The Osmonds – True Rockers At Heart

Well, you might wonder – how on Earth will English guitar man and satirist Pete get on with the clean-living Osmonds?? But a session was agreed as the Utah legends and their rock band prepared for a show at Guildford’s G Live venue. Pete leads with a confession, as he meets Merrill and Jay backstage…

JLTT: Welcome to Guildford.

JO: Well it’s great to be here, my friend.

JLTT: I have two small confessions and the second one you’ll like. The first time I saw The Osmonds on TV on the Andy Williams Show, I hated you!

MO: (Laughs) JO : (Shakes head)

JLTT: I’ll tell you why – it wasn’t you.. my mother used to play Perry Como in the house all the time and around this time I had just discovered Howlin Wolf’ and that set me off on my own musical career. When you were on the Andy Williams show you can’t have been very old either of you guys?

MO: I was seven when I started in the Andy Williams Show and you were nine.

JO: (Sighs) I was nine yeah.

JLTT: My mother said “We must come and sit down and watch the TV – look at these guys.” Then of course I got the whole thing (nothing to do with you) “They look smart, they’ve combed their hair and I bet their bedrooms are tidy.”

(Osmonds laugh)

JO: I can see why you didn’t like us!

JLTT: My second confession is – I had a secretary in the Seventies called Carol and she absolutely loved you and it was her birthday. I brought her an album (which I am going to ask for you to sign for me now please) and I took it home to play it through and make sure it was okay with no jumps. So I played it and I’m listening to track two (and I better be careful how I put this) but I went “This is The Osmonds?!” It was the one you made in Muscle Shoals.

MO: Oh! JO: Oh yes, Pete…yes

JLTT: To be honest with you, I completely re-evaluated you I thought “These guys can sing and play. There is a huge influence that I found on there of Sly Stone.” I would like you to tell me about ‘Phase Three’. What memories do you have of recording that record?

JO: Well we played all of the instruments on that one didn’t we Merrill?

MO: (Ponders) ‘Phase Three’… Yes we did.

JLTT: There is some great guitar and bass.

MO: We wrote all of the songs on ‘Phase Three’.

JO: ‘Phase Three’ is the one we did a lot of work on. We spent years on it actually, writing the songs and then taking it into the studio and recording it.

MO: A lot of it was done in our studio that we had built in support of everything we were then getting involved with..

JO: Yeah. We had this little apartment building where we all had to record it – in fact we did most of the recording for The Donny And Marie Show down in that little studio. With all the family involved, to try to make sure it was all successful

MO: Yeah that’s right. It mattered to us that we as a family could take care of business, build our skills up, really

JO: But we recorded ‘Phase Three’ there and I don’t know how long it really took to record it but it was one of our favourite albums. It’s great you gave it a fair listen

MO: Yeah. It’s a good tale, really good

JLTT: Well I’m glad to hear you say that because I thought I had underrated you and I’m being honest. I saw Jimi Hendrix, I met Jim Morrison because I’m very slightly younger than Wayne in the timeline. But I gave her the record next morning and said “I think you’ll enjoy this, Happy Birthday.” Ever since then, anyone I hear putting The Osmonds down I say “No – wait, don’t put the Osmonds down!”

MO : And thank you for that, what a time it was!

JLTT: This is great for me because it means I get to say to you that you are rockers at heart.

MO: Thank You! It’s appreciated

JO: Thank you so much that really means a lot to me. We’ve had to fight a lot of that battle along the way and I hear it especially from you and it makes me feel good.

MO: During the Seventies like Jay mentioned, we had to fight because everyone wanted to keep us in a sort of niche and when we got here to England it was ‘mania time’. The press didn’t particularly care for us because they thought we were ‘plastic’ and whatever it was. We were making front page and it was sort of hard on us because we wanted to stretch our music and let people know what else we could do. That’s what we wanted to do, anyway

JO : But of course you just got to hear the pop singles on the radio. It could be frustrating, though we weren’t looking to be admired or whatever,,

JLTT: You’re not alone, I was with an old friend of mine Phil May an old friend of mine from The Pretty Things and back in the late Sixties they were hanging around with Engelbert Humperdinck and he got drunk one night and he said “I hate the ballads I’m singing! I wanna rock out like you guys!”

MO: So what happened was Paul McCartney came out and defended us against all the press and stuff like that and we hadn’t met Paul McCartney. He just came out voluntarily and said all these things about us. Positive things. We since have just been great friends with him and we’ve appreciated the comments that he’s made. It has not been a battle as such, but a challenge.

JLTT: It sounded to me on ‘Phase Three’ and perhaps onwards, that you’ve obviously had some knowledge of Stevie Wonder.

JO: (Enthusiastic) Yeah! Oh very much!

