JLTT: Hello Mr Dick Taylor! This is Glenn Sargeant from Just Listen To This here how are you doing?

DT: Of course Glenn hello. How are you?

I’m good thank you. Thank you so much for doing this.

It’s an absolute pleasure. (Laughs) I’ve been thinking about this all day and I totally forgot it! I’m sorry to hear about your father (Pete Sargeant) by the way.

Thank you that’s very kind of you to say.

Well, we’re kind of both in the same boat aren’t we what with Phil and your dad?

Yes – it has not really been a great year has it?

No in many ways no. But you can’t expect them all to be 1967 after all?

“It wasn’t out of the blue really in many ways”

That is very true. I’m really sorry to hear about Phil.

Yeah – what I said to several people, it was not a huge surprise because I knew that he really wasn’t very well. A couple of people said that it was bittersweet because during the lockdown he was with his son and daughter and their kids and he was in a really good place. Both Mark St John our manager and myself were doing a Zoom meeting and we both simultaneously went “Phil, you are looking really good and sounding really good”. That was maybe a month before he actually died. At least the last part of his life was up until the last few days before the accident he was doing very well. But then he got a chest infection and then the accident happened as it was a result of the chest infection that he went on the bike rather than going for a walk. Like I said before, it wasn’t out of the blue really in many ways.

Obviously, he’d been unwell for quite a while but it is a weird one isn’t it because it is a shock and it’s not?

Yes exactly. That’s exactly what it was for me.

My brief if you like, (As Dad would say!) is to discuss the new album ‘Bare As Bone, Bright As Blood’. Where in the world did you decide to record this album?

We recorded it at 811 Studios. I’ve been going there for years and it is just a studio and no name over the door. It’s in Cowfold in deepest Sussex and it is quite rural. Interesting because Mikey Miller who’s studio it is, managed to acquire a Trident Desk from one of the big old film studios and it is a desk from the Eighties. In actual fact, he brought two of them and it is a wonderful console not without its issues. When he got there, the builders had decided that even though it is worth about eighty grand they couldn’t get one of them out of the room it was in so they chainsawed it in half which didn’t do it any good! So he finished up with one. Lots of vintage gear from the Eighties and Nineties and we used Radar to record most of the album. Mark St John is our manager and producer and he is a great lover of the Radar system which is so much like Analogue recording. Yes, we did record it on Radar but we kept it as Analogue as we could.

The basic premise behind it was the show with did at the Indigo at The O2 room in Greenwich; London really did draw a line over the electric gigs. We were intending to kind of relaunch ourselves in some way with an acoustic lineup. We never really did anything in a final format but we thought “Let’s record an album and see where to go from there.” Also, we were doing an acoustic section in the middle of our live electric set and we were constantly getting people asking us “Is this on records?” We recorded a couple tracks and it developed from there.

It is interesting with songs because Dad always used to say “Every single person in the audience at a show or listening to an album had their own favourite track. I don’t know if you would agree with that?

Yeah, I think you are right that is very often the case. Quite often, people agree on a favourite track on an album but albums that I used to listen to way back when I remember that track really stood out. You are absolutely right.

Each song has a different meaning or significance to people that’s why at certain events such as funerals and weddings the music is so important and the choice is important. The fact that you were doing the acoustic set in amongst the electric live show and people were asking if it was available shows that it must have struck a chord with someone.

It seems it and it always went down very well. That was the starting off point and we then looked for things to go with it without repeating ourselves. We wanted to broaden the repertoire on it and I think it is quite a wide selection of stuff. Also, it was just what worked. When it came to Phil, he was very conscious of lyrical content and because we haven’t got self-penned songs on there it was really a question of having songs we felt comfortable singing. He was doubtful of a couple of things and then when we recorded it he was happy with it. Other tracks he was absolutely behind them. However, we had to hammer it out and choosing which tracks to do was almost a longer process than recording the album.

When I think about yourselves I think “It must be a nightmare picking a setlist when you do a live show?” You have such longevity as an outfit and all this material a smorgasbord to pick from so when you say the selection was a long process I totally understand it.

Yes – When it came to onstage material it was very much what worked together and you have to take into consideration what the audience wants as well. That is so important because they are there. It’s not all about pleasing your audience but it is not all about pleasing yourself.

It is trying to find that happy medium.

Exactly. I remember we did one album we were all very proud of called ‘Cross Talk’ in the Eighties and we performed some gigs in Germany including Joe’s Beer House in Berlin. Most of the show was the new album because we were so proud of it. Despite it being musically one of our better gigs the audience were puzzled. You have to strike a balance and when you record a new album it is about easing a few of those songs into your repertoire but also making sure that everyone knows the numbers! Phil sometimes had to be encouraged shall we say when it came to new material!

I couldn’t agree more. But with a live show, if the artist or band looks like they are not enjoying themselves, there is a strong probability the audience aren’t going to enjoy themselves either.

You’re right. You are absolutely right.

They pick up the vibes.

Luckily, when it came to getting on the stage we did mostly enjoy ourselves. You have stand out gigs but particular with the final version of the band with the two young guys which had actually been the longest lasting of all the line-ups. We looked at it and thought “These guys were the longest-running version” and by the time it came to the final show we certainly knew what we were doing and we would have found it hard to do a really bad gig! It was so good to be so used to performing. The combination of the people we had worked really well.

