really good that a lot of the establishment bands are still around. We worked together recently with Purple in Russia, and they're a good band, still kicking ass! It's great to see them again!

FT: You played Moscow in '88, about a year after Heep...

RP: Yeah, we did the Olympic Hall, 17 000 people.We did it 13 nights, so there was quite a lot of people, but they were starved for music, so it's opened up a bit now. It's a fascinating place to play, I mean you get to see Russia and look around at all its cultural history and stuff is brilliant. But as for staying there for any longer than a week or so, it can tend to bring you down quite a lot you know, because there's not an awful lot going on really. And this was even before there was a McDonald's there, and you had caviar for breakfast, for lunch and if you didn't like caviar, you fucking starved, you know!!

FT: You went through the thing with the BBC last year that was highly publicized here. A lot of older bands put out albums, and they go pretty much go unnoticed by radio, except for the kind of hard-core underground fans and classic rock magazines that pick up on that stuff. So do you get a lot of throughout other parts of the world where the radio stations play nothing, apart from your main hit?

RP: We've lost one station in the world and that's how we're looking at it now.The BBC suddenly changed their tune, and changed the charter of the company, whereby the BBC is a Top 40 radio station, and basis itself on the fact that it is a Top 40 station. Our last nine singles went straight into the Top 40, and they refused to play them! So, on the ninth one, and not for any reason on the ninth one, we were just sick of it!! And we were thinking 'why?', because we had done the BBC a lot of favors! We played charities shows for them, because they'd asked us to do them.We'd done various functions for them, and all of a sudden they turned around and said, 'look we ain't playing you no more!' And it's not just us, it's all the establishment acts our age, like Rod Stewart, Deep Purple, and alike.We just found it all too much to take, and so we took the bull by the horns and we tried to sue them, but it didn't work. But at least we exercised it out of ourselves; we had to do something, and somebody had to make a stand, so we did. and it's all done and finished with now.They just don't play anybody like us anymore, which isn't really fair, is it? But that's their way, and they've gotten away with it, because they're the BBC and you can't argue with God!

FT: We get a lot of that here though. I mean the new Deep Purple album came out and got barely any airplay. (MP:) It barely got released! It's sort of an expensive quasi-import now.

RP: I don't understand it.Like 'why'? I mean, surely these people at the top, THESE fucking wankers at the top, surely they must know that Deep Purple are a loved band throughout the world, and to a certain extent so are Quo. So for a new album to come out, and not to get played... I don't know?! I don't understand it!

FT: Well even when the band were here they interviewed them on the radio stations, and all they played was the old stuff. And that album got a lot of good reviews.

RP: I mean, I can't answer the question, I just don't know why!

FT: Is there any sort of re-visitation to sort of the craft of the guitar playing? I know Francis talked about his son kicking his butt around the room on guitar. Are you more into that, or are you more into songwriting these days?

RP: Well, I'm into all of it really. I don't play as much as I should. But, I've found my style of playing, and all I can do is develop the Rick Parfitt-type rhythm, I suppose. I play differently to anybody else, and it's something that's sort of special to me in that I don't need to practice. If I leave the guitar for a couple of weeks then I feel that my hands are slow, so in that respect it's good to keep playing. If I'm given a challenge, you know if someone gives me a piece of music to play, I find if I put my mind to it I can do it. I find, where I'm concerned, practice doesn't always make perfect in my estimation.

FT: Are you pretty sure you want to roughen up the sound soon, get the heavier sound back?

RP: Sure! I have one big worry at the moment and that is when some of our early albums were transferred onto CD, and of course with the Beatles too, I noticed that the heart and the soul had gone out of it and it's the same with our stuff. When I listened to our stuff and I thought, 'something sounds sterile about it', in the fact that it had been changed because I think Quo needs an element of a rough edge to it. It can't be produced like ABBA or Celine Dion; it can't have that kind of smooth production. It must come out a little bit rough, almost like a really good hard-hitting demo. If it's over-produced Quo starts to sound a little bit dry-fisted in a velvet glove, if you know what I mean?! We have to be a little bit careful about the quality of the CD. It doesn't apply so much on the 'Don't Stop' album, because that's meant to be an anniversary type of thing and a lot of our favorite tracks, and they're not really hard-hitting tracks. They're not really true Quo! But with the new album, which will hopefully be new material from us, which we're writing at the moment. I believe I know what Quo should be sounding like, and I'm just worried that it will be a little bit too nice on CD. I wonder where the rough edges are going to come from.

