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	BACK DOOR
	An interview with Tony Hicks recorded by Pete Bell at the Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge, North York Moors, on 21st January 2003
	Pete: When this current thing came up, the idea, was it ... the way I sort of piece it together, it looked as though Warners perhaps suggested the idea of a greatest hits album, and you guys said, "Nah, we'll just do some more tunes, we'll do our own thing ..." How did it come about, the recent thing? Tony: I don't really know. I think it was just because I happened to be visiting Europe from Australia, in the country, I'd go for a beer with Ronnie and that …. and it's just because we were there. "Ah, there's a studio just round the corner …..Robin's. Let's do a record." It's as simple as that. I don't think it was anything to do with Warners to be honest. Not that I know of, but then I never know anything about that sort of stuff. Total lack of interest from me about it. Pete: What was it like doing the session? Tony: Well, like all sessions, traumatic. They're not recording the drums properly, not a very good sound in the cans ... all the stuff you always worry about every time you're in the studio. Austin (Ince) rescued it, I think, by coming to mix it. Ronnie had to pay for him out of his own pocket, because he's not cheap, Austin. Pete: He must have some respect though, because the deal was fairly good, wasn't it, from Austin. He must have some respect for you guys. Tony: Oh, he's one of us isn't he, Austin. Maybe he did do a favour, but it still cost Ronnie money. Pete: He's a top guy and the results are superb, aren't they? Tony: Yeah. There's a couple of tracks we thought we wouldn't be able to use, for whatever reasons … they'd been badly recorded, especially the drums, which is always a problem. Most engineers these days have never recorded a bloody drum kit, they're all ... they don't do they? So they don't really know what they're doing …. recording them. So Austin came and managed to, somehow, find it. Pete: You're also recording in the hardest circumstances, for an engineer, in that you record live. Tony: That's right. Mistakes and everything stay in. Because if you do it again and get that bit right, you'll make a mistake somewhere else, so you're chasing your tail. You may as well leave that bit in. Who cares? As long as the spirit's there. Pete: There aren't any mistakes. Tony: Oh, there are. There are! (laughs) Pete: Don't tell us about them. Tony: Oh, I won't, but they're there, mate. But I like it. That's life, isn't it. Who wants a perfect bloody product? Pete: Well, it's part of the initial charm of the band, despite the fact that you were playing stuff that no one else was playing. The people you had here when it all kicked off, were all ages, weren't they? And that included farmers coming up from Farndale, and the smart set coming over from wherever the smart lived in those days, do you remember? Tony: Yeah, from all over, weren't they. Pete: From Scarborough and Middlesbrough and so on. Pete: There's a sense of humour in your music that .... Tony: A sense of humour, yeah Pete: And it's quite relaxed. A lot of musicians take themselves too seriously, and it comes over, doesn't it. Tony: Well, that's right. "The Laughing Policeman" with Chick Corea. Get things into perspective. It's funny though - I told you I did this gig with Andy Fraser, and I actually lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years. And we were recording, doing his album, and the engineer said, "We've got to have a break today at one o'clock." I said, "Oh yeah, why's that?" "He said, "Chick Corea's coming in to check out the piano." "Oh, right ..." (laughs) I'll see if I can find the sheet music for "The Laughing Policeman", and say, "That's how it goes, mate..." Pete: Did you? Tony: No, of course I didn't. But what was tremendous was, sat in the control room, listening to Chick Corea playing the piano for an hour. Beautifully mixed and recorded. I just went, "Wow, isn't that a fantastic thing to happen, in the middle..." It was really hard to get back to work after that. It seemed a bit silly. (laughs) "No, we'll have a day off, come back tomorrow. Thanks, Chick." (laughs) Pete: How did that band go, with Andy Fraser? Tony: An absolute drama. He wanted to be Stevie Wonder. He's a beautiful songwriter ... tremendous …… Pete: He had lot of input into "Free", didn't he which isn't necessarily recognised. His basslines were good. Tony: Absolutely, and he wrote all the songs with Paul, and of course the record company wanted him to be Paul Rogers. What was his band called? Bad Company. Pete: Bad Company. Another Middlesbrough lad, Paul Rogers. Tony: It's a recipe for chaos, isn't it. Forever arguing…..New York on the phone, (laughs) …..so it never really got off the ground, but it was great fun recording it. And we all lived in this massive big joint in the Santa Monica mountains, writing and rehearsing and playing and recording ... a smashing thing to do. Really good studios as well. And then ….. what happened then? …… the wife got homesick. "I miss me mam …… I want a pint of bitter," so we'll go home then. And my first job when we got back was a pantomime at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. And I think, "What the fuck happened here? A few weeks ago I was in Los Angeles in Electric Lady studios, and now I'm in the pit in Newcastle blowing swannee whistles and banging hammers, with Norman Vaughan coming out on a skateboard