We sat down with Heavy Pettin’ founder member and guitarist Gordon Bonnar to talk all about the new lease of life the band has had since getting back together in 2017 for the Winterstorm Festival. We chat about the highs and lows of a career that should have seen them on top of the world – from the Reading Festival 1983 to Eurovison! Then we get right up to date with the new music they planned for 2020. Do you remember Heavy Pettin’? We do and they sound like they’re ready for business again!
Mark: Hi Gordon thank you so much for taking the time today
Gordon: No problem.
Mark: Crazy times we’re having at the moment, it seems wherever you are on the planet things seem to be at varying degrees of awfulness and change by the day in some cases.
Gordon: I think we’re all starting to realise we’re in for the long haul with this now. Over here in Europe we’re having all these reintroductions of quarantines and lock downs in certain cities as they open things up and then have to lock them back down again. There’s no end to it at the moment.
Mark: And I guess your plans were scuppered pretty quickly – the EP came out on valentine’s day and less than a month after we were all pretty much closed for business in the music world?
Gordon: That’s right – we were on the Monster of Rock Cruise back in February in the Caribbean and kind of launched our EP there and by March we were in lock-down, but the same as everyone else we had plans. The music entertainment business relies on getting you out there in front of people, playing, so it’s been tough but it’s the same for everyone.
Mark: How did you find the Cruise? I went over in 2015 and loved it!
Gordon: (laughs) I’m always a bit underwhelmed by boats, shall we say, I could be on one for five minutes and be wondering “What else does it do?” But that was quite different. We flew into Miami to meet up and get on the boat there, then we sailed off to Mexico and so the setting and everything was great. But at the end of the day you’re on a boat with 4500 rock fans and there are all these great bands just milling around, two or three bands playing at the same time in all these different places. Everyone is enjoying themselves, the sun is out – it was something else! In the past we’ve spent some time in the US so we have good support there and this was our first chance since we’ve got back together to do this to actually play for our American fans. It was fantastic. We did two shows – in the medium venue to 2500 people and the rest was just fun, having a drink, hanging out, and people were buying t-shirts and getting signatures as you walked around. Such a great environment if you love that kind of thing. We were there for five days – it was fantastic.
Mark: Did you get to catch any of the other acts?
Gordon: Yeah sure Extreme, Autograph, Thunder were all there! We saw H.E.A.T. – they were great and Steve (Harris) was there with British Lion! But they were all great, there’s no fillers at all when they book these things and as every band plays at least twice you can catch them all if you want to do it.
Mark: You’re making me want to go back now!
Gordon: (laughs)
Mark: Heavy Pettin’ for me were one of the first Rock bands I discovered for myself as a kid and purely because I saw you opening up a rather big show at Stafford Bingley Hall.
Gordon: That would have been with Kiss!
Mark: Yes and the day after I went out immediately went out and bought the album. I was convinced you’d be as big as Kiss the next year.
Gordon: That would have been nice!
Mark: So let’s talk about the new EP ‘4Play’ and the line-up. Who from the original line-up is on the EP?
Gordon: Well we got back together a few years ago with just one thing in mind – playing one date – closing the Friday night at the Winterstorm Festival in 2017. That night there were the original members Hamie and Punky and I and the rhythm section Mick (Ivory) and Jez (Parry) are musicians who I’ve been playing with in the UK for many years. All of the original members were invited to get back together at the time but Gary declined and so did Brian our Bass player. So we kicked it all off with the three original members and the new rhythm section. Then shorty after that Punky had to sadly bow out because of health issues. But that original gig was all that we set out to do, it had been pretty difficult to get together to do anything over the years. Our singer Hamie lives in the US so that’s an added restriction, but as I said it was just see if we could do that one show, then see how we felt after and gauge the reaction. So we never really planned anything after that. But it went really well and we all felt good and it was so good to be back together doing that kind of thing and the fans were great. Everyone was just bewildered why we hadn’t done it before. We know there has been a lot of support for us over the years but you never really know until you try and get people to turn up to see you! (laughs) So after that we decided to do a few other things, but as I said Punky’s health wasn’t that great so he couldn’t see himself committing to the things we were planning. So then we brought in an old friend of the band – Dave Aitken who was around in the same era as us up in Glasgow. We’ve always kept in touch and he was also one of the original members of Gun as well. Dave got in touch immediately when he knew we were looking and we immediately said yes. It was perfect – and what a line-up that’s made us. We’re really happy where we are at the moment with the band. We’re feeling good.
