Music Interview: Stephen Duffy

I’d never really listened to them because I thought they were hopeless, but then when David Kusworth spoke to me about them, I thought they had a kind of period charm.

I agree – they have a lovely, adolescent innocence to them. They’re quirky and rough and ready, but very endearing…

In our innocence, we assumed that we’d just make a tape, go down to Rough Trade and they’d put it out – we didn’t have any ideas about signing with anyone else. Rough Trade have never signed me – the bastards…

I’d write a song with David [Kusworth] we’d rehearse it and then we’d record it – we wouldn’t think about it again. We’d just write another one – we didn’t have a plan.

We probably played 50 or so gigs. In the beginning I just used to jump around, but then I started playing the guitar. We did a gig at The Hare and Hounds [in Birmingham] and I took my Fender Twin amplifier on the bus.

Afterwards, I was left in Kings Heath with it, but, luckily, a girl who was at the gig called her dad and I got a lift home. Otherwise, I’d still be sitting there now, on top of my amplifier.

How much work was involved restoring the Hawks tapes?

I worked with John Paterno, who’s done all of the last few Lilac Time records, so I knew if he said it was OK to release it, it was going to be OK. He’s done his very best to get whatever was on tape out of it.

We had to try and get rid of some of the hiss and to get some separation – these cassettes had been sitting around for 40 years and some of them weren’t very well made. We had to bake some of them.

It was a gruelling process, but it’s an entertaining record, in a vague way, especially for people who are fans of David and are interested in my records.

I can’t imagine people sitting around and listening to it that much because it’s taken from 40-year-old cassettes, but it’s an interesting thing and you can hear that there’s something going on. We could’ve gone on to make interesting records. I feel like we’ve done justice to it.

How was it going through the Hawks archives?

It was sad because David Kusworth was gone, but it was a fun thing to do because the pictures of us looked so good.

You look at them and you think ‘I would’ve signed that band just on the strength of the pictures, let alone what they sounded like’. They had fantastic hair!

Those pictures and the name Obviously Five Believers – that’s got to be a deal in anybody’s lifetime! It doesn’t matter what the music on the cassettes sounds like, just get them in the studio with somebody – [Duran Duran producer] Colin Thurston, probably, and it will sound fine. But nobody had that feeling at the time.

Why was that?

Going right back to the ‘60s, Birmingham had been such a great place for music – my uncle and cousins had played in bands, and you had The Moody Blues, The Move and, later on, ELO, but, unfortunately, because it’s so close to London, people drifted away from Birmingham, so when the next wave came along, instead of there being all these great managers and studios, and people with experience to help you, there was nobody.

That meant that the next wave of musicians, like The Beat, UB40 and Duran Duran, signed to London record labels and had London management. The only people left in Birmingham who knew anything about the industry were complete stoners – you were just getting advice from very stoned people all the time.