DESOLATION ANGELS HAVE GASTRIC JUICES, TOO

After four years, Bad Company toured Britain. They are no longer quite the group who went away— staggering under the weight of audience expectations and the first crash of punk. They now have four gold and platinum albums, thanks almost exclusively to America's audience size and catholic tastes. They sold out their British return—some two or three nights per city—in precisely two hours. They have come back to fit somewhere in that middle ground wasteland between hit singles and new wave. A sort of R&B Fleetwood Mac. Their record company throws a Saturday night, post-first London gig party for them— at a roller skating rink where journalists and liggers can hire skates, fall over and, ironically, pretend it's the late 60's again.

The industry and the new wave may not recognize us, but none of the original fans have left us. -Simon Kirke

Yeeeaaah ... I love the music and I love the crowd

Dancing in the aisles and singing out loud

It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy,

It's all part of my rock and roll dream . . .

So sings Paul Rodgers on the first track of "Desolation Angels" thereby proving once and for all that while he may not jbe the greatest lyric writer in the world, he can sing something as dull as the telephone directory and make you interested.

His idea of a rock 'n' roll fantasy is, in person, as simplisticas he puts it in that song. It is, he says, the very act of a group getting on stage and presenting a form of escapism. This is not a novel idea—but rather Bad Company's fantasy than Queen's in my book:

"I don't think you should ever, like, bring politics and stuff that surrounds you every day—all that depressing stuff—into music," says Rodgers firmly, so firmly that I haven't got the notion to argue with him. His Middlesborough accent remains untainted by hints of mid-Atlantic influence despite the time the band has spent in the States (so much, in fact, that most people here suffer under the illusion that the group has actually been living there for the past four years). So the fantasy, in his mind, remains untouched by the realities of life outside the few hours on stage and has to remain that way: "People want to go and see groups to getaway from all that. I know I do. The lights, the atmosphere . . . they can forget everything else."

And for him, as a musician, is there still a fantasy, too? "I think so, for every musician who will admit it. Being a success with an audience is a fantasy. It's not serious though. It's not ..." he flings his hand to his heart in a dramatic gesture, "this is my fantasy." And does it ever wear off? A short laugh: "Well it did, I can tell you, on that last American tour. It was just getting a little bit routine and that can kill everything dead. You just get into a clock in, clock off frame of mind...

The British tour comes after a break of nearly two years from the road. The last U.S. tour was in 1977, a killer they all agree. Simon Kirke thinks a certain amount of complacency edged in: "Well it did with me, anyway. We agreed between ourselves that we needed some time off to get the thrill back. So that's what we did." And, although they are loathe to admit financial gain, bands can only make those kind of decisions when they're not worried about the gas bills.

The interview with Bad Company has been set up on one of the worst days in London since Christmas. Sleet pelts down, practically blinding the taxi driver—and he and I are lost anyway. Someone has given me the wrong address. It has been some years since I had to go to Swan Song, Peter Grant's management offices, and all things being equal I am not surprised that they've moved. Ten minutes along the road I was told it was now in, the numbers tail off and another road starts. I find a call box. Someone gives me the right road. Ten minutes in the other direction and the numbers stop again. I find another call box: Someone has given me the wrong number in the right road . It transpires that Swan Song has not moved at all from the time Peter Grant first set it up for Led Zeppelin. The house still bears the plaque: "British Legion." I begin to feel I am in a time warp. I begin to feel that this kind of shuttling against the elements does not bode well. It gives me time to reflect on the last time I met any of this band. Simon Kirke and Paul Rodgets were with Free. Kirke, 19-years-old, a bright country boy with biceps that bulged from his t-shirt. Drummer's arms I first thought, then he told me he'd spent a year digging roads. He had a fine naive ego did Kirke then, always talking. Paul Kossoff was so painfully introverted and Paul Rodgers would rather sing so the band seemed happy enough to let Kirke be the "PR" man. Things haven't changed much.

