Basically, Johnny Moped (2013) Movie Script
And with us tonight
are Johnny Moped.
- Johnny.
- Yeah.
Where does the band come from?
- Uh, hell.
- Hell?
Well, we come from Croydon,
it's about ten miles south of London.
What sort of gigs have you
been doing in London and around London?
- Well, we started at the Roxy.
- Yeah.
- The Roxy.
- Yeah.
There is no one faking it less
than Johnny Moped,
he was tailor made for punk rock.
He was a legend back then.
The Captain and everyone just
loved him and talked about him a lot.
The worse you were,
the better people liked you in 1976,
isn't that great?
It was tremendous fun,
having battled for so many years
to just get one gig,
suddenly two, three gigs in a week.
It was a spectacle to behold,
you never knew what was gonna happen next.
The Mopeds and The Damned
and the Pistols and that
were going up on stage singing stuff
that related to normal people.
And um That's why everything changed.
One, two, cut your hair
Walking down the road
With my incendiary device
Looking for an ear
To blow it up with gelignite
Stick it in a lughole
Watch it blow her head apart
Stick it in a lughole
Stick it in her other part
Stick it in a lughole
Watch it blow her head apart
Stick it in a lughole
Stick it in the hole
I'm gonna blow your lips,
sweetie, hahahaha!
Ow, yeah, baby,
I really go for you a whole bunch!
Croydon is essentially
a very dull place.
It's full of people shopping
and lots of office blocks.
I never considered that there was
anywhere else to be, really.
I didn't know any different,
it was just Croydon.
But as we got older,
I think we sort of collectively realised
that Croydon is the butt of the joke,
and although we were very Croydon-centric,
we would sort of half support it
but half also take the piss.
And that was very much the ethos
of how the band grew up,
in what I now know is
this goddamn awful place to live,
and if I ever go back there,
please kill me.
The band
that we had in the early days,
three of us were from the same class
at Selhurst Grammar School.
I sat next to Phil
and in front of me was Fred
and in the next class was Xerxes.
John was just John until I looked
in one of our history books
and there was a story
of King Xerxes of Persia.
He seemed to think that John
possibly wasn't rock and roll enough.
I think because
it was the name of someone
who was quite powerful and important,
and John thought he was important.
Xerxes was always very cynical
and he still is very cynical.
Fred was always really cool.
At the age of 13,
Fred was quite remarkable,
he could grow sideburns
quite successfully.
He was probably the coolest guy in school.
Why did we all get together?
I don't know.
I was only asked in the band
because I had a drum kit.
My mum bought me a drum kit,
I didn't want to play the bloody drums,
but it was an opportunity
to be in a band, playing drums.
Captain went
to a different school, to Stanley Tech.
Ray, my brother,
he became a close friend to all of us
through music, really.
We used to watch
Top of the Pops religiously.
We just saw The Sweet
and Slade and The Glitter Band,
and we just wanted to be up there
doing that stuff.
It's the age old story,
I'm sure it still goes on.
Um, the...
Through friends and school
and things like that,
a group of people get together
that want to make music.
If we had spent half the time
Um
We'd spent discussing
what the band should be called
that we had on actually playing it,
that may have brought things further.
The band was
the Black Witch Climax Blues band,
but when Johnny joined,
we thought we'd better change the name,
and Genetic Breakdown seemed a good name.
I am the singer
of the group Genetic Breakdown,
the true singer.
No, believe me,
I'm not joking, this is true.
I met Johnny at a party
in South Norwood.
One of my school chums was having a party
and he lived about four or five doors
down the road from him.
And you know the expression
"life and soul," and he certainly was.
He was dancing and singing,
and I just thought,
"This guy is just like
a bundle of frenetic energy,
he's a megastar waiting to happen."
I think Paul
had this aspiration to be a biker
and he used to hang around with people
who thought they were bikers,
maybe they were bikers, I don't know.
One of them persuaded him one day
to go down the tattoo shop
and get "Hells Angels Croydon"
tattooed on his arm,
which he did.
He was a biker,
he was a wannabe Hells Angel.
He wanted to be Johnny Harley
or Eddy Vincent, or something like that,
but
He ended up with Johnny Moped.
He may have dreamed of being James Dean,
but at the end of the day
he was just Paul Halford,
and Moped was
as good as he was going to get.
I think he was
quite pissed off. He was
"Guys, do you think it is a good idea
then, this Johnny Moped thing?
Don't you think it sounds a bit weedy?"
"No, no, Johnny,
really, it's a happening name.
Don't worry, everything is fine!"
Johnny became the identifiable face
of Johnny Moped
and Johnny Moped was Johnny Moped.
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby
You've gotta rock the joint
Ray's Dad very kindly
let us use the place to rehearse
and it would normally be Phil's bedroom,
which was downstairs.