JLTT: Led Zeppelin as well. I saw the original Led Zeppelin twice – and it sounded to me drumming wise that it was almost in your DNA because maybe you love that music I don’t know.

JO: We do. It is funny you mention Led Zeppelin because we were big fans of them and at Earls Court in London I think it was seventy-two Merrill?, they were performing there and we were there right after the next day performing at Earls Court and we went over to see them and they invited us backstage and we were there playing Frisbee with their kids. Then they said “Would you come up onstage with us and play ‘Stairway To Heaven’ with us?” We had a bunch of percussion instruments there and we went up on the back of the stage and (John) Bonham was right there and I go “This is surreal!” I was playing right next to him watching him play and I think he had a major impact on my drumming.

MO: The other thing I can say is that our whole career has been if we didn’t come up with something new every week we were not on The Andy Williams Show. It was a challenge for us every week to come up with something new. So that reflects itself I think a lot in the Osmond genre of music that we love variety.

JLTT: I know your Country recordings. I do play but we are playing more the Rodney Crowell singer-songwriter stuff. When you (The Osmonds) sing Country, it does sound (points to heart then head) like it’s from here…. and not here.

MO: Yes, it’s a natural thing, to us. If you can hear that, it’s good

JO: Yeah. We were raised on Barbershop and Gospel music so when it came to harmonies…

JLTT: Do you mean The Carter Family and that kind of stuff?

JO: We were raised when we were kids on mostly Barbershop music. Harmony was just a part of our DNA so when we recorded the Country music it just felt natural.

MO: Then of course we branched out into some other things but when ‘Crazy Horses’ came out it changed everything. It brought in the guys. Even though we were still young when ‘Crazy Horses’ came on the guys started to really pay attention to us.

JLTT: Lemmy from Motorhead really loved that record. He very much rated that. That is the thing with musicians- when you are young you are a bit ‘purist’ or whatever. I was lucky in 1970 I was hanging out with a band from Detroit called The MC5, real rebels and they opened my mind to stuff and made me listen to jazz and all sorts. I thanked them because I was less blinkered and judge records on merit. I tell you a good example – there was a Helen Ready record ‘I Am Woman’ which was awful but then she made a record called ‘Angie Baby.’

JO: Yes! (Jay and Pete start to sing the chorus) I remember that ! Great chords…

JLTT: You know as well as I do, chordally that could be Steely Dan but because it is not Donald Fagen singing and it is Helen Ready it does not devalue that fantastic track. It is a beautiful song, it has a lovely pre-bridge and chorus you remember. As a musician, I am looking for something that takes me somewhere else and if I hear Lovin’ Spoonful doing ‘Summer In The City’ I am there! Surely the great records, and ‘Crazy Horses’ is one of them, is where that happens and in that little three minutes you are taken somewhere fresh.

JO: (Nods) Interesting. I like your take on that.

MO: We talk about that onstage when you start hearing ‘Love Me For A Reason’ and the people just remember where they were when they first heard it, where it took them in their lives.

JLTT: It’s a snapshot.

MO: (Keenly) A snapshot, yeah ! That rides you to somewhere. But when we do a live show ‘the audience’ will be the show.

JO: (Warmly) This girl came up to us a few days ago and said “Don’t forget – they’re MY songs. We grew up together.”

JLTT: With my band I always say before we go on “Remember, these people could be anywhere tonight and they are here with us.”

MO: Yeah !! That’s so right

JO: (Thumbs up) I like that !

JLTT: “It is our job to make them go home thinking I’m glad we went out to that.” They’ve come in the cold to be in your company. The thing with you guys is what don’t you know? You’ve been doing this what sixty years?

JO: Six decades now. That’s a long time!

JLTT: It is. Therefore, you can’t be crap! (Laughs)

JO and MO: (Laughing) Oh no !

JLTT: I understand what you are saying. You’ve not stood in one place but you haven’t gone disco remixes and stuff.

MO: (Seriously) You know what we are, Pete ? Rockers – plain rockers. It’s hard to say that but it was a transition from one genre to the next until we got to where we are now. That is what Jay and I have been our whole lives.

JLTT: Can I ask you about the dynamic of the Osmond family – why was The Jacksons dynamic so rocky, compared to yours?

JO: Rocky? Do you really think it was rocky?

MO: Do you mean the lifestyle?

JLTT: The lifestyle and how they had some real ups and downs.

MO: I’ll say it this way, a foundation was established in the early, early days of our lives. We had a dad who was an Army Sergeant.

JLTT: So did I – Sergeant Major.

JO: Really? Cool. Well… you understand.

JLTT: He chased the Germans out of the desert and then went to Burma to rescue people being tortured on the railway, my Dad. Amazing guy.

