Act III: London, England 1970

“To tell you the truth — no — I mean it was very fortunate that, er, that they were such hand, handsome bunch of young mem .

A girls’ school now, would you believe? Scruffy black kids squeaking at Mr. Ferry, art master. Making pots and listening to reggae cos he said we could play anything and he was writing songs now. Couldn’t play anything but had a piano at home. Cecil Taylor type doodling and made himself learn simple chords and the songs came tumbling out. Rock 'n' roll and Roxy afternoons all mixed up and so many that if someone didn’t play them soon Bryan’s brain would burst. He needed to start a group and who was there? Well, Graham Simpson played bass in Gasboard and he was in London and he knew Andy Mackay who had studied music at Reading and played sax and had a synthesizer which meant three and Andy knew Brian Eno who had a tape recorder which was good for making demos and they auditioned the drummer (Paul Thompson was the second reply) and it was all very arty and nice (their very own synthesizer!) but if it was to be beat music they had to have a beat guitarist and the beatiest guitarist Bryan had ever seen was David O’List playing with the Nice in the Newcastle Town Hall, breathing, fire while EmerDavJak were cold as ice. Roxy Music. With enough songs to make three albums.

Act IV: London, England 1971-3 “And everything I hope for did in fact work out...”

Not all at once though. John Peel and Richard Williams liked the tapes they got but mostly the scene was the, foyer. A&R men apologizing, passing joints but no loot — “they couldn’t see anything in it at all.” David O’List disappeared again, Phil Manzanera arrived and Bryan even auditioned to be the singer with King Crimson. No go but Bob Fripp introduced him to EG, a management company who were, by gum, intrigued: “They wanted us to take me on as a songwriterbut I said take the whole bunch of bananas or nothing.” The whole band and money for equipment and rehearsals and, at last, a reluctant recording contract (Island with a measly 7% royalty) and a producer (Pete Sinfield) and an album (Roxy Music). Graham Simpson had a nervous breakdown and the band went on the road, star-struck the Great West. ern Festival, wowed the public - album sales high, “Virginia Plain” a top ten English single. And the fun starts. Not the foyer now but the boardroom and big business, big deals, big tours. Album number two, For Your Pleasure, English hit number two, “Pyjamarama.” And fanatical fans, the Bryan Ferry haircut, the realities of grandeur. It went to Eno’s head. He got uppity, forgot whose dream it was, argued, split. Good riddance cos meanwhile album number three, Stranded (Eddie Jobson on fiddle and synthesiser from Curved Air, Johnny Gustafson on bass from the Big Three!) sold better than ever and “Streetlife” was the best single of ’73. Plus Bryan Ferry’s solo album and solo hit and photo in NME every week. And this appearance on the Cilia Black Show — ah, sweet! Bryan Ferry — STAR.

,4 c/ V: London, England 1974 “Although the world is ,my oyster, it’s only a shell full of memories...”

Bryan Ferry’s drawing room. Big scruffy room. Cracks on the ceiling, grand piano, pop art, singles scattered on the floor. Oldies for the next solo album, most of them his sister’s — E. Ferry scrawled in black. Cups of tea and we’re' both uneasy. Most interviews are nursed along by the PR middle-man but he’s not here. We both know we’re using each other and it’s not very jolly. What I keep thinking is: does Bryan live here alonel Partly curious, partly puzzled. The room feels lonely. He’s suntanned, straight, amazing fifties working-class face — Laurence Harvey, Dirk Bogarde as he says, and the young Albert Finney. Self-sufficient is what it is; ruthless he calls it. A ruthless kid who dreamed a rock dream, acts it, won’t let it go. Kinda desperate.

The Interview

He’s an artist, he don’t look back. He dreams in images, can’t separate sounds and pictures:

"The kids see and hear sex. They are moved; to violence, to pleading. ”

“I always thought musically about colours and so on and visual images always crop up in my mind when I’m writing a song; it depends very much on the sort of images which I can imagine and-situations which I can imagine and so on. But the actual visual presentation of the music on stage is something which happened after we’d recorded the first album. I was aware of Lou Reed from the Velvet Underground days but I wasn’t much aware of David Bowie apart from ‘Space Oddity’ which was sometime earlier, which doesn’t really connect that much with what he’s done in his new way. But most people have some theatrical flair inside them somewhere. It’s a matter of them bringing it out, o”f someone else helping to bring it out. I love performing. It’s a really incredible feeling, there’s nothing like it — feeling the tension in the audience, the surging. I’m quite a reserved character, I don’t act to the audience. Sometimes I’m thinking ‘they aren’t really shouting Bryan’ and I look around to see who’s there. I look better in tailored things so I wore a tuxedo on this last tour. An odd thing to wear at a rock concert but it’s the classic outfit, with endless images — a Cunard class suit, playing the tables at Monte Carlo. ..”