They weren't actually really
rehearsals, they were an event.
You didn't want to just keep playing
the same old crap over and over again,
you would just make it up
as you go along, and that's what we did,
we'd just make things up as we go along,
completely fearless.
He was very good at improvising,
that was the whole ethos of the band,
that we would improvise.
And he would make words up
and Xerxes would make words up,
we would make the music up,
and every week
we would do something different.
Okay!
Yeah!
Met my baby in an old side walk
She was coming through the town
Down an old side alley
We just aspired to play a gig,
just a gig in front of an audience
would just suit us fine.
There was this natural
amphitheatre called Beaulieu Heights,
up near where
the Crystal Palace TV aerial is.
And they had
a local festival there, in this park.
What did we do?
Most bands would sit down,
they'd work out a set list,
they'd have some kind of rehearsal.
Nah.
How did we start it?
Well, we started it by just following on
from the song
that the DJ had been playing,
and just off it went.
And where was the frontman?
Where was the singer?
The mic was standing there, on the grass,
in front of this bunch of local people
waiting to be entertained.
And they soon found out where he was,
because they heard the sound
of this Moped careering down the hill,
actually through the audience,
and he was a bit out of control
because it was such a hill,
that he was careering
through these people,
they were throwing themselves
out of the way,
kids getting out of the way of Johnny.
The picnics, he was riding through
on his moped.
And it kind of ground to a halt
in front of the microphone
and everyone was like looking aghast,
with disgust,
"Who is this complete pillock?"
And he said,
"Hi, baby, my name's Johnny Moped,
I've just flown in from LA,
come on, let's take it away, one, two"
What? I don't remember that.
I don't remember that at all.
That is
No.
No, I didn't turn up at Beaulieu Heights
because I was on holiday, but I forgot
to inform the rest of the band.
There she is again
Standin' over by the record machine
Lookin' like a model
On the cover of a magazine
She's too cute
To be a minute over 17
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
The funny thing is, when you start a band,
you have to interact, I suppose,
with all the other bands
in your local area.
And, um
We were universally despised
by everyone else who played
a musical instrument in Croydon.
There was a group.
I suppose, theoretically,
they were our rivals in Croydon,
called Dominus Contraband.
I'm sorry, I should say
Dominus Contraband
If you couldn't play your instruments
you were never gonna get anywhere
and they could play them,
because they could play
King Crimson's,
"21st Century Schizoid Man."
I remember the guitarist saying,
"They can't play their instruments."
And of course, that became
a great source of pride for us all.
You know, we can't play our instruments.
Give me an M.
Give me an O.
Give me a P.
Give me an E.
Give me a D.
What's that spell?
What's that spell?
What's that spell?
Ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce to you, Johnny Moped!
We couldn't get a gig anywhere
so we put our own gig on
in the back garden.
And we did put posters
all around Croydon advertising it,
"36A Broadgreen Avenue,
Saturday Afternoon."
I mean, we were so lousy that, you know,
where could you play
but the back garden, really?
There were a couple of kids
walking past
and we paid them six pence
to come and stand at the back.
Looked like there was an audience.
And they kept going,
"Can we go now?"
And the police came around,
"Okay, The Beatles over there,
turn it down."
I think Johnny piped up,
"We're not The Beatles,
we're loads better than that!"
I think the neighbours
were complaining
that it was so boring rather than loud.
Brenda was standing by the back gate.
There was a woman
on the horizon for Johnny,
and the 20 years difference
between them
was no bar to getting together
and being in love.
Johnny used to say
that he had 82% disability
and that's why he worked
at the rehabilitation centre.
At the same time,
Brenda was also working in there.
Yeah,
she was working in the kitchen,
I was washing pots and pans,
and at that time
she was a little cracker,
I couldn't keep my eyes off of her.
I remember a Geordie woman
who was a pastry cook, she said,
"That young feller,
his eyes are following you
around the kitchen like anything,
when you walk around."
She said, "Why don't you go
and say hello to him," stuff like that.
Such an opportunity arose
when I was behind with the washing up.
She said, "Come on, lad,
let's get this washing up done."
Brenda said,
"D'ya wanna come out with me tonight?
Meet you down the Windsor Castle
in South Croydon?"
That really spurred me,
I thought, "Oh, yes!"
Woosh, woosh, woosh! Washed out
these pots and pans and everything.
The boss lady, in the kitchen
at the Government Trade Centre,
couldn't make out how I'd done
all the washing up so bloody quick.
Well, all right, so I'm going steady
Well, all right, let people know
About the dreams
And wishes you wish
In the night when lights are low
Well, all right, well, all right
It did fizzle out, you know.
We just thought
it wasn't going anywhere, you know.
We're just playing the same old shit
all the time, blah, blah, blah
Phil had gone to Uni,
and Xerxes had moved north to go to Uni.