Mark: Just in response to that comment you made before about not being quite sure what was going to happen when you come back. I’d just like to say that I think that lovers of our kind of music have some very good and very long memories. I must admit about a dozen years ago when ‘Pettology’ and ‘Prodigal Songs’ came out I was getting ready to see you out again! (laughs) Well it’s been a bit longer than that but judging by the EP we’re getting serious – are there plans for a full-length release?
Gordon: Yes, I guess the important thing is that we want to always write great songs and do great things. I think we did have very high standards back in the day and I think that was actually one of the things that stopped us reforming over the years because we’re always thinking we should do that first – write some new tunes. But that’s always a little bit difficult especially when you don’t really have the band together – we’re all in different cities or even countries and that’s always one of the things that held us back to be honest. So that’s why when we got back together in 2017, the enabler for that was to just go out and do a live show. One show that was it. No new material, nothing. Then after that we did some live shows in 2018, we did a tour and that really cemented the band again as a live act – getting back to playing and ‘routining’ and getting Hamie over two or three times a year. And all that really started the momentum again, brought the band that we had now into life. And that kind of led to the releasing of the new songs on the EP. We just wanted to concentrate on the four best songs we had at the time, so we pulled those four out and we think it’s really representative of where we are now. And when the EP came out it went down great even though we haven’t really been able to promote it properly so far this year. So to get to your question, and sorry it’s been a long preamble “Yes” we are planning to release an album. It was originally planned for this year but it’s been pushed into next year now. We have all the songs written, I would say they’re probably about 60% recorded so we’re just working away refining that, but there’s still new songs coming through into the pool and we plan to release it next year.
Mark: You’re right when you talk about quality control. Those four tracks are gold. Normally it’s a couple of great tracks, a couple of fillers and you walk away happy but there’s no dip in quality there.
Gordon: I guess the four songs are there for a reason really ‘Back to You’ is I guess going back to our roots and saying to the fans “We’re back”; I think it’s the prefect opener. ’Tell Me Why’ is the sort of catchy commercial song that we’ve always tried to write; and then we’ve got the rocker ‘Who We Are’ and a ballad at the end, which I guess we were always known for pulling a decent ballad out of the hat. We’re all really proud of the EP and it does represent where we are musically at the moment and there will be much more to follow on the new record.
Mark: I have to say this Gordon and wonder what your take is on it. But I look at a lot of bands and tend to think “maybe if they were just around a few years earlier they might have made it”, but with Heavy Pettin’ I always thought the opposite – in many ways you were ahead of the curve and the 80’s mainstream rock revolution that was to come – that first album out before Bon Jovi’s first and the all of a sudden that type of hard rock was king.
Gordon: I think that’s one of the things for me over the years that I take from everybody’s comments about the band. By far the most common comment is that we should have reached much higher heights than we did but having said that we were 6 and half, seven years at the sharp end of the music business doing reasonable business. Looking back I don’t really think we can blame anything for that. We had some opportunities we didn’t get and that was probably because of the label we were on, because our contemporaries seemed to get the breaks that we didn’t. Whether it was a producer or something else, it (the opportunity) always seemed to go to somebody else, never to us. I think we probably did suffer from things that like that maybe stopped us having that breakthrough moment. Because back in those days you really needed those things. The only way to reach people then was to get that door opened for you. But having said that we had the best time back in the day, playing to all those people around the world, meeting all the people we did. For a bunch of 20 year old Glasgow guys we didn’t do too badly (laughs).
Mark: Tell us about a few of those moments then Gordon, I’ve just picked a few moments at random that as a kid I saw as pivotal. If you have a particular memory of them let us know? Let’s start with a huge one – the Reading Festival 1983 – what did that mean to you? A huge moment surely even before you had a record out?
Gordon: Well that was a moment! I think our single had just come out that week? The album definitely wasn’t out, and the night before we’d played in Southampton with Whitesnake as a warm-up! And that warm-up was our first gig after playing at a bar in Glasgow!