going "Oop, swinging!". (laughs) What the fuck happened?" The music business ... you know. (laughs) You don't know where you are from one day to the next. Pete: Have you always kept in touch with Ron and Colin? Tony: Yeah. We've always been pals, for sure. Pete: Because they've built quite different sorts of lives, haven't they. Ron's studio based, I guess, Colin's touring. Tony: That's right, exactly the opposite. And me doing things in Australia. But it sets the benchmark for your life when you're involved with a thing like that. Everything you do, you think, "Well, what would Aspery think of this? Is this a good thing to do? Would Ronnie like it? What would Hodgie think?" You still have to do what you do anyway, but that's what's in your mind. You always feel close to them, even though you're at the other end of the world. You know what I mean? I'm delighted with the record, by the way, even though it was traumatic making it. It always is ……..recording stuff ….. posterity. Pete: In a way it's full circle, isn't it, because you did this new album real fast, like you did the first one. Tony: It's because they hate to rehearse, those guys. They just want to do it. Make it up and play it, and record it, that's it. It's all a little bit fast for me. I'd like to learn the thing first, but it's probably the charm of it, you're just playing it for the first time and it's recorded. And they're quite happy with that, Ronnie and Colin - "Oh that's good, that's it then." "What! (laughs) I thought it was a run through, I'm trying to learn the bloody thing." "No, no, that doesn't matter. Perfect." (laughs) That's the way it goes. Pete: As a drummer, Tony, do you have a practice routine? Tony: Absolutely, yeah. I don't do any practice ever. Ever. No. Bloody horrible noisy things. (laughs) Yeah, it's funny that, innit. Well, it must sound like that as well. (laughs) No, I don't. Pete: It's always just doing the gig? Tony: Yeah. Periods like this, where there isn't any work, you miss it a bit, but where am I going to set them up? Dad's kitchen? You just can't do it. In the absence of gigs, you feel it would be nice to spend some time with the instrument, but it's quite hard to do it. You can do it at home, but I haven't got a home. I'm a gypsy. Pete: You haven't told us one thing about any influences you might have had, even when I pushed you to. I don't know, perhaps there was some rock and roll you listened to ... I don't mean about groups, necessarily, just music in general. What sort of stuff do you listen to? Tony: Anything and everything. It's the old adage, there're only two kinds of music…… Pete: Good and bad. Tony: So anything and everything. And I just love listening to my friends play. It's always much more rewarding. Pete: You've got a broad selection of friends. It gives you a fair range, doesn't it? Tony: Of course it does. Playing as long as we have, it's littered with people who have pushed you along a bit, you've learned a lot. Always from piano players and bass players, that's where you've really learnt to play the drums. The job of the drums is to make everybody else sound better than they actually are, I think. That's what the art of playing the drums in a band is. Nowt to do with licks and fills, you have to make them sound as best as they can sound. Which you can do. It's the only instrument you can't hide, the drums. You can get away with a dodgy sax player, or a piano player who's not quite up to it. You can get away with it, you can carry them. Not the drums, mate. If that's wrong, everybody sounds wrong. Pete: "Any band's only as good as the drummer" is a sort of a cliché, but it's true. Tony: Absolutely. They'll all tell you that - Winton Marsalis, Clark Terry ……you've got to start with the drums. If you're making a band, you've got to start there. Pete: It needs to be said. What sort of views have you got, as a jobbing musician, views for the future? Tony: Like I said, I want to be an accordion player now, I want to be involved in a harmony instrument. Because I can't see a future, to be honest, as a drummer. Hopefully Back Door will do something. Pete: There's a lot of drummers around, there's not that many good drummers. Tony: There never has been. Pete: Natural swing. Tony: Yeah. That's right. There never has been - always a handful of proper drummers. Hundreds of ones that aren't quite right. But I suppose that's the same with all instruments. Pete: Perhaps. Perhaps so. However ......... as a bass player, I rate you up there in the top few drummers. Tony: That's nice, mate. Pete: It's a privilege talking to you, Tony. All right, we're mates, and so on and so forth …., but I really do mean that. I wonder if you had any tips for kids wanting to pursue a career as drummers? Tony: Oh ……When you're playing the drums, you must have the melody in your mind all the time. The tune itself. If you stop doing that, that's when you get lost. A lot of changes are the same - a lot of songs are built on the same chord structures. But if you've got the melody going through your head, like all those great drummers that used to play with Thelonius Monk, the fabulous tunes that he writes ... it's not an easy thing to do, to keep a melody in your head…….. it's quirky. But you can hear the guy playing the drum solo, and you can whistle the tune as he's going along …… he's constructing it. So you must always do the tune, it's the main thing, in playing the drums, the tune. It took me a long time to learn that lesson, so the quicker you can get your head around that