The other members of the group,
quite possibly, quite rightly,
thought that I had
sort of abdicated from the band,
and I suppose I had, but it wasn't
one of those things that you discussed.
It wasn't as though,
"You're in the band,
you're not in the band."
I'm in it for life, this is a life thing.
Johnny had gone off with Brenda.
Captain, myself and Fred,
we experimented
by joining different bands.
I was invited to join a band
with Slimy Toad in it.
Tor was
a progressive musical bore.
Which, you know
Well, in those days
it was enjoyable to play,
but things moved on.
Ray played
in another band called Oasis,
um, and he basically
learnt his craft in that band.
Because they were doing
different cover versions,
musically, you had to get
your shit together.
I found myself working
at the Fairfield Halls,
um, cleaning toilets.
One of the other porters,
he ended up being Rat Scabies.
And I remember he disappeared one day,
he said, "I'm off to answer
an advert in Melody Maker,"
which was known as the Bible.
He came back the next day
with all his hair cut off
and he'd joined this band
run by this mad, kind of visionary,
who ended up to be Brian James.
So that was The Damned.
He said, "They are looking
for a bass player, do you fancy it?"
I gave it a go,
had my hair chopped off and
Yeah, it was just a whirlwind.
Alright
Yeah
I was on Denmark Street,
and I saw a sign on the wall that said,
"Bass player seeks groupie."
And I called and said,
"You mean Do you mean a group?"
And he went, "I'll have either."
I played with Fred
in a band called The Unusuals.
That was me, Fred and Chrissie Hynde.
I called them
the "Berk Brothers."
They just looked like a couple of berks.
And we would rehearse
in Fred's mum's front room.
We rehearsed lots of songs.
Some of them, I think, turned up
on the first Pretenders album,
I know "Precious" is on there.
You're so precious
I think the way you move, move, move
Is 'cos you're precious
I think the way you
I think the way you are
Is 'cos you're precious, yeah
And then they fired me,
but they didn't tell me.
Make me wanna
Make me make it
Oh, baby, you're so mean
I was working
in a woodwork factory.
A colleague said, "There is
a couple of guys that wanna see you."
And there was Captain and Dave,
and they asked me,
do I wanna bring the band
back together?
Much as the local scene
in Croydon
hated the Johnny Moped band,
we were actually
just right for what was coming,
which was punk rock.
Whilst Captain was
in the Johnny Moped band,
he was also having some success
with his other band, The Damned,
having released
the first punk single, "New Rose".
I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why, I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be
I gotta new rose, I got her good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town
Oh
Na na na
We opened up this club
because we felt it was
the right thing to do at the right time
and things were bubbling up nicely
on the whole scene.
When we took on The Roxy,
unbeknown to us,
it had actually changed its name
because it had gone bust and lost
its licences a couple of weeks before.
Because it was originally called
Chaguaramas,
which was like a gay club
and it was just outside of Soho,
north end of Covent Garden.
No one else would have had us.
If it was any decent club,
it would have never allowed us
even to hire it and put a band on.
It was grotty.
The seats were torn
and stuck together with gaffer tape,
chewing gum on the floor,
and you know, it was pretty naff, yeah.
It was a basement place,
it had a really low little stage,
low ceiling, mirrored walls.
It was like an old gay club, really,
but really tatty and shabby.
I can remember watching bands
I'd watch one band,
Don would be in the DJ booth
and I'd be out right in front of the band,
and I would just laugh
throughout the whole show,
and so would Don,
we'd be crying, actually.
I'd see a band
come off stage and I'd say,
"Guys, is that like your own tuning,
or can you just not tune your guitars?"
They'd say, "No, we don't know
how to tune the guitars."
That was just magic.
Everyone would get up and have a go.
That really didn't matter, even if you
didn't know how to tune a guitar.
The thing about The Roxy,
what was important is that it provided
a really necessary ingredient
of any movement.
You've got your soundtrack
and you've got your main players,
but then you need
a place for them to congregate,
a sort of HQ
where they can exchange ideas,
and out of this exchange
came other things.
Johnny Moped was
introduced to us through The Damned.
Just a crazy, crazy young band.
But he was
one of all the crazy young bands,
he did stand out
because he was quite nutty.
Ray's commitment
to The Damned was too much,
so we had to find another guitarist,
so we got Slimy Toad
from that band, Tor,
that I used to be in,
and Chrissie Hynde,
who had re-named herself Sissy Bar.
She wanted to be in the band.
I got a copy of Sniffin' Glue,
and there was an advert in there
that the Johnny Moped band
were looking for a guitar player.
I called and it was like,
"Hey, it's you guys?"
"Yeah, you're the only person
that's called."
They fired me and I reapplied
for the job not knowing it was them.
So we had two guitarists,
and then we eventually did do a gig
at The Roxy Club.
