‘60s British legends the Pretty Things are rock royalty. And they’re waving goodbye; right now they’re in the midst of the Australian leg of their farewell tour. Formed in 1963, their lead guitarist Dick Taylor had been a founding member of the Rolling Stones – playing bass before Bill Wyman – and before that a member of Little Boy Blue & The Blues Boys with Mick Jagger & Dick Taylor. They were contemporaries and friends of the likes of the Pink Floyd and Van Morrison (Floyd’s David Gilmour and Van are playing with joining the Pretties on stage for their final ever show in London in December), signed by Led Zeppelin to their Swan Song label in the ‘70s, and a huge influence of every psychedelic and garage rock band ever since.
Following their wild Sydney show with the Pretty Things last week, Steve & Ritchie of Tumbleweed caught up with Dick Taylor & the Pretties iconic frontman Phil May – the man who had the longest hair in London in the ‘60s – and threw them a few questions.
Greetings Phil & Dick and welcome back to Australia!
Any memories of your infamous 1965 NZ tour you care to further enlighten us with? How come you never made it to Australia at the time? Had you intended to?
Dick – I think the pre-publicity for the tour set us up to be seen as misbehaving and outrageous, certainly Viv managed to more than live up to everything that was expected of him, the rest of us didn’t do much to counter the impression. Phil was very wild on stage and we were pretty loud and raw. In those days you could only use locally made amps in NZ and I kept blowing the speakers. As for going to Australia, I don’t think it was scheduled, but maybe talked about, but after the shenanigans in New Zealand it got taken off the table.
Were you aware of your influence on Australian / NZ r’n’b garage bands like the Wild Colonials (who covered Get the Picture) to acts like the Missing Links or the Creatures or Running Jumping Standing Still or Chants R’N’B or the Pleazers etc?
Phil – I guess not at the time. It was the same in the USA and most of Europe. Of course years later we found out and were surprised and flattered. Steve Tyler of Aerosmith told me when he heard our version of “Road Runner” he knew he wanted to be a singer.
Were you aware that you were having a local and international influence at the time? Any covers you did like?
Dick – We were pretty much blissfully unaware of our influence on the garage scene, although we did find out about the H.M. Subjects’ cover of “Don’t Bring Me Down” (legendary 1965 Florida garage rock). Later on the covers came thick and fast, all very complimentary.
Did you ever meet up with the Easybeats? Did you guys ever hang out with other like-minded dirty r’n’b bands such as the Downliner Sect from the UK or Q65 or t Outsiders from Holland and if so, where there any shows ever performed together? Who were you favourite bands to play this during the early days?
Phil – I’m pretty sure we did TV shows with The Easybeats. There was a kind of brotherhood between the emerging R’n’B bands. Them, The Animals, The Yardbirds, Downliners Sect. We were outside the music mainstream until we started to break into the charts. We did shows in Holland with Q65, Golden Earring and possibly the Outsiders.
You were genuine pioneers with the psychedelic stuff – what were your musical influences at the time?
If Phil had answered this one he would have said acid probably, but we were shoveling up influences from everywhere, from the incredible String Band to Coltrane via the Doors, Airplane, Sun Ra, Beefheart, the list would be a long one, I remember being in a tiny club in London watching the Byrds and again in Paris seeing Roland Kirk, great music was everywhere.
What did you think of your old mates the Stones’ psych forays (“Satanic Majesty’s…” etc), and what do think in hindsight is the best music from the era? Any bands that you could recommend that you think our readers mightn’t have heard?
Dick – I actually really liked “Satanic Majesty’s”, even the cover, as for little known bands High Tide were pretty amazing, although a little later.
What do you think of the turns for the heavier that the likes of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath took at the end of the ‘60s? Deep Purple? You guys were mates with Jimmy Page obviously… What about Cream?
Phil – I loved Zeppelin and some Black Sabbath and Purple. As for Cream: a supreme jamming machine and the underlying personality problems added to their edge.
The Pretty Things guys seemed to be more aligned with the Underground by the beginning of the ‘70s – Mick Farren, Pink Fairies etc. … any memories of those times and those people?
Dick – I had a great time with Hawkwind, I even played guitar with them for a while, live gigs were mayhem, and every member hugely characterful, no wonder they turn up in Michael Moorcock’s books. They actually reminded me of the early days of the Pretties.
Parachute was one of your most acclaimed albums – what inspired that?
Phil – “Parachute” was a real although doomed work of love.