"I don't think you should ever, like, bring politics and stuff that surrounds you every day... into music. -Paul Rodgers"

Free were always a struggling band, even when they were successful. And it would seem that a small percentage of their appeal lay not simply in their music but in that feeling transmitting it/self through it. They epitomized an "ethnic" roughness, a feeling of taking on rock 'n' roll in the spirit of struggle that acknowledged their musical debt to the blues itself. Bad Company have always been different. Maybe it would have been impossible to re-create that atmosphere or that conviction given the passing of time. Kirke and Rodgers, like most musicians, are keen to have the ghost of their past band laid to rest. Yet it's impossible—even with the selling of tickets—for critics in Britain not to mourn the passing of that spirit and so, believing Bad Company to be the product of careful management arid a certain caution for not making the same mistakes again, find their appeal less exciting.

When bands move to these higher pinnacles, when the outward signs of success filter back across the water, they are actually perceived in a different way. Occasionally, it's hard to decipher if the gap is of your own making as an outsider. Musicians either take on an interview as a form of confessional and become past masters of the art of communicating as individuals, or treat the form of an interview with a certain disdain. Swan Song's own management attitude has always been to keep their musicians in the "select" mold anywaySo on this filthy day it's perhaps unsurprising that what Bad Company have to say about themselves is about as startling as what they have to "say" on Desolation Angels (which, despite its title and Rodger's ability to make a listener mourn with his voice, hints at a scenario the songs don't reflect at all). On the other hand, they are really just an R&B band whose transatlantic aura has led to people regarding them with pretentions they really canH—or perhaps don't—want to fulfill.

Paul Rodgers arrives late from an interview with People magazine. He looks stunned. "Do you know," he flops onto a sofa in a room that looks like we're waiting for the doctor, "it was like going to a psychologist. The bloke said 'What's your father's name? What's your Mother's name? How many bedrooms did you have in your house?' Talk about a 'thorough' interview!"

"Then he said," Boz Burrell is sprawled out on the carpet in a red track suit, " 'Ah—that accounts for ypur. . . .' " They laugh.

Kirke has a cold, Ralphs is held up indefinitely in bad traffic, Burrell has stomach pains: "I had about 14 meals yesterday, couldn't stop eating. I couldn't believe it—a day off. All my stomach muscles relaxed so I just pushed food in all day."

These three live about ten minutes from their manager's office. For the past two years they have, they say, been living "like ordinary human beings." Kirke's been travelling for his own enjoyment; Burrell's spent a lot of time hopping over to his local pub and playing country music with a bunch of Irish fiddle players. Low profiles have been kept to such an extent that when Mick Ralphs popped up on TV recently to talk about the forthcoming tour, everyone assumed they'd just landed from the States.

The American success happened practically straight away., Here, [they had to fight expectations, although they picked up a sizeable following from the, Free and Mott The Hoople audiences. Very loyal. Bad Company was a number one album everywhere by 1974. By the time the second U.S. tour happened and their second album had made it in America, the band—no doubt with advice from Grant who had worked Zeppelin in much the same way ancj with a keen eye on the rapidly changing British music scene—reckoned their chances of making it on a really big scale did not lay on British soil. Kirke agrees with some of thati thesis: "I think a lot was expected from us at the onset here and we did live up to those expectations. But things changed so much here . . . our music has always been blues-based, influenced by American musicians and I think we took off there because we were sort of fresh. Plus, we had the backing of Zeppelin's name at the time.

I don't know if we could have done it here . . . the music was in a state of constant flux, still is: from glitter to punk, punk to new wave ..."

And where do they think they fit in now? "Oh," says Kirke cheerily, "permanent wave. "

Free finally split up at the end of 1972. Kirke, especially, still looks back with a certain amount of nostalgia to the days when he and Rodgers were part of a truly innovative outfit. "It's like your first love, but it did drag on a bit towards the end. I suppose it really finished when Koss died. Up until then, it'had always been maybe we'd get back together properly. It was more of a legendary band than Bad Company reajly, and if Koss hadn't.had the drug problem which was alvyays pretty bad ... I think Bad Company is a lot more toujgh and uncompromising, plus the fact we're a little^ bit older."