An odd thing to wear at a rock concert, yea. Richard Hamilton’s pop art is art, Bryan Ferry’s pop art is pop and it makes a difference. His audience is different, his context. Roxy’s brilliant album sleeves aren’t on gallery walls, they’re on the racks with the rest and the kids who come to see Roxy (all in black satin) don’t see endless images, aren’t amused — they see a sexy tense man, hear sexy tense music and they’re moved — to violence, to unacknowledged pleading.

“Yeah, well funny things happen. Most of them treat it as we do — as a sort of special event. We .always dress up and a lot of the audience do as well; it’s like a night at the opera for them. And that’s very nice.

“We’re trying to do something that can appeals on different levels — a nice melody, smart, a good beat. The idea was that Roxy Music could be any kind of music, could do anything. We could play things which were very experimental and forward-looking and trying to break new ground all the time in a sort of art-rock way. And we could play music which you could dance to, which has a lot of soul, which was very physical and had a lot of negro roots or something. . And I think you can trace some quite specific influences. I tried to trace some of those influences in These Foolish Things, the solo album...”

But Roxy’s appeal is that Bryan can’t actually separate anything — not words or music or pictures, not art or pop, not mind or body, but all of them stewed together. European Thought and the Hollywood Dream. So Roxy Music revolves around his own awfully bad percussive piano. Thump Chord Thump — the basis of the successive layers of sound the rest add on. This was the point of Eno’s (and now Eddie Jobson’sl synthesizer. “Sort of icing in a way”to fill out the insistence and complexity of the basic rules, “which is visual,” and on top of which Bryan sings moving pictures:

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“The main thing is to sing With conviction' and with a lot of feeling, that’s always been something I’ve tried to do. And rather than develop one particular style I’ve tried to operate with lots of different styles — some things in a soft, quiet and melodic way, sometimes, with a really harsh number, very sort of raucous. I think the fact that my voice has an identifiable sort of vibrato means that there is a uniformity running throughout the different ways I sing.”

Ferry may only play a simple piano, sing a simple song, but the music is his — the point of the other musicians, of the producer, is to capture the details of the thing he’s already imagined in its entirety (“there are lots of new things you can do with instrument combinations”). This is where the ruthlessness comes in. Roxy Music is Ferry Music and if not — “I throw moodies” and Eno goes. The arrangement with Chris Thomas, producer, is fine: “He doesn’t try to impose any ideas (except he’s got a great affinity for echo). His job is to translate my ideas — he’s a very good middleman.”

The problem is the rest of the boys in the band. No nonsense about democracy even if “I usually only ask someone to do what I know they like doing.” The resulting relationships vary.

Paul Thompson — drums. “There’s a special rapport between us, my music is based on what he does... ” Ferry’s even split some songwriting royalties with him — “I try to be fair.”

Eddie Jobson — violin, synthesizer, whizz kid. “I’m exploiting him but he’s getting his rewards so I’m not worried. He plays what I want but he’s got fame and money and women and he’s still young. Isn’t that fair?”

Phil Manzanera, guitar, and Andy Mackay, saxophone, brilliant musicians without whose virtuosity Ferry’s dreams would be still-born. “It’s an ego thing. I ask for sounds and leave it to them to make them, use their skills, but they want to write more, make their own music. It can’t last... Roxy Music will have to split sometime..

Extraordinary, like hearing a manager admit his team will be relegated, pop stars aren’t supposed to say things like that. Bryan Ferry is put upon — by his group; by his management, endlessly hustling him work: “I hate touring, it’s very destructive, I become a mental vegetable.” By the comics on the weekly press, pushing animageaday, bub; by his audience: “More people are going to listen to the next one and it must be better. I have to believe in universal standards sopiewhere along the line and I worry about repeating myself. I must work harder.. .”

Whatever happened to the teenage dream? Two last words: “It’s easier to write out of melancholy.” And “I’d love to sit back for six months but I can’t. No time.” Fferry’s dream ate him.

Act VI: Newcastle, England 1974 “Inflatable dolly, I blew you up and then you blew my mind...”

The story ends in a Rolls Royce. Chauffeur driven round the new Newcastle ring road. Outside street life — three colour shoes and high heels, the flash of knife and knicker, jostling and laughing and crying and very, very bright. But inside, for Bryan Ferry, star (still brylcreemed) it’s grey — the Rolls has smoked glass. Outside “Street Life,” the pulse echoing from'roof to roof, the voice winding down alleys, the throb and whine lifting the crowd. But inside, for Bryan Ferry, star (still neat) it’s silent — you can’t hear anything inside a Rolls, not even the clock’s tick. Outside the mean red houses have gone, and the doorman and the palm trees. THE ROXY’s vanished, just a bit of debris. But inside, Bryan Ferry, star, hasn’t noticed. He’s still dreaming.. .

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