DISCOVER AMERICA!

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Bad Company Did r. and Look Where It Got Them.

Steve Clarke

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The much-modified Ford Mustang Mach 1 looks kind of out of place in the grounds of Clearwell Castle, Wales. The basic black bodywork has been psychedelicised so that brightly coloured streamers of paint now appear to chase each other across the car — which is clearly the property of a male, fairly young, and not exactly short of a quid or two.

In fact, the Mustang belongs to the guitar player with Britain's Most Successful New Band In America — Mick Ralphs of Bad Company; and he likes living fast and doesn't stay at home unless he has to. Like, there was the time he arrived back from BC's vastly successful debut American tour — and just hours after landing at Heathrow was found buddying it up with his old colleague Ian Hunter at a reception for Jess Roden. "I couldn't sleep for two days. It takes time for you to come down after an American tour. I still haven't come down yet," says Ralphs, seated behind the car's steering wheel and heading towards the M4 and points east.

Of the four, Ralphs is the most garrulous — at least to the Press. Hunter has described him as "introverted," but that was, says Ralphs, because of the situation he found himself in with Mott. "When you feel uncomfortable you tend to go inward," he says. Now he considers his situation ideal, as does Paul Rodgers and the rest of the band. "Paul and I talked about 'it" (their

^ We're playing instead of talking. We're not dictated by fashion or trends.

previous situations) "at length, and we both agreed that we'd never been totally happy with what we'd been doing, or We'd been happy and it had gone sour on us. We both felt restricted by our previous bands."

According to Ralphs, Bad Company give off "boisterous confidence" and he has a couple of stories to pfove it. . . there was this night down at Clearwell when the group got their hands on some fireworks and decided to let them off a little before the appropriate holiday. « "The vicar's wife thought it was the end g^of the world and it upset some cows. N The farmer wouldn't give us any milk ® the next day," says Ralphs with a grin. •= Another time, Simon Kirke stripped i off to prove that not all rock musicians

are unhealthy. "Going out with Simon is like going out with a sailor on a 48-hour pass. He likes to cram everything in." And there's the time when Rodgers kung-fu'd a door on an aeroplane and ended up with a broken toe. Or the time Boz drank a Florida hotel dry of tequila. "I thought / could drink, but bloody hell... it was incredible. He had to stop drinking for a week on the tour."

We cruise over the Severn Bridge and momentarily Ralphs takes his left hand from the steering wheel to point "Hereford's up there and Bristol's up there." Ralphs was born in Hereford some 25 years ago and even though he's lived in London since the early days of Mott, Ralphs" accent is still very West Country. The conversation turns to other musicians — his hero, Keith Richard. "That may sound childish saying Richard is my hero, but I think he's the driving force behind The Stones." And Stephen Stills — "He'S a bore. All that crap about him and his axe, man. Young's worth ten of him." And Clapton — "All that lying around didn't do him any good. You don't have time to be self-indulgent when you're working."

Those last few words reflect Ralphs" own outlook towards being a rock musician and the band's attitude in general. They're all into having a good time, but they're also very much into working hard, especially because they are such a new band. Their staggering American success won't affect that; "It's great to know what you're doing is being accepted on a big scale, but we still don't feel as if we've done anything really. We feel like we're a new band that's frantically struggling for acceptance," he says, with no affected modesty.

Bad Company's first American tour started last June 8th. Before playing the first of some 40 dates the band spent three days rehearsing in Texas. With the exception of two dates in Ohio — where the band first broke — BC were always the opening act. At the first gig in Houston, Texas, they opened for Jo Jo Gunne — "We shouldn't have been opening for them" — and Dave Mason who Ralphs has known from the days when he roadied for Spencer Davis.

"We've all been in headlining acts before, so we didn't treat it as though we were opening. It was like we were headlining." Other gigs were with Black Oak Arkansas and Edgar Winter. And there was a festival in Texas at the end of the tour with ZZ Top headlining. ("They're like The Beatles in Texas.") and BC fourth on the bill. After Santana and Joe Cocker.

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Ralphs says the group wasn't aware of the size of their success until a gig at the end of the tour in Boston. "Peter" (Grant, the band's manager) "called us into his room and there were these four golden albums. We were flattered cause we knew the record was doing well — but by suddenly seeing the four gold albums it came over to us how success' ful we had been. It was number ten theri..." The album, of course, later made it to the top of the American album charts. "We were confident when we went over that we'd get through to other people, but it happened much quicker than we anticipated.

"I think people needed a band like ours at that time. There wasn't really anybody doing what we were. Everybody was too much into theatrics. It was all getting a bit sour and I think we came along as the complete opposite to that. We like to come on as natural as we are. We don't like to suddenly assume a different role on stage. We're playing instead of talking. We're not dictated by fashion or trends.

"What we're doing isn't particularly new. You can relate it to five years hence and five years back. It's kind of reminiscent of the stuff that went on a few years ago, but I think the material is original in as much as they're all newlywritten songs."

Ralphs reverts back to the subject of their success: "I look at the charts and see our record's number one and it's amazing, but it doesn't register ... it doesn't have as much effect on me as it probably would on a lot of other people. They assume you change, they assume you're loaded with money — or they assume you don't wanna talk to them and things like that. It's great. It gives us a lot more space in which to develop what we're doing."

The last new British band to achieve similar success to Bad Company in America was Led Zeppelin. Both Zep and Bad Company are managed by

Grant. "I think management is important, but I think the band has got to be good to start with. Peter came over three times on the American tour — at the beginning, in the middle and at the end. I like it when a manager comes out on the road. I really think it's important and he realises that. I really think he's the best manager in the business. Maybe I'm biased because he's our manager," Ralphs laughs. "But I still think he's the best anyway."

Did he think Bad Company would have sold so many records without Grant's management? "That's a hypothetical question. He took us on "cause^ he wanted to take us on. The fact that he did so means that he had a lot of faith in us. If he hadn't managed us — and, say, a lesser manager had — then we probably wouldn't have felt so important a group. It's a sort of reciprocal thing.

"When we put this band together we said, "Right, this gonna be The Band.

" "We're gonna wipe everybody out.

" "We're gonna have the best manager.

" "By the way, who's the best manager?"

"So we phoned up Peter Grant. There's no good in settling for half measures, and he has a lot of respect in that business. That enabled us to get a good footing to start with."

(Reprinted courtesy New Musical Express )