SFX Issue 2

Your mother was one of the Vernons Girls, she was a singer as well. Did she ever sing solo?
Yeah, she did a couple of demos. She was a backing singer, a session vocalist in the old days. When she married dad she kept it up for a while, and then left. Me and Ricky were very demanding young children...

Why were you so demanding?
Well, we were little pains in the arses apparently, we were very noisy, very boisterous, a real drain on the senses. When mum got married she was 18, when she had me she was 19, had Ricky when she was 20. Imagine having two kids. I've got two kids now I know what it's like. And there's me helping and then there's a few other people helping us with the kids and it's still hard work. My mum did it all on her own in them days.

Whose kids?
Our kids.

You've got kids?
Well not my kids, no, my mum's kids. My little sister and my little brother. After the peak of dad's fame, when he had all the hits when he was a Fifties star, when that all died down, my dad, my mother and Justin Hayward went out and they were called the Wilde Three. They did some great stuff together, really good harmony stuff. And it was sort of haunting Sixties sort of music, really great.

I have no great ambition to go to America, but then I've got no great ambition not to go. I'm very sort of... I just got a deal there, with Capitol. Interesting, you know. You hear a lot about it.

Have you got any favourite singers?
Well, I think Lou Reed's vocal performance is hugely excellent. His inventiveness, you know. The way he was bending his vocal chords in all sorts of directions, singing out of tune but sounding totally right... And I think it's him and David Bowie, they've got it sown up on the male side for the white singers, for the pop singers. Aretha Franklin is pretty marvellous, Stevie Wonder I think is amazing, Otis Redding is great, and most black singers tend to have that edge about their voices.