JO: You can understand having a Dad who’s an Army Sergeant when we decide to do something as a family he just made sure he did it. Our mother was the one who created the love in the house and gave us the support system that we needed. I’m not saying The Jacksons didn’t but during the Seventies when there was temptation and all of the other stuff going on the Osmond family lived in this sort of a bubble. We went right through it together.

JLTT: But you see that is so unusual.

JO: (Emphatically) Very unusual.

JLTT: It is probably the reason that you are still here.

JO: We are probably the exception to the rule when it comes to something like working together for our whole lives.

JLTT: You are.

MO: We never had any brotherly spats but we obviously disagreed with each other on a few occasions but we’ve endured it and we will continue to endure it until we drop dead!

JO: (Laughs) No arguments there!

MO: So in terms of the comparison… I mean Joe Jackson as we all know was a very, very hard guy on his kids. I knew Michael Jackson well and I know Jermaine Jackson well and they’ve told me independently what kind of a life they had at home. We didn’t have that kind of life at home. So if you start looking at that core family issue, their structure was hardened.

JLTT: What you are talking about is a different shade of discipline is it?

MO: (Leans forward) I think so. A family that prayed together, worked together, stayed together, cried together. We were all in there together. And then we learned one other thing which is important – we all learned to crush your ego. If you don’t crush your ego in what we are trying to do then someone is gonna try and get ahead of the other guy. We respected the fact that Donny has his own career, Marie has her own career, Jimmy has his own career but Jay and I are The Osmonds.

JLTT: That removes you from what I would say is the ‘sports dynamic’ where if you have two sisters who are playing tennis at a high level you can bet your life neither of them wanna lose.

JO: Yeah.

MO: That’s interesting. Yes, our thing IS different, if you step back

JLTT: Jealousy is the one thing that is important to get rid of in your youth if you can.

JO: I think our father made that all really clear to us that we were all a team and we were raised like Marines. We had each other’s backs.

MO: I’ll give you an example – during the Seventies all that stuff was going on and all of sudden the television networks wanted Donny and Marie to have their own show. So what did the rest of us do? We had a career going we could have gone forever and forever doing our rock stuff. But we stopped it all and went right behind – and Jay was the Choreographer for the show and I was the Executive Producer for the show. We laid down everything to support Donny and Marie so the family moved into a whole genre leaving behind what we loved so dearly.

JLTT: But every step of the way you are picking up skill.

MO: Exactly!.

JO: We went in the backseats of the show business.

MO: We learnt all about syndication TV, worldwide distribution, foreign distribution, how to produce television shows, motion pictures, TV for movies. We learnt all of that craft having gone into that experience.

JLTT: Is it true Marie has eight kids?

JO: Yeah. She doesn’t know which ones were adopted – I think she’s adopted about six of them.

JLTT: A quick thing I wanted to ask you, I read that Alan had some back surgery?

JO: Oh yeah.

MO: Yes he had some back surgery about a month ago (October 2018).

JLTT: What happened there?

MO: He has Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and his spine is crooked so they had to go in and relieve some pain. I’m not sure exactly what they did but they relieved some of that pain from the spinal fluid.

JLTT: How is Alan now?

MO: He’s doing fine considering. I mean he can’t perform and do the kind of things he would like to do in the entertainment industry. Sometimes he is in a wheelchair and sometimes he has a cane. But he has a great attitude.

JO: I love his attitude – he says “I may have MS but MS does not have me.” Isn’t that wonderful?

JLTT: That’s cool. It is very easy to be a prisoner of your circumstances. It is quite something to step out of the spotlight and help your relatives.

JO: (Sighs) I like you. I like how you put things – usually we get certain questions but you are really deep. You really have some good questions.

MO: It goes back to our upbringing. Put it this way, when Jay and I are releasing a record, there are only so many stations that will play two Osmond records at the same time so we’ve learnt how to respect that. If Donny puts a record out we back down and if we put something out then the others will back down.

JLTT: You’re your own Motown.

MO: (Laughs) kinda

JO: (Laughs) in a way, yeah !

JLTT: They would never put a Martha and The Vandellas record out at the same time as The Supremes. The overall is more important than the individual. I had a very sad thing happen to me, one of the people I liked most in the business is Tony Joe White and he passed not long ago and I got the last interview with him. Did you ever meet him?

MO and JO: We never did.

JLTT: He was the real deal.

JO: I think you are a really spiritual guy. You say you are not religious but I think you’ve got a great spirit to you.

JLTT: Thank you so much. It’s cool to ask all the things I’ve wondered

JO: I really enjoyed that and it was really nice to meet you. Thanks buddy.

(With that JLTT gifts a blues album to Merrill and a Carl Palmer ELP Project album to Jay. Rock on, chaps)

Pete Sargeant