I remember
I was wearing that pirate hat,
that's when I sing "Johnny It's You."
We redid a song called
Instead of "Baby It's You,"
it was about Johnny Moped.
"You should see
what they say about you,
they say you can't even
start up your moped."
He was kind of famous too
because his girlfriend was 40
and we all thought that was,
you know, really radical.
Toad's Les Paul guitar
kept going out of tune
because it was
so hot and humid in there
and I think Chrissie Hynde
held the first number together,
"Groovy Ruby," and stuff like that.
I was trying to get
a band together with a lot of people
but that was the one that really
We really worked out songs together
and tried to write together.
It was really important for me.
It wasn't
It wasn't a little thing to me,
you know. I mean
It didn't pan out, I don't know why.
After the gig, Slimy Toad said,
"Well, two guitarists, you know.
Me or her, make your choice."
I think that rings a bell.
I think he got in there
and got rid of me, but he wanted in.
It was one of those things.
You didn't take it
too personally or anything.
It's just What are you going to do?
Maybe it's the best thing
that ever happened to her.
Could you imagine
what it would have been like?
Chrissie Hynde, this mega talent,
standing behind Johnny Moped,
while he is singing "V. D. Boiler."
In a way, Johnny Moped band
launched Chrissie's career,
because she was excluded
from the band,
because you didn't need
two punk rock guitarists
playing the same loud power chords.
I was shit. I couldn't play.
They were more musical than me,
that was the thing, so no hard feelings.
I had a certain something,
which I took with me,
but they couldn't use it.
I was the last one.
Everyone else I knew in London
eventually got in a band.
I would just get a bottle of wine
and sit on the tube and go from
Stay on it for two hours and cry,
because everyone was in a band but me.
One, two, three, four!
Walking down the road
Johnny Moped band
came home to Croydon
and they played at the Red Deer.
Because it was Croydon,
Johnny's wife came along.
Stick it in her lughole
Brenda was there
because she was gonna see a concert.
And of course, what you do at a concert
is that you sit down.
She sat down on this bar stool,
in the middle of this crowd.
Once the audience
started pogoing, it was chaos.
We had to get her out of there.
Punks pogoed all over Brenda.
She fell off her stall.
She wasn't thinking
that they were
gonna start leaping all over the place.
She went down
and some of the other guys
went through the crowd
to bloody well grab her
and bring her to the side of the stage
before she got trampled on or stomped on.
She should have joined in.
Mind you, she was
She's been eternally 60, I think.
Yeah, she would occasionally
come to the gigs,
very rarely.
I think she just wanted
his time, and we wanted his time.
A conflict of interest.
Brenda's mother
exerted quite a lot of influence.
She disapproved of Paul
being a rock and roll star
because it would detract
from him looking after Brenda.
My mother in law wasn't into it.
No. She said,
"Oh, you're gonna bugger off
with that load of reprobates again?"
I said, "Yeah, I've got a gig, you know?"
"Ah, what about Bren, doesn't she count?"
"Well, she can come along if she likes,
I'll get her in on the guest list."
"No," she said. "No, you bloody won't,
and I'm not having her
on stage singing either,
making a fool of herself."
You can get on with it, girl.
If Bren wants to come with me,
she comes with me,
if she don't, she don't, end of, you know?
I mean, she's an adult,
she can do what the hell she likes.
She's not a bloody kid anymore.
So what's the bloody problem?
But there you go,
a bit overprotective mother in law,
who was rather feisty as well.
Used to give me bloody grief
at the best of times,
but mustn't speak ill of the dead,
I suppose.
Hey.
Watch out.
My friends were picking up guitars
and I wanted to pick up something too,
so I picked up a super eight camera,
and reinvented myself
as Don Lett's the filmmaker.
It was a lady that bought me the camera,
she was the fashion editor of either
Vogue or Nova magazine at the time.
Caroline Baker was her name,
and much respect to her.
He just started learning
how to use it at the club.
Hey, Groovy Ruby
To learn to use the camera,
he was just focusing
on what was around him, obviously.
And just amazingly
caught this footage at that time,
and it's a really good accident.
Don't come on now
Don't give me no jive
Groovy Ruby, groovy Ruby
Groovy Ruby, yeah!
Oww!
I'd been listening
to the tape for months.
Most people had heard the tape
or heard of the tape
or heard of Johnny by then,
you know what I mean?
And it was like The Beatles,
there was a whole thing around it,
a whole hype, you know what I mean?
Which is real, you know what I mean?
People wanted to know how Fred was,
how Slimy Toad was
and how Johnny was.
The great thing about seeing the Mopeds
was the attitude of it all.
You know, the fact that Johnny had been,
apparently, dressed by his mum
and the complete,
absolute lack of any care
about being cool,
which is very, very attractive.