Dad was actually at the show at the Indigo and I was looking through his things the other day and I found the T-Shirt from that night that he bought at the gig. He came back from that gig, and I’m not just saying this but he was smiling like a Cheshire cat going “They played these songs that you didn’t think they were going to play! Van Morrison and David Gilmour were there!” The funny thing is, he took a dear old friend of his called John and he had never seen The Pretty Things live before so the first time was at that show. Dad really respected what you guys do and he wanted to make sure that he could share that.

That’s a very nice thing to do I must say. (Laughs) I don’t think we disgraced ourselves that night. That was a bit of an odd experience as well because we knew that the show was going to be our final gig. Although, we did think “Maybe in a while if we were asked nicely enough with enough pound notes waved at us maybe we’d just come out and do another”. But unfortunately, the possibility of that melted away with Phil.

Were you ever able to do any live shows acoustically? I  read that you did an acoustic set in Guildford.

Yes, we did do quite a few with myself, Phil and Frank Holland the other guitarist and the Guildford one we did that with myself, Phil and Sam Brothers who is actually the other protagonist on the acoustic album playing guitar and hillbilly banjo. Quite a bit of it is myself and Sam playing together who is a young guy who is very good. We musically got on very well and we did working out of arrangements together. Some of them were very enjoyable but you are very much exposed in an acoustic gig like that. It was just another part of the deal and quite challenging at times I must say without a rhythm section to lean back on.

As you say, you do bare your soul and I don’t want to say ‘hide behind’ because that seems the wrong way of wording it. But you are very open and you have a sense of vulnerability.

Yes, you are right. The same thing applies for the album because it is very much Phil, myself and a couple of other talented people. It is very much stripped-down and baring your soul.

You have the album title ‘Bare As Bone, Bright As Blood’. What was the inspiration for that title?

To be honest, we were chucking titles around and I think I have to accept responsibility for that one actually because it was Phil and I talking and I just sort of said “It has got to be a reference to the album being down to bare bones.” We had just incorporated into it ‘Bright As Blood’ as that track was written by George Woozy the bass player from the electric band and it is him on guitar as well. It captured his fascination with Roots music an American and was a perfect fit.

Oh right.

He recorded it and it was going to be part of an album that never did get released and we asked him if we could use the song. Then when ‘Bare As Bone’ hit me, we combined it with ‘Bright As Blood’ and you’ve got it. Mark St John and I were thinking about it and there it came.

This might sound a bit but when I hear the title it is quite visceral if that makes sense?

Yeah, I guess so.

From an album artwork/cover point of view, it certainly lends itself if you wanted to go down that route. In terms of the album artwork, was it designed by anyone in particular or was it approached in a different way?

What happened was there were a few suggestions from Richard at the record label and Mark St John found some photographs and there were a few ideas. That photograph came up and I just leapt on that one. It doesn’t differ too much from the original idea Richard put out to us.

When I was trying to arrange this interview with Harry I said “I want to be able to talk about the album, the process and I want to keep it a balanced chat and really get your thoughts on it.”

Yeah. (Laughs)  Spit it out!

“He was such an amazing singer that when you work with someone all the while you kind of forget just how good they are”

Is there anything about Phil that you would like to say on record yourself that you feel you haven’t been able to say or had a chance to say?

I don’t know. He was very much a life-long friend and it was great that we didn’t live in each other’s pockets very much. So I think that was the secret that we got on so well and we always managed to get on as we had very few proper rows which was great. He was such an amazing singer that when you work with someone all the while you kind of forget just how good they are. It was towards the end of our career together and I started working with a few other people and I just started realising just how people reacted to Phil when they worked with him. It kind of made me look and realise what an amazing singer AND character he was. One of the things I truly wish is that Phil could have seen all the obituaries and tributes to him because I don’t think he realised just how appreciated he was by so many people. That’s what I wish he had known that he was a pretty towering figure and he didn’t realise it himself. I don’t know if I can really put it into words.

No, you are right. I remember when I was reading tributes for Dad and as you said you and I have been in a similar position and possibly a similar kind of headspace. I agree with you on that completely as I wish he had seen the love that was there for him.

That’s exactly the same with Phil and with people talking about him afterwards you understand how appreciated he was as a person. Funny enough, I have just been reading an interview he did with someone about his early life and it was gobsmacking. He had a childhood which almost mirrored John Lennon’s in its peculiarity because he was brought up by an aunt and whisked back away from his mother. It must have been a pretty traumatic childhood and I only got to know him when he was sixteen/seventeen after a lot of this stuff had happened. He was a unique person who could drive us all mad of course like most people can! I wish he had known how much he had been appreciated.

I spoke to Phil actually because I found his number and called him when Dad passed. I think you guys were recording the album at the time?

We would have been.

He said the line was really bad because it was windy and rainy. He was on really good form when I spoke to him.

Yes and a week or so before he died, he had been as well and happy as he had been for years which was great. It is a very weird situation as I think his last few weeks were very good and he started to realise this album was quite special. The reaction to it has been incredibly positive.

Thank you very much and take care of yourself.

Thanks for your time Glenn all the best.

The Pretty Things new album ‘Bare As Bone, Bright As Blood’ is out now on  Madfish Music. For more information visit www.madfishmusic.com 

(Many Thanks to Harry at Hanglands PR and Dick Taylor for this interview)