one, you'll save yourself a lot of grief. You won't get lost so much. Pete: Do you find yourself that you tend therefore to play more middle to top on the kit? Tony: Yeah, very much so. Atmosphere and colour is what I like to aim for, rather than technique, which with not practising, I haven't got any. You have to let the music breathe, instead of fill all gaps. Let it breathe. It's what you don't play that's really important. And yet it's a hard lesson to learn, because space is a scary thing. It freaks you out. Until you become friendly with it. Pete: It enables the frontline therefore to play at their best. Tony: Absolutely. That's when they start sounding good. When the thing is breathing and you're not getting in the way. A great lesson I learnt off Aspery, we recorded something with the English Jazz Quartet, and he just stopped the tune in the middle, and said, "No, no, no! Let me get excited." How could you not know that? As soon as the drummer starts getting excited, it's absolute chaos isn't it. Chaos. (laughs) So that was a great line, "Let me get excited, thank you very much". And there's loads of those things over the years, that you learn through playing with people that you admire and respect. Pete: You've also got that rare thing nowadays, which is a light touch. Tony: Yeah, I think it's lazy really. (laughs) Too much hard work. I've had the same sticks for four years, man. You'll never see me in a drum shop. (laughs) Pete: Do you think the guy who worked with Coltrane all those years would have said the same thing. Tony: Who, Elvin? No, you treat your instrument with respect. The drums are for caressing, rather than thumping the hell out of them. But that's a matter of taste, isn't it. It's what you want to do - some people prefer a different approach. Pete: John Bonham's approach, for instance. Tony: Yeah, exciting and thrilling, but not my way. Pete: To my mind, your approach enables that range of textures and colours … that when you're ensemble you can hear it. Tony: Yeah, and I quite like to play fills on the cymbals, instead of the normal rat-a-tat around the drums. Just do something on the cymbals instead, surrounded by glittery space. Just to be….. not do that, do that instead. Use your imagination. Pete: My memory is perhaps similar to yours in that I don't really have one…. Tony: Yeah, the guy on telly said the other day, "As soon as you get a pair of glasses, your memory goes." How true is that! (laughs) Pete: However, I'll never forget a few of the things I heard in the old days ….. Maybe there's a few little moments that you've heard, or you've played a little bit, a few moments that you've thought, "Ah - that's pulled together." Right now, can you think of any times when you've really felt ... Tony: Millions of them, millions of them. Hanging out in Ronnie Scott's is the best education you can ever have. I remember sitting six feet away from Elvin (Jones) - how can you ever get over that? It will never leave you. Watching Jim Keltner play with Ry Cooder - absolutely magnificent, a lesson in minimalism. Just watching those guys, the way they approach it. God, how good is that! And he never took his overcoat off, Jim Keltner, big bloody old collar up and everything. It was winter. Pete: Whereabouts? Tony: Texas somewhere I think. Cold, in the desert. Just a big bloody overcoat on. No fuss and bother. What a beautiful, beautiful groove. You could see the delight on the other players' faces, getting to do it with him. Some gig in Hartlepool a few weeks ago, Peter King Quartet. He brought ... the drummer who used to play with .….. ? Bryan Spring. That's it - Bryan Spring. That was in the Studio, and my jaw was on the floor. It was like you'd been in jail for the last ten years, and watching Bryan Spring you were suddenly let….. open the door, you know, and let out. I'd never seen anyone play with such freedom and imagination and disregard for the rules. It was an unbelievably wonderful thing to watch. All your life you get those moments. Pete: I was thinking about playing as well. Are there any particular gigs you recall where you thought, "Ah, we nailed that one." Tony: Er, no. Sorry about that. Pete: They were all good. Tony: I never think anything I've done is any good, ever. Every time I hear it myself, I think, "What a load of codswallop that is". Pete: Or "I could do better…." Mebbe? Tony: Yeah. "I wish I could have another go at that." So I can't talk about what I do, because I don't like it. Pete: Have you always handled your own business side of things, or had anyone working for you? Tony: I've always had an accountant. The last accountant went to jail for financial irregularities. (laughs) I don't half miss him! When you have to get a proper one you think "What! How much?". (laughs). What a rogue he was. In Australia. In fact the first day I went to see him, this accountant, I sat there in his office, he said, "Have a seat, man," and the phone rang on his desk, and he answered the phone, and he said, "Hello, cocksucker!" I thought, "This is the man for me." (laughs) Six months later, he's banged up. But that's the extent of my business……. Pete: I was thinking about when you get work, session work or whatever, is it word of mouth? Tony: Yep. I wait for the phone to ring. I can't be promoting myself and ringing people up, I just can't do it. What am I going to say? They'll think, "Oh, not you. Fuck off." (laughs) I just hope, hope, and if you get the gig, hope to do the job properly. Pete: In a way, it's a small industry isn't it, it's