They were like a bunch of kids
having a laugh,
which is what all rock and roll
should sound like.
Okay, everybody,
are you feeling alright
or are you half pissed
or half knackered or what?
Jesus! It's fucking hot in here.
Are you gonna pogo for this number?
Basically, it's called "Hard Lovin' Man."
In my diary, Easter 77,
I've got a flyer from The Roxy Club,
and The Buzzcocks, Johnny Moped
and X-Ray Spex played.
All for 1.50,
which was expensive in those days.
I remember going down
to see Johnny Moped
and we'd jump up and sing backing vocals
on "Hard Lovin' Man."
But that was unusual for me
'cos normally I'd stay in the shadows.
I wasn't really such a poser
as a lot of the characters around
in those days, such as Shane,
who always, if there was a camera,
he'd like leap in front of it.
I think
I first saw them at The Roxy.
They were amazing gigs,
all the gigs were amazing.
There was nothing
The band was the most exciting band
since the Pistols, The Damned,
The Clash, you know what I mean?
I think Andy Czezowski
was recording it for Live At The Roxy.
Johnny Moped there,
on side two, track one: "Hard Lovin' Man."
When you hired the Manor Mobile,
it was like the top tool of its day,
and it was full of engineers
with these big desks
they were all mixing
and reels were spinning
And all they did was to run a whole pile
of cables out of the back of the truck,
into the club
and down onto the stage, that was it.
It was a live album
and it was far from perfect.
What it does do,
it does capture the essence
of what punk was about,
and certainly The Roxy.
And it was a huge success,
it sold something like 40,000 albums,
which is like crazy, really.
At that time,
Roger Armstrong was
a talent scout for Chiswick Records.
He was at The Roxy Club,
and he was looking
for some signups.
Captain Sensible first mentioned to me
about maybe recording them,
I think maybe he tried to take them
to Stiff or mentioned to Stiff
but there was no interest.
I was kind of
helping things along.
There was a
I was just there.
I wanted to see this album made.
I knew it was going to be brilliant,
and if there was anything
I could possibly do to make it happen,
I would do it.
I'd seen them live,
thought they were fantastic,
part of the Croydon tradition
of musically competent punks.
He didn't want to sign up
any rubbish bands,
but he was rather interested in us,
so he made us a deal.
Yeah, I think I was ambivalent
with the deal with Chiswick at the time.
I was pleased that it was a deal.
There it was on the table.
But Chiswick Records I don't think
were gonna make us into superstars.
Uh, I mean, The Damned
had major companies chasing them,
and so did The Clash and the Pistols,
but we had Chiswick Records.
Dave and Toad weren't too happy
about signing to an indie label,
but they came round to it in the end.
And that was the launch
of Johnny Moped on vinyl.
He was out there. All of a sudden,
it was real. He was there.
Can't take it away,
he's a living "leg end" now.
The first single
was called "No One,"
and then we recorded a B-side
called "Incendiary Device."
And the B-side actually sounded better
than the A-side at the end of the day,
but because the lyrics contained
"Stick it in her lughole,
stick it in her other parts,"
it remained as the B-side.
But it has remained
one of our more popular tunes.
It was
our first Moped vinyl release,
and it wasn't gonna be our last,
so I was happy that we were on the tracks,
we were involved.
You won't tell me no lies
Tell me what you're doing
Remember where your time goes
I know what the news is
I am no one
And that then turned into the LP.
Yeah, recording Cycledelic
was a great pleasure.
I was really, really into it.
Well, working with Mopeds was,
to say the least, an experience. Uh
Let's say, Johnny was
less than enthusiastic at times
about coming to studio sessions.
Of course, you had to book
a studio session sometime up front.
Dave Berk,
Toad, Fred and all that
were absolutely serious
when we turned professional,
but I was having other problems.
We went in and did the music ourselves,
spent about a week doing that.
Uh
But of course, it came to the point
where we needed Johnny on the record.
A lot of the album tracks were interrupted
because we needed Johnny to do overdubs.
And he just wasn't available.
And despite Roger Armstrong
phoning him up,
and trying to persuade him
to come along and do the vocals,
there was nothing for it.
We had to go to where he worked
and we had to spin a story
to the receptionist
that there'd been an accident,
that his mum had been run over
so he needed to come out
and have a word with us.
Which he did.
And we said, "Don't worry,
your mum hasn't been run over,
but just let's go
for a cup of coffee in the car."
But whilst he was explaining
why he couldn't make it,
you would be coercing him
into the back of the car.
So as soon as he got into the car,
we locked the doors
and we were off to Chiswick.
And I believe
we also took his trousers away
as an emergency measure,
to make sure he wasn't
gonna run away from the studio.
But if you wanted to make sure
he was there,
you had to get to Johnny
before his wife did.
