Manfred's Mannerism's
The newly nicknamed Legend views rock, the Earthband and the new album (Watch interview from 1978) By Chris Simmonds 'Beat' Magazine March 1978 (Thanks to Geoff Baker for sending in this article)
Interviews with Manfred Mann usually start the same way don't they? Not an easy man to talk to, a bit on the brusque side etc. etc. This one won't promise.
Manfred's OK so long as you can stick to music. On the other hand, this is where the ogre fable originates, slip in something irrelevant and/ or ignorant and he eats
you up for breakfast. So we stuck to music. The first arrival was Chris Thompson, lead singer/ guitarist with the Earthband and a few minutes later the Mann
himself strolled into the interrogation chamber, not absolutely raring to go but ready to do his bit so long as liberties were not taken.
|
The new album, Watch, seemed the obvious place to start eight months in the making, one studio side, one live side (including Mighty Quinn) and some good meaty tracks therein. What took so long, though?
Exciting
"There were two reasons, really," Manfred began. "One, we took a holiday in the middle and two, we did extra tracks which we didn't use in the end. I don't think it took much longer than the previous album in hours. I prefer the studio side; it's gentler, with a nice flowing vibe about it. The other side is more exciting and up front."
The Legend paused for a bite of cheese and Chris took his opening from the other side of the tape recorder. "The live side is representative of the band for a change. The other albums are all much gentler than the band really is. The band is a loud, energetic outfit you don't get this from the records." In that case was the live side included on purpose to give a more accurate impression of the band? "Not Really", Manfred replied. There was aa little silence as he considered whether to elaborate or not. "Everyone kept saying 'put some live stuff on it' ", he continued, having decided to go along with the question, "but I resisted it for years on the basis that the live tapes sounded pretty crappy."
"The actual reason, if you think back, was to cut down on the time the album was taking", interjected Chris, quite unconcerned about revealing a less artistic motive. "But it took just as long anyway." I must confess I was rather taken with their inclination to call a spade a spade.
Democratic
Manfred, quite unlike most stars with a new album out, was as prepared to concede that a couple of the tracks might be duffers as he was to admit that he thought others were fine. Another of his tactics was to throw a debatable point across to Chris or anyone else in the room to get different opinions, and by this method I discovered that Chris, quite unlike Manfred, preferred the live side. The Legend is a democratic man, after all.
I thought I'd slip in one last tiny question about the album as my luck seemed to be holding. There's hardly any Earthband penned material there I ventured, mentally preparing myself to abandon ship if it went down with all hands on deck. Manfred confirmed, "That's correct." Does this worry you then? (The 'then' was to keep the question sounding innocent, neither here nor there, but I knew The Legend could provide a slightly less cryptic analysis of the matter.)
"No, I'm extremely proud of the fact. If you can write great songs, put them on the album. Too many people write bad songs, or one or two god ones and the rest pretty dire. We pride ourselves on being flexible, on being able to take the best material at our disposal without worrying who wrote it. In a nutshell, we don't think we write good enough songs." There they go again you can't knock a man for being tough to others when he is equally frank, nay brutal, towards himself.
Right then how democratic was The Legend's democracy? To what extent was the law laid down by the said Mann? What, come to that, influenced his and the band's policy decisions? Away he went: "I'm influenced by everything I hear I think everybody is. I'm very much a chameleon. I take on the character of the band of the guys I work with so that the character of the band is the character of all the people in it. In many cases I might appear to be doing all the stage arrangements, running the rehearsals and generally being the guy that gets it all together, but that's only because someone has to say 'right, let's try that, one two three
"My musical outlook has changed depending on who's in the band. I don't work from any clear, defined idea of what I want to do. Of course I am influenced by music I hear on the radio, by the general climate. The only difference between now and the sixties was the cold blooded attempt at continually making hit singles, but to my mind there aren't any compromises going on now. I've become a rock musician, rather than a jazz or pop musician as I was in the sixties." (Cheers and whistles from Chris, he loves it when Manfred starts getting pseudo-serious.) "I exist naturally in the world I inhabit", he continued, undeterred by the barracking. "In the sixties, some of us in the band were clear anomalies."
Changing
|
The sixties were all about gaining experience to travel onwards into the seventies as much as anything else. Anyone who was to survive in a completely changing climate as Manfred has done had to store the lessons learned and draw on them when necessary. One effect of his glorious past has been to give him a very definite idea of the values of the various aspects of the business. "I tend to feel that recording is the most important thing," he volunteered, "far, far outweighing the benefits from any other factor involved in making it. Unless you're like Kiss, doing the kind of show that makes incredibly dramatic impact.
"You see, the great danger in the music business is knowledge. It is possible to build up a following through touring, but I'm not sure it's possible to build up a following by doing one tour per year in a territory which is the area we're in. The question opf the benefits of touring must be regarded as a statistical one. If a tour boosts record sales by one per cent, it's not worth going on tour."
"Look at Boston," offered Chris, "the reason they're doing so well on the raod is because their record sold so well." The Legend took over: "It all boils down to a record on one side and the public on the other. You mustn't get sidetracked by talk of promotion, hype, pres, the concerts; they might all be slight influences but someone will only buy the record if he likes it. So how do you find out? You hear it on the radio, most important, or round at a friend's house. For those band's that don't have access to radio and so on the other things assume more importance.
"Look at the facts in our case. In America Roaring Silence got to 117 and was on the way down before Blinded By The Light hit and took it up to number 10. That gives an accurate picture, you see, and that's why we don't have any illusions. We know where we have a following and where we don't. I'm extremely reluctant to tour this country on halls that hold 2,000, because I'm not sure that in places like Bradford 2,000 people would want to come and see us."
It's just as well that Manfred doesn't rate The Tour too highly. Touring is not his favourite pastime, "not because I don't like playing, but because I hate the physical aspects. I've had some incredibly good times because there's always a lack of responsibility when you're touring, you can become a temporary teenager, but after a week it gets desperate."
The Legend blew a puff of cigar smoke into the air, and delivered one final instruction. "You must leave out the jokes, because they don't come out very well in print. It's all in the delivery." Then, just to make sure: "That's another joke."
[Top]
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