a sort of a cottage industry. A lot of people know each other. Tony: Yeah. I've always been tarred with the jazz brush here, but I don't think of myself as jazz at all. I just have an approach to music. Pete: Some of Isaac's stuff is straight down the line. Tony: Yeah. It's harder to play. Pete: Is it? Tony: Yeah. With jazz you can get away with all sorts. Make some horrendous blunders, and people go, "That was a good bloody lick". (laughs) But when it's structured and organised, it's really hard to make that sound good. That's where watching Jim Keltner comes in. Try and pretend to be him. Leave my coat on. (laughs) Pete: Going back to your first, home-produced, album, which was quite a rare thing to do at that stage, early '70s, and it got some notoriety. There was perhaps only a thousand of them printed, but it's gone down in local legend and folklore hasn't it, that album? When you then got signed to Warners, and then it was Electric Lady and so on, was it a matter of things just going so fast day by day, did you just go with the flow, or ... how did you feel about that aspect of the industry? The recording studio and the gigs you were doing over in the States? Tony: Firstly, I was always the junior partner in Back Door, if that's the right way to put it. It was Ronnie and Colin's baby. So I just went along with the flow, for sure, it was nothing to do with me. But I always found it strange, that record companies go, "Right, we've got these guys now, we'll send them to New York to make another record, and we'll get him to oversee it and produce it". Pete: Who'd done Cream just prior to you. Tony: Yeah, where did that sort of thinking come from? What logic is it based on? It was a smashing experience, to work with Felix Pappalardi, it was great fun, but still the logic defies ... I can't see it. Why would they want to do that, the record company? And all the cost involved, which of course goes on our bill. You pay for it. It's just a laugh for them. So there you go with that one. Pete: And they pulled Pappalardi in, who'd just done Cream, who were a trio. Tony: Yeah. (laughs) I'm sure he got as big a shock as we did - "What the hell is this?" There was one stage on that album, I'd tried to play something and missed the drum altogether. Completely missed it. You can just hear the stick dropping and hitting the rim, and he said, "Oh, I love it, I love it, we're leaving it in." I went, "What? Don't be ridiculous." (laughs) He said, "No, it's in." Pete: What, the clatter of the stick? Tony: Yeah. "It's reality, that's what we want." "Thanks, mate. (laughs) There's my reputation gone up in flames". Pete: All three of you, really modest guys, who've worked with loads and loads of people, prising stories about the superstars out of you is just impossible. Tony: It's rubbish man, it's just a job. Watching Ronnie ply his trade, writing music for movies and TV themes, that's what it's really about, and he's made some really good money as well. But that's what's important - people who write the music for you to play. Not who it is. That doesn't mean anything. Pete: It just occurs to us, off the top of my head, as you were forming a tune, did your input as a drummer shift tunes? How did that work? Tony: It must do, just from the very nature of the band. There's only three people, it's got to have an influence on it. It's got to make it sound as it sounds. Pete: Only three of you, so separation is dead easy, you can hear everything. Tony: Yeah, exactly.There's nowhere to hide. Back Door….. there's no little cruisey bits, you're hanging on by a bloody thread. "My God, what's going on here?" Finishing a take in the studio, I was going to faint with the effort of it, it was that intense. This is hard work, hard bloody work man. (laughs) Pete: Having said that, you were flying in the face of what was going on at the time. Cream were doing tunes that were lasting twenty minutes, there was all that extended work in jazz as well as rock, but your pieces tended to be about three minutes. Was that designed? Did you say, "Right, this is what we're going to do"? Tony: It was trying to get rid of bullshit. Extended pieces are going to be drenched in bullshit at some stage, aren't they, just in the nature of doing it. So it was just trying to avoid bullshit, really. Pete: Did you ever talk about it, or did that just happen? Tony: You know, you make your statement… get straight to it. No small talk, no polite .….. get straight to it and do it, and that's it. Next one. I'm sure that's the reason for it. Pete: Did you talk about that, or was it just how you all worked? Tony: It's just …. You know, you'd play the tune, Ronnie would play his solos, Colin would play his solo, and play the tune. We're out of there. What can you do more? Put a drum solo in? Do me a favour. Or an extended …... you know …. you can't. There it is. It's that long. That's why it's three minutes long. You can fill it and pad it out, I suppose, play long moody intros, but it's not the nature of the beast. Pete: We've covered a lot…… one last question, Tony …. If you were in my position, sitting here, asking you questions, what questions would you ask? Tony: Can you lend us a fiver? (laughs) I don't know, Pete, man, just what you asked. Hopefully there's something interesting in there. Pete: Have we missed anything out, anything that occurred to you? Tony: Not really, no. I'm looking forward to getting back on the beach…… get me surfboard out. Pete: Okay, man, ta.
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