Mark: (laughs)
Gordon: So suddenly were in this 2000-seater theatre in Southampton opening up for Whitesnake! David Coverdale and Cozy Powell came in the dressing room making sure we were alright and stuff as we sat there like rabbits in the headlights! Then we went out there and did the show and it was fantastic! It just went in a blur and before we knew it, it was over! And then the next day we played Reading! I can remember it was a beautiful afternoon, the weather was brilliant and I remember driving in and seeing the Heavy Pettin’ posters for the single being up everywhere and that I think was the moment when we realised that things were quite different than anything we’d realised before. (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Gordon: Then we got up and we did the show and again it was over in a flash. I think we played about 35 minutes. It wasn’t a long set. It was great, the crowd were there, there were people with banners in front of us cheering us on. It was just a brilliant afternoon. We played, we sounded great and after we came off we were just sitting in the grass back stage and I think that was the moment when we realised we were in a different league then, that was something else, and that was the start of it for us. And we had another six and a half years of great moments, but that was the start of it.
Mark: Did they whisk you away from the site like they tend to do these days? Or did you get to stay for the headliners who I think were Black Sabbath on the Saturday?
Gordon: We were doing quite a lot of interviews I remember, but we had about 20 minutes sat there on the grass back-stage when we finished then we were doing about two hours of interviews afterwards. But we did stay around and I do remember watching Black Sabbath that night . So we hung around and had a few beers, it wasn’t this kind of social backstage like it is these days, it was kind of quiet, there weren’t the hospitality tents everywhere. So we watched a few bands and then we had to get out of there. A fantastic day.
Mark: Kiss was the first time I saw you, it was a funny show for me the first really big show I’d been to and I got pushed right to the front at one point and I just remember thinking how flimsy the stage looked and that it was bound to collapse – it was bouncing so much! What are your memories of that gig?
Gordon: (laughs) it was a cow shed wasn’t it!? Well at least during the day. But I actually remember the stage being quite comfortable, it might just have been the carpet on it! But yet again it one of the early shows and the crowd I can remember were kind of set up long ways so they were all really crammed in really close. But I remember it being so flipping loud when we were playing, and we were just blasting away through the songs. But the crowd was great I remember it being a really warm reaction, there were a few shouting for Kiss but that was understandable, but I think we won them over. They were great shows and huge crowds, this was step up from theatres – 10 or 11 thousand people I think.
Mark: Great days and great shows, one think that struck me as a young kid was how even in those early days you worked the stage – was it all natural or rehearsed? You just seemed to know what to do up there on the big stage.
Gordon: (laughing) we didn’t really plan anything, and that was one of the first tours that we did so we hadn’t even got into a routine or anything by then! But we were young, we were like 21 so there was lots of energy on stage! I do remember when we were on tour with Kiss, because we would watch Kiss every night, and the craft that they had was amazing and we did pinch quite a few of their moves by the end of that tour!
Mark: Thankfully not the fire breathing!
Gordon: (laughs) No, it was all natural we didn’t work anything out, before that it was by chance when we’d done something by accident and realised after that it worked and thought we should make more of it. And that’s how we got into our routine. But the show at Bingley Hall, there was nothing rehearsed at all.
Mark: So are the old moves coming back naturally?
Gordon: (laughs) I think so. We do like to put on a good show and throw a few shapes, and we’re still pretty energetic believe it or not, and some of the reviews I’ve read are even saying that. I think they’re amazed we’re still running about and all the rest of it. There’s a lot of energy that goes into it still.
Mark: The third memory I’d love you take on is Eurovision, a lot of people have said a lot of things about that over the years, whether it was a good thing or not is moot I guess after so long, but what was the experience like for you? We’re you pushed into it?
Gordon: Well at that point, I think this was 1986 maybe ’87, by that point we were doing shows and tours and recording, we didn’t stop and we didn’t live anywhere we were on the move all the time, just doing what was put to us, we didn’t really know what was happening the next day to be honest. I remember we were recording our third album at the time and doing a few shows here and there and I remember the itinerary just said you’re going to this Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush to play ‘Romeo’ – one of the tracks off the new album.
Mark: OK.