It wasn't so much Bren that was a problem,
it was her mother-in -law.
I seemed to let the mother-in-law
twist me around her bloody finger
just to keep the peace.
I've got to forgo this or forgo that.
I could have said to her,
"Bollocks to you,
I'm going out and finish this album"
or "I'm gonna do that gig,"
but she was a very domineering woman.
Once he got there,
he stopped being reluctant.
It was obviously some nervousness
about doing it in the first place
and coming up.
Yeah, Johnny sang the vocals okay
because he knew
that if he hadn't sung them well,
we'd be back the next day,
stalking him.
Fred was always
a little reluctant to be in the band,
and in particular, I don't think
he enjoyed playing the bass guitar.
He wanted to play the piano,
he wanted to do something
more sophisticated.
Fred actually had
a fantastic melodic sense,
and he was very keen as a musician.
He was a great bass player
but at his heart
was really beautiful melodies.
He quite enjoyed classical music,
and he enjoyed experimenting.
He liked being creative.
And I have a tape of Fred
playing solo piano music
in the style
of the French composer Erik Satie.
It was almost like a demo
that we did in the studio one day.
A bit of down time, he was playing piano
and I said, "That's nice"
and put a role of tape up,
a couple of mics around the piano
and we recorded him for a while.
I had an idea to do
the Fred Berk solo piano record
but unfortunately we never
got back to it and it never happened.
Because we were
on stage each night,
we were playing very similar songs,
and it was the shear intensity of it,
I don't think suited him.
He didn't think
that playing in the band,
the same songs,
was such a great thing.
But he couldn't think
of anything else to do
and he was increasingly becoming
an alcoholic,
with the problems
that came along with that.
With Johnny's reluctance
to turn up to gigs
and Fred's reluctance
to engage in the spirit of the thing,
we were always firing
on two cylinders.
Yeah, they were great players,
and you didn't have to work
too much with them,
in terms of struggling
to get performances.
They really were an extremely good band.
Johnny just had a completely natural,
instinctive approach to vocals.
The one he struggled with
was "Darling, Let's Have Another Baby".
Not surprising in a way
because it was a completely quirky
and eccentric piece
that virtually any singer
would have had difficulty dealing with.
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'd cry a million tears
I'd go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
And it was always a delight
when we were making the record
if the Captain turned up.
Captain suddenly became
this very responsible guy
who was there to look after Johnny.
He was terrific with him,
and he really put Johnny at his ease.
He so obviously loved the band
and Johnny in particular.
I knew there was
a genius album in that guy,
and Cycledelic
proves me right, really,
'cos it's just a
Just the most sensational record.
Darling-mmm-ha-ho-ha-ho
We did do a promo video
for the first single
and the second single.
The very strange promotional videos
produced by Barney Bubbles.
And he had some pretty weird ideas
that I thought were interesting.
Hi, Tom Cats,
this is Johnny Moped speaking.
Head case, ahh!
I hope you listen to it.
One, two, cut your hair
We tied up a naked lady
to the track of "Incendiary Device."
The idea was to walk around this girl
and to tie her up.
That was it.
I think we all just went, "Alright then."
Looking for a girlie
Blow her up with gelignite
Fred was so embarrassed,
having to look at this naked woman,
that you can see on the video
that he's just walking around like this,
as he's doing the ropes.
As an artist, he must have felt
that was the wrong way to portray it,
but in the end, that was the outcome.
It wasn't
a particularly good idea,
but nobody thought of anything better.
Some of the lyrics,
especially "Incendiary Device,"
nowadays are a bit hard to take,
to say the least.
Barney sort of managed somehow,
in the way that he presented that,
to turn it into a kind of art.
Sort of a kind of outsider art
kind of piece.
Very primitive, as we can see now.
The girl in them was
Steve Naive's girlfriend.
I would have to say they didn't make
Top Of The Pops , either of them.
Thinking back on it,
I don't know where we thought
they might get shown.
I actually had a bit of a hand
in the editing of the video myself
'cos I was quite fascinated
by how it was all put together.
And then they held this launch party,
and the only comment I can remember was
that it was described
as though it had been edited
by a chimpanzee
and it was universally slated.
The videos to me
really tie in with the whole idea
that Johnny Moped were this outsider art
'cos likewise Barney was like that.
Very strange take on the world,
Barney very much liked them.
The visual representation
of the band
was really down to Barney Bubbles.
He designed everything.
He designed the album cover,
singles, advertising,
and even the light bulb logo
that we've got.
The light bulb.
Barney was not a man necessarily given
to explaining his work.
It's interesting
the way it's used on the album,
because it's superimposed
on Johnny's face.
So it's obviously something to do
with that image
that Chris Gabrin took of Johnny.
It was a great sort of collision,
if you'd like,
between this kind
of art-world person, Barney,
and these guys that came from Croydon
with this very eccentric
and very strange take on the world.