FT: Where did the idea for doing all the covers come from?

RP: They're our manager's idea! Over the years, at sound-checks we'd be messing about and stuff like that, and at rehearsals. We've got into some old Everly Brothers tracks or Beatles tracks or whatever. And Francis and I have often sort of said to one another, it would be good, one day, to record that!' So our manager said, 'well it's your 30^th anniversary, why don't you do exactly that? And we thought, 'not a bad idea', so everybody went scarfing off and came back with armfuls of vinyl. saying 'let's do this ... let's do that'. After all the arguments Were sorted out, we found what worked, and some of the obvious ones that we thought would work didn't! It was kind of weird really, we just hope we'd chosen the right 15 songs, because we had literally hundreds of songs to choose from!

FT: What would be your favorite Quo album from the'70s?

RP: Well, I really liked 'Whatever You Want'; I really liked that album. I thought it was full of color and flair. I loved 'Hello' too, it's always remained a personal favorite of mine. I loved that stuff because it was kind of care-free, it was loose, and you could sense the atmosphere coming off the record.

FT: What's in the band's future plans?

RP: There's nothing sort of 'out of the ordinary' planned at the moment. We're just looking forward now, like last year we did a few European festivals, and I think this year there's a much bigger schedule for the festivals. So, all this coming summer we will be doing festivals throughout Europe, and then we go off to Australia again, in September. Then we do a British tour that leads us up to Christmas, and then we start again next year! Hopefully we'll have a new album. I don't know when we'll be able to get in to do the album, that's the problem at the moment, because the touring schedule is such that I don't know when we're gonna get in. We're looking at coming out here again early next year.

FT: Can you give us some details about the other 3 guys in the band?

RP: Well, in 1984 or '85 I did a solo album which was never released, so we won't talk any more about that! And I met John and Jeff, respectively, the bass player and the drummer, and I did my album with them. I found them as extremely nice guys, because the band was flat - the bass player had gone, the drummer had gone; it was just Fran and me left. So, I said to Francis 'look, we've got a new album to do, so do you want to try these guys? they're really nice guys, they're good players', and he said 'OK', and the rest is history. That was 11 years ago, and we got on great! We drifted back into some of the old stuff and decided to go into the Middle East, and they're not too demanding of an audience, so played out there, and it felt good again, and away we went! Andy Bown, who was formerly with The Herd in the'60s and early '70s (I think) he's been with us for 21 years now. We constantly say, 'all the new boys in the band', but it's been 11 years now, it's unbelievable how time flies! I must say that with this line-up I think we've been incredibly blessed to have found a chemistry whereby, that not only the band is kicking good, but is far better than the original line-up, and also to find 5 guys that get along! On tour we generally do, we have a lot of laughs, we're very fortunate.

FT: Have you heard the Ozzy Osbourne rendition of 'Pictures Of Matchstick Men'?

RP: I only heard it today. I thought it was pretty average really! I thought the chorus was OK, but I wasn't that impressed with it.

Don't Stop!

Given their upcoming tour of Australia, Japan, and yes, the United States, I finally got back in touch with Status Quo's whereabouts in this interview with Rick Parfitt. I'd like to thank the members of the Status Quo mailing list for supplying me with some of the questions.

What does it feel like being in Quo, writing and recording music, and being on the road for the last 30 years?

It's a marvelous thing, really. I consider myself extremely lucky to be doing what I'm doing. When I was a kid I wasn't very good academically. I received my first guitar when I was 10 and I immediately wanted to go into show business and form a successful group. All my dreams have come true. Life with Quo has been fantastic. The music has opened my life. I've seen the world and had a fantastic time. I can only imagine my life one way---like it has been. People often ask me about things I would change if I had to do it all over again, but I wouldn't change a thing.

I hear you plan to release a new album early next year. Can you provide some details about it?

We're currently writing for it. Most of our spare time is spent getting together doing that. We don't want to do any more covers. We've done enough and it's always fun to do new songs. It will be a complete album of new songs written by us. We plan to divert slightly and come up to date with regards to the music. I've gotten quite interest in dance-type rhythms like what U2 does. I'm not sure we'd go to the extreme they do, but we'll try to incorporate some of the rock-dance feel.

I understand current fans are not happy with the polished production on your recent albums...