And more cynical? "No—it's just we could see the pitfalls of getting a band together with a 'supergroup' tag, right from the start. And of course we got labelled—tut tut, press again. But we . can Randle them this time you see. Now we've got the same success as Free but on a much larger scale. The first Bad Company album sold -more copies than all the Free albums put together. No, you can't afford to pe cynical, but I think we've reached a solidarity as a band that none of us ever felt prior to this, and that's lasted five years now and that doesn't happen accidently."

Even so—with such formidable concrete signs of success, what becomes a band's motivation? How do you hold things together and find something else to aim for? And doesn't that very success push you away from the roots

TURN TO PAGE 62 that formed your music in the first place? Kirke ponders: "Well, yes, I think it does push you away ..." then changes his mind. "Well, no, because I don't think we're up with the really established bands who've been together for about ten years. If we were to start thinking that, we'd come a cropper. I'd put us somewhere between Foreigner and that top echelon."

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39

Kirke uses words like "inspiration," "thrill," "stimulus"; that the band keep forging on because although they're established there's always other "musical levels," always competition ... In that cowardly face-to-face way journalists have (oh yes they do), I fail to mention that Desolation Angels seems pretty lethargic and un-inspiring considering all the "recharging of batteries" that I am assured has gone on since the break. Maybe despite everything, Bad Company are really no more than a good club band—even if Wembley Arena audiences finally rushed the stage on opening night to bring Rodgers' rock 'n' roll fantasy to life. Ah. well.

They would, it appears, quite like to do a club tour now that I mention it: "Although," says Kirke, "I don't know about small clubs. You can't.live on a three-month residency at The Marquee." Boz remarks that he certainly doesn't want to go back to club dates, ethnic roots or not: "You can't," he says, presumably constantly in touch with his gastric juices, "live on an individual meat pie and a Coke—and that's if you're lucky." It appears their one concession on this tour has been travelling to gigs in a transit van.

They deny they were nervous about playing home turf for the first time in four years, although Kirke insists that touring is the key to success and that he's doubtful they could stop that and remain selling records in quantity. Boz says he wasn't surprised the tickets sold so fast: "Even though everyone else was. It's a good band, a good live band," he insists. "The industry and the new wave may not recognize us, but none of the original fans have left us and the American stuff has filtered back and just added to that."

Well, they didn't get shouts for "Alright Now" or Mott The Hoople numbers this time around—and that must have pleased them. Bad Company will be back in America by the time you read this, back on the road in the country that first "gave" them their music. In London, Bo Diddley'sgigging and the Clash come backstage to applaud. Bad Company hadn't seen him yet but Boz recalls a time—in Albuquerque (a remarkable memory for a touring musician)—when they watched him on TV. "Remember?" he asks Rodgers. "He looked very nervous."

What they like best about touring in America they say, is simply that: going out of the concert and into a local club, to be able to see and sometimes play with the musicians who influenced their music so much. Taking their PA systems down South and playing back the home grown music on its own territory. "You can say the same thing about the Stones," satys Boz, "who took Chuck Berry music to America and recycled it. We're taking back Fats Domino, Memphis stuff back in a way—all our influences."

For Rodgers^, whose whole vocal style is firmly lodged in that tradition, it's being in a town and playing a gig andsknowing that in a small bar down the road on the same night John Lee Hooker or Freddie King might be playing. That's so—well, weird; what touring'-s all about.

He will always* acknowledge his debt to the blues. Outside of his singing, "It opens up the way for songwriting really. It's quite easy to write blues and the fantastic thing about a 12-baf is that you can put whatever you feel straight on top. From there it's very easy to change a few chords and get into your own niche. I don't think we'll ever lose that, I can't help it now, I've done it for so long—I can't imagine doing it any othpr way."

"The thing is," says Boz finally, "that after gigs in America we go to the clubs and end up jamming—country, blues, soul. See, this really is a club band."