It was a lovely match.
Chiswick put on a gig
at the Roundhouse,
and the idea
of the gig at the Roundhouse
was to put on four of their own bands
and make a live album.
'Cos we had a bunch of acts on Chiswick,
we were doing quite well by 1978.
They had the Manor Mobile outside
and the recording all set up,
but the one thing they'd forgotten
was the critical factor,
getting Johnny Moped to the gig,
nobody had organised that aspect.
So there were some frantic phone calls
to Johnny at the last minute,
and we had Xerxes lined up
to do the vocals instead.
We'd done the sound check,
we were about to go on
in about 15 minutes.
I can't say I was particularly
looking forward to it.
When this chap came up to me
and he said
He said, "You won't believe it,
Moped's outside and he's queuing
to get into his own gig."
I went outside and it was poor Johnny.
I'd got to the door
and they just wouldn't believe him,
that he was actually singing.
I turned up
with a mate of mine,,
just a few short minutes
before the band were due to go on stage.
Ahh, fuck it,
let's do it. One, two, three, four!
Hey, groovy Ruby
Get out of my life
It's way past time
I'm getting my knife
We had a few beers
In a side coffee bar
Don't come on now
Don't give me no jive
Groovy Ruby, groovy Ruby
Groovy Ruby
I don't know-ooo-yeah!
But again, Moped sounds great
on that live stuff,
they were able to do that,
they were able to play the stuff
very well live.
Those are the recordings
that are on the Johnny Moped
The live tracks
on the Johnny Moped album,
which very, very nearly
didn't happen.
I first met Johnny
at the Roundhouse gig,
because I had been to the rehearsals
with the band before
and they did it without Johnny.
I don't think he knew of my existence
or anything at that gig.
He didn't know that I was anything
to do with them or anything.
And I didn't know
I had an existence with them either
until the end of the gig
when somebody asked Berk something
and he said, "Ask our road manager"
and pointed at me.
So I got elected by default.
There was a point
when Johnny had split up with Brenda
and he started going out with Kay.
But because he had split up with Brenda,
he didn't have anywhere to live,
so the pair of them were offered a place
by Tony, our manager.
When they were at my flat,
I didn't have anything to do with them.
I just used to shut myself in my room
and leave them to it,
because it was such a bizarre situation.
The rest of the band didn't want him.
Because I'm the manager,
I've got to deal with it.
While I was with Johnny,
I celebrated my 17th birthday.
And he was a gentleman,
he was such a gentle soul.
He said, "We've got to get you something
for your birthday."
It's a shame I didn't keep the piece
of jewellery, but I've kept this.
"To Kaysa on your birthday,
here is a little something
to remember your first birthday with me,
Johnny Moped."
It's in one of those nice
corny envelopes
they used to do at the time
with jewellery.
"Shape, Gift and Fashion Boutique."
"The Whitglift Centre
at Croydon, Surrey."
It was a really good time
for the Moped band,
so there was always lots of things
going on and happening at the time.
Going to the gigs,
helping him to get ready for the gigs,
getting him to band practice,
you know, stuff like that.
It was lovely to be involved
and everybody was great.
It was really, really good fun.
A very good chapter,
especially for a 16-year-old girl.
When the publicity shots were done
for the Cycledelic album,
there was one of Johnny,
and on his left arm
was a "Hells Angels Croydon" thing.
The front cover of the album
you can still see
"Hells Angels Croydon" on his arm.
Not a great idea really,
because as soon as they find out
and you're not a real Hells Angel,
they get a little bit pissed off.
We were playing at Dingwalls,
and this Hells Angel turned up
at the front door on his chopper.
He parked his chopper
right on the front door.
The guy on the door
went to stop him or something,
he pushed him out of the way
and walked straight through the crowd.
Leaped up onto the stage,
come up there to the back room,
where we was all congregating,
and said, "Right, you, that tattoo,
that's coming off your arm.
You're not a Hells Angel,
you've never been a Hells Angel
and you're not entitled to have
that tattoo.
I'm warning you now,
if you don't get that tattoo
covered over or taken off,
I'm cutting your arm off
and I'll be at your next gig to do it."
We just shut up.
It was a case of We had, you know
We were super wimps.
His name was Goat, if I remember rightly,
he did introduce himself
before he proceeded with the threats
that he made, and then he was gone.
That was it and he walked outside
and Lemmy was in the bar,
and he spoke to this guy,
and he said,
"We'll get rid of it, the guy's not
what you think, don't go hard on him."
Shortly after that episode,
obviously, another gig was coming up,
and I said,
"We'll have to get it sorted out."
So there was a tattooist
that worked in Wandsworth at the time,
near Garratt Lane, in South London.
And I said,
"Come on, we'll have to get you in there."