Gordon: You have to remember that we… the whole third album was a little bit strange for us because it wasn’t really going the way that we wanted it to go. We wanted it to be a lot heavier but the Record Company and the Producers kept picking out different songs we had in the pool to what we thought were our best. So anyway we ended up at this Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush and there was nobody there – we filmed ‘Romeo’ and we were just told it was for the TV…
Mark: (laughs)
Gordon: There was no one there, swear to God. And so off we went, and then later down the line it turns out we were entering Eurovision, and this song appeared on Terry Wogan…
Mark: I remember that
Gordon: …but it appeared on Wogan as if we were there live in the same studio. But we weren’t there, and then it all started to unfold, and suddenly we were in the Eurovision song contest. And it was really just the Record Company trying to promote this single. But there were things going on in the background with the management, I think they were talking to Hamie and stuff at the time. But as I said we were just going from one thing to the next. I don’t think that we really realised what was actually happening for the most part behind the scenes, we weren’t really fully ‘compos mentis’ at the time. So that’s how it all began and then we followed up with some live show at the TV Centre that we had to go and do. We knew what was happening at that point. We were really unsure about it to be honest, it wasn’t our decision. I guess they had their reasons for thinking it was a good idea. Sorry to shoot off at a tangent but I can remember we were playing at a Festival in Germany with Metallica, and we’d just played and we came off stage and were back stage and Peter Mensch came up to me and we were chatting away, and the next moment the promoter guy came up to Peter and said “We want to give this award to Metallica when they play later” and Peter just said “No. They don’t get awards. They don’t accept awards. No way.” And the guy is bemused, I think (the award) was Metal Hammer or something, some magazine. So he shooed them off. And I asked him “What’s that all about Pete?” and he just said: ”They’re a street level band, they can’t be seen to be taking awards.” So I learnt then that you have to be very careful about where you’re positioning yourself and stuff like that, it matters. And certainly Eurovision is not the place for a Heavy Rock band to be. Certainly back in that day, it may be a different thing now. But if it had been a decision for us to make, we would have said no.
Mark: A very interesting story.
Mark: So who were your inspirations when you started out Gordon? Who made you want to get up and get on stage?
Gordon: I’d imagine there are no surprises here! I grew up in the late 70’s when I really got into music so I guess it started with probably Status Quo. Before that I can remember buying Wishbone Ash – the ‘Argus’ album and I remember learning how to play all of them on guitar one summer. And then I got into Status Quo, but mainly I liked these bands because I could learn how to play the tunes you know. I obviously liked the music as well. Then I went through the usual suspects I loved Thin Lizzy and then AC/DC came along and Iron Maiden. They were probably my main influences.
Mark: I thought that you were going to put UFO in there because of the name of the band which allegedly came from that UFO album?
Gordon: Yeah I liked UFO like everybody else and I loved what Michael Schenker did, but I think musically the other bands much more it the spot with me. But yeah, a great band and Michael is still one of my guitar heroes. But I’m not quite sure about the band’s name. Hamie came up with the name Heavy Pettin’ but were still not sure if he caught the eye of the UFO album lying about somewhere. But we certainly didn’t pick up an album cover and think- “we’re Heavy Pettin’” it just came up in a conversation one day and we all thought it was great. But they’re the bands that kicked things off for me in that order really.
Mark: Well always traditionally leave with the easiest question you’ll be asked all week – what is the meaning of life?
Gordon: The meaning of life? I think… an easy question? (laughs) I guess it’s probably best not to think too much about it and just be all you can be. That’s one of the things I always like to do, get up and do stuff, get things done and don’t put things off until tomorrow. And just always be kind. I think that’s one of the things I’d say, soppy as it may sound, because people will remember you if you’re not. And don’t be remembered for the wrong reasons.
Mark: It can be so simple, I’m sure. Thank you so much for your time today Gordon, I’m so glad we finally got to talk. I must admit I’m pretty excited about the prospect of a new album, it’s been a while coming and you are making us wait now till next year, but I think you always have a connection to those bands you saw when you were young and for me one of those was Heavy Pettin’. I only saw you four times I must admit but that’s not bad for a 15 year old!
Gordon: You must try and get to see us again.
Mark: It’s definitely on my list once this craziness is all over. I’d love the opportunity to step back into the 80’s even if just for a night.
Gordon: It does stir up all that stuff that you remember from those times and hopefully bit a bit fresh from today as well.
Mark: I’ll let you know! Thanks so much Gordon.
Gordon: Here’s to a beer and a catch up then! Anytime and just a final shout out to everyone in Australia – take care and we hope to see you all soon.
Mark: What a great way to leave it. Until next time, cheers Gordon.