Nor am I...

What is your view on this, and what are your views with regard to production of the upcoming album?

The current album is too smooth and too nice. There has been complaining within the band to get it harder and rougher, back to what it was. I think the current lineup is a much better band than the original lineup, even though the original lineup was special. We want to introduce the rough edges to this lineup. We really want the next album to be back to basics---it'll be a hard kickin' sound with melody. You know, live up to the Quo image: if the party's flagging put on some Quo.

Will it be produced by the band?

We don't think it should be produced by the band. We've tried it before but it hasn't worked since we disagree too much. Bearing in mind we're off to the States we plan to talk to people there. We have a couple of people lined up here as well. It will be a completely new producer.

I was just listening to Don't Stop which I think has a great selection of tunes which fits your style perfectly. How did you come up with the idea for it?

The idea came from our management, commemorating 30 years in the business. We used to fool around during sound checks and rehearsals covering what we liked. And so our management asked us `why don't you get together and release it as an album?' And so we went scampering off and came back with a handful of records and started to sift through 300-400 songs that we wanted to cover. We whittled it down to 12-15 tracks. I think we've got quite a nice selection of songs. It is most enjoyable to record covers of songs you like. It's a pleasure to sit and play them. But I think it's time to move on. I'm not saying we'd never cover another song, but I think the fans expect more original stuff from us.

Is your solo project, Recorded Delivery, ever going to be released?

I really don't think so. At the time I did it back in '85 or so, I was pleased with it. It kind of freaked me out to do it. It gave me a sense and feel for what I was capable of. But now it's been gathering dust and most of the tracks have come out on B-sides, which is a bit unfortunate I suppose. I would have liked them to have come to light in a much better way.

Are any more songs from it going to turn up as B-sides?

I don't think so. The pot's fairly empty. Most of them, if not all, have been released as B-sides. However, there is one song I wrote which I love, Halloween. I might have another shot at it some time in the future.

I understand you'll be touring the U.S., Japan, and Australia this year. What prompted this?

Neil Warnock, our agent, David Walker, our manager, and Simon Porter our publicist finally got together with the Americans and the Japanese and arranged this tour. We're looking forward to getting back into America. It's never too late and it's about time they got some of us. It's a good challenge for us and I'm very interested in seeing the reaction. This trip is about changing our presence in America, to put us back on the map.

Why isn't the North American portion of the tour more extended?

All we're concerned with right now is testing the waters. We just plan on doing the gigs, giving a really good hard performance, and seeing what comes of it. We plan to do a couple of shows in LA and New York City. We have a gig in Toronto---just to give the fans a taster. It's good that we're doing 2-3 gigs now, since hopefully a little bit of news will go around. Later on this year or early next year, we'll try to get there again, though the schedule for Europe is heavy and we have to find time to record the new album.

Is the set going to be the same as in the European shows?

We've changed the set from the European shows. We'll put in some more traditional type stuff in there, particularly for Australia. We'll play Japan by ear. We feel in America a good traditional Quo set will work best. It'll consist mostly of Quo classics; punchy hard-hitting stuff.

So why the extended hiatus from these countries?

Lots of things went very wrong. It's a classic example of what happens to so many bands. We were ripped off by our last management. One needs a great deal of talent and tact to negotiate with American promoters. Our former management was good enough in Europe and in places where we're guaranteed names, but they couldn't work anything in America. We went out there, I believe it was just when Rockin' All Over the World was recorded, on a shoestring budget. The shows went down extremely well, but we weren't able to negotiate far enough and couldn't get enough airplay. I put that down to bad management because I know the record and the band were good enough. Fortunately we've resolved that now. We have fantastic management and fantastic people behind us. It's now up to the band---we can't make any more excuses.

Given the popularity of Quo in Australia during most of the 70s, why did you stop releasing and promoting material there after your last tour in 1978?

It's a question I'd really like to be able to answer but can't. Something just went wrong down there and the record company dropped us. Everything went cold and the doors slammed shut. To be perfectly honest with you, I've never really understood it. Maybe by going back down there we can find out what happened. It was so great down there. We had a storming audience, and then, all of a sudden nobody was wanted us.

Is the upcoming tour of both Australia and the US part of a conscious effort to establish Quo, in the case of Australia, re-establish Quo in these regions?

Definitely, and we have no inhibitions about doing that.