All I had was a fiver on me.
We showed the tattooist this tattoo
that he had to get covered over.
He looked at it and thought,
"What the hell am I gonna do with this?"
I said, "You've got to do something."
"Well, pick a design."
I said, "We've only got a fiver."
And he said,
"The best I can do is a parrot,
because we've got to think of the colours,
I could do you a greeny-coloured parrot."
He tattooed over it and produced
this eagle with shooting stars.
When the Hells Angels turned up
in the dressing room,
they said, "Oh, look at the tattoo,
that's better, okay.
We'll let you off, we're happy with that."
Saved having my arm
carved up like a Sunday joint.
Tony and the rest of the band
were relieved
that somebody was gonna
actually take this in hand,
because nobody else
could afford to do it or sort it out.
So, yes, it was my responsibility
to get it covered over
with the parakeet.
I think looking back on it,
by the nature of the Mopeds,
being what they were,
there wasn't this sort
of long-term career in it for them,
by what they did.
There was nowhere for them to develop.
I mean, the Pistols broke up,
The Clash sort of developed
into a more mainstream rock band
with reggae overtones, etcetera.
The Damned sort of gave full vent
to their pop sensibility.
And Mopeds sort of had just
a wilful eccentricity about them.
If it was just down to the press,
the band made it,
they were the darlings of the press.
Nobody had a bad word to say about them.
We had a record company magnate
behind them, Roger,
who was well into it,
but it just wasn't happening.
So given that we'd made an album
with Chiswick
and they didn't seem
to be offering to fund a second album,
we went and looked
for another record deal.
I'd talked to the band and said,
"I can't do the things
that they want done,
I don't have that experience.
Maybe we should just find
a proper business manager."
I don't know what Tony was doing
or he was meant to be doing,
but I don't think he was doing as much
promotion as they probably wanted.
And all of a sudden,
these two blokes appeared.
Roger and James came along.
They seemed to have very clear ideas
about record deals
and visually
how we should be represented,
touring, etcetera,
so they became our managers.
They were getting him
some good gigs, I'll admit that,
but they wanted to change him
and market him a bit.
But you don't do that to Johnny Moped,
Johnny Moped is Johnny Moped.
What you see is what you get.
You don't start trying to create
this kind of image,
when he's already got his own image,
it's his own personality.
So all of a sudden,
this pair of leather trousers arrived.
"You make sure
that he wears these trousers."
I said, "You can't make him wear
a pair of flared leather trousers,
punks don't wear flared trousers."
"What do you mean?"
They didn't like it, but I said,
"He's not comfortable in them,"
so they went
and got these tarted up and done.
I still didn't think
they looked right on him,
but anyway,
he went ahead and wore those.
Uh-look-ah there
Here she comes
They got him
this very prestigious gig
at the Music Machine,
which was really good venue
to play at the time.
But she don't notice me when I pass
All of a sudden,
word had got about,
"Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen
are here, oh, my God!"
She's sure fine lookin', man
She's somethin' else
The word was
that the reason Sid Vicious
had come to see Johnny Moped
was because he heard that he was doing
a version of "Something Else."
There was a lot of excitement around,
there's people saying, "Oh, my God,
it's them, it's them, it's them."
And this lovely little girl came along
and started to take a couple of pictures,
and next thing you knew,
Nancy Spungen went into fire mode.
And this poor girl was on the ground
with her camera.
She stamped on her camera,
it was a terrible scene.
Obviously, Johnny
was very anxious about that gig
because there was a big crowd there,
Sid Vicious was also there.
There was a lot of expectation put on him,
and of course, the managers wanted him
in those leather trousers,
and there was makeup involved.
I thought, "If we're gonna go for it,
let's put a bit of makeup on."
Looking back on the photos now
he looked very good, he did look good.
I don't think he was
particularly comfortable with it,
but he did go ahead with it, and I think
he gave a really good performance.
I got that girl
And I'm-ah thinkin' to myself
She's sure fine lookin', man
She's somethin' else
Then, all of a sudden,
there was an announcement,
"Right, we've got
you and Johnny a flat."
It was a quite a nice little flat.
"This is it, you're gonna move in here,
you're gonna live together
and you're gonna look after him."
I said, "All right, okay then."
"You're gonna pay your half
of the rent, here's your rent book.
You'll pay your half of the bills,
and you make sure he's alright."
And they just left us to it.
Dave Berk moved my stuff in,
Johnny didn't have much stuff to move in.
And we were there a couple of weeks.
We even got a kitten called Kipper.
And we tried to do
this kind of domestic bliss thing,
but unfortunately,
at that time I was quite flighty.
I mean, I'd just turned 17,
and I thought, "Oh"
Looking back at it now, I can see
that I was there to look after him.
At that age, I was just having trouble
looking after myself,
let alone looking after somebody else,