In ’73, David Bowie covered “Rosalyn” and “Don’t Bring Me Down”. Do you like Bowie’s covers and did you remember him from the ‘60s? Do you think you influenced other artists of that era?
Dick – When I first heard “Rosalyn” on “Pinups” I did a real double take, both the covers were so faithful to the originals, a huge compliment that there were two of our songs on there. David was quite a fan of ours in the very early days of the Pretties we knew him from a neighbouring art school and he came to many of our gigs.
Phil – Bowie had been a fan since Art school so maybe his tribute covers shouldn’t have been a surprise, though they were and I liked them. As I said before there have been a lot of name checks to the Pretties over the years and yes it’s flattering.
What did the Pretty Things think of the mid-‘70s pub rock movement and later punk movement? Did it remind you of your younger selves?
Phil – When punk came along, a much overdue breath of fresh air.
Dick – One of the reasons I started playing again was the whole new wave/punk thing I saw the Clash at one of their London gigs and through a journalist was asked if I would play with the Mekons meanwhile also playing with a band called Auntie and the Men from Uncle, which sometimes had Rat Scabies drumming, or Segs and Dave Ruffey from the Ruts as the rhythm section. The whole movement was a very broad church and I think much closer to the early Pretties than the world of what had become the establishment of rock music, and I did get to hear that we were an influence…
Why and when did you rejoin the band Dick?
Dick – I had got back into playing in the latter part of the seventies, the Pretties had actually broken up, but I was asked if I would be interested in doing a gig in Holland for a kind of revival gig. I got in touch with Phil and have done every gig since.
Were you aware of your influence on wider scene of ‘garage rock’ and psychedelic bands from the ‘80s through to more recent times – everyone from Lyres to Mike Stax and his mates the Crawdaddys and the Tell Tale Heats to the Bevis Frond through to the White Stripes? And when did you become aware that your music was finding new generations of fans?
Phil – I really like the title GODFATHERS OF GARAGE and I guess “SF Sorrow” was our badge of honour in psychedelic circles. The White Stripes opened for us in Boston as Jack told me when we later met. The new generation of fans happened over the last 15-20 years. And as long as they find us I’m happy.
Moving to more recent times, your great most recent album “The Sweet Pretty Things (Are in Bed Now, of Course)” has covers of The Seeds ‘Took Me By Surprise’ and the Byrds’ ‘Renaissance Fair’? Why did you pick those? Were you a Byrds fan in particular?
Phil: We were asked to do a couple of Seeds tracks for a Sky Saxon tribute album, we thought “Took Me by Surprise” kind of fitted with the rest of the material, as for “Renaissance Fair”, we used to play it and “Why” at nearly every gig in the latter sixties, so I guess you have got your answer.
That latest album has a great contemporary but late-‘60s influenced hard rock feel to it. Are you aware of a new generation of heavy psychedelic band – so called ‘stoner rock’ bands, like Earthless and Electric Wizard – many of whom no doubt love the Pretty Things late ‘60s stuff?
Phil – Most of the reviews of the album brought up that very point . Obviously for us that was important. We hadn’t gone in the studio to rehash our old pages. I wasn’t that aware of the movement or the bands you mentioned, though I am now.
Is John Stax, the original bass player likely to join you on stage for any shows in Melbourne on this tour? Do you still keep in contact with him much these days? Likewise Viv Prince? Will he be making an “appearance” at your final London show? [laughs]
Dick – It will be great to meet up with John, we will no doubt talk to him about sliding on to the stage at some point. As for Viv, I think he is happy in his Portuguese lair.
The farewell gig in December in London features David Gilmour, Van Morrison and Bill Nighy. What’s your relationship with each of those guys? What will they be doing on stage with you?
Dick – Basically they are all good friends of Phil, we have known both David and Van for a very long time, we of course had David as a guest when we have done SF Sorrow shows a couple of times, so that’s where he will come in, and Van wants to do some R& B numbers, Bill will hopefully compere.
THE PRETTY THINGS FAREWELL TOUR – REMAINING SHOWS
Wed 10 October – Barwon Club, Geelong, with The Living Eyes – Tickets
Friday 12 October – The Tote, Melbourne, with The Living Eyes & Bananagun – Tickets
Saturday 13 October – Fowlers Live, Adelaide , with Vic Conrad & The 1st 3rd – Tickets
Sunday 14 October – The Charles Hotel, Perth, with Datura4 (feat. Dom Mariani), Rockin’ Hendy (feat. James Baker) – Tickets
More info & tickets – Tickets through DRW Entertainment