Is it reasonable to expect to hear more from Quo in these countries in the future or is this tour a "one off" to repay the loyalty of the fans you know are still there?

Quo is a working band and always has been. Our fans won't have to wait four years before they can see us again. We'd like to treat it as we do in Europe and tour the world every year. It would be nice to expand to the touring circle, and I would prefer to write around the world rather than only in Europe.

How exactly do you go about writing songs for the band?

I usually am just casually playing a guitar or just messing about, and I come across a riff or chord pattern that strikes me. Then I invariably phone someone, like Francis or Andrew, and ask whether we could get together to finish it. Then we get together and try to work on it. That's when we know whether it'll work for the band or not. Some of the songs come in an hour and others take many days. We do whatever it takes---it's worth it to have the best songs. We all agree regarding the next album that it is has got to be one of the most memorable Quo albums. I think it has to be the best album yet. I think we owe that to the fans.

What're your musical influences and what music do you current listen to?

My influences were the Everly Brothers, Cliff Richards, ... yes, listening to Cliff with the old tennis racket was a definite part of my growing up. I love listening to Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Nat King Cole. Rhino [John "Rhino" Edwards] is the guy who comes up with the weird stuff. He's a a big Zappa fan. I like anything that rocks, anything that has a great feel about it and a lot of energy.

Do you prefer heavier or lighter Quo songs?

Live, I like it heavy. The faster numbers are definitely where my preference is. It's good to put some of the slow things in, since you need a break sometimes as the heavy stuff takes up a lot of energy, but I generally prefer Quo when it's rocking.

If you could play one old song again which he hasn't play in years, what would it be?

Big Fat Mama. We used to play it a lot, but we dropped it as time went on. It's great old rocker with no frills.

Going on to more technical questions, why do you use your Telecaster more than your Gibson SG?

I use the Telecaster because I found in the early days when Quo started to get heavier that the Gibson couldn't handle it anymore. The Telecaster with the heavier strings can take the pressure. I am not a lead guitarist---I'm a rhythm guitarist and I hit the guitar hard, which is my role in Quo. The Telecaster is the only guitar that can take the punishment on a good night when I really dish it out. I adore the sound of the Gibson and I love to record with it. But on stage you have treat it with kid gloves. If I had to do Caroline or another song like that, I don't think it could take the pressure. That guitar isn't as tough as the Telecaster. I've had the Telecaster altered as well, so it is rock solid. You can't do that with a Gibson. I've taken out the bridge and the fine turning knobs. The strings go straight over the body. When people play the guitar, they can't believe the tension. I enjoy that however, and I hit it with gusto and it doesn't go out.

What guitar do you use for playing 4500 Times on stage, and how do you tune it?

I use a custom-built Gibson for that and it's a B tuning. I discovered it once when I had too many glasses of wine. I screwed the tuning pegs into weird positions and I found this tuning where I use a base G for the bottom E. It's very limited---I can only play seven or eight chords, but it has a great effect. You have to have control of the guitar, but when it works and when you get the right sound, it is fabulous.

Why did you lower the amp stacks on recent tour and replace them with a small stage?

We had horrendous problems with the stage volume when we used the large stacks. Everyone wanted to get a kick from their stacks. Marshall built me an amp that went to 11, sounding very like Spinal Tap, and it got so horrendously loud that the sound man couldn't mic the cabinets properly. We felt the audience was suffering as we were too loud on stage.

We changed to in-ear monitoring. This increased the sightlines and you can turn the volume down on stage. Since you have your own mix you can have it set to whatever you want, and hopefully the sound for the audience is more clear and more colourful. Consequently, when we started to use this system we didn't need to lug around the high stacks, which require an extra trailer. The mic lines have always been the same, about 4-5 feet from the stage. I think we have improved the sound quality for both ourselves and the audience.

To wrap this up, could you tell me what your future plans are, and where do you see Quo in the year 2000?

The immediate plans are to get packed and go to Japan, Australia, and America. Then come back, go into rehearsals, and do the European Festival tour. Come back again and do the British tour. That should take us around to Christmas. In between we will hopefully go back to America and record an album. I'd really like to record the album this year.

In the year 2000, we will still be doing what we do best: playing out on the road, touring. Hopefully we will be doing what we're doing now but on a much broader circuit.

Is there anything else you wish to add?

I'd like wish everyone a good year. I appreciate the ongoing support and I urge the fans to come along to the live shows when they can.

February 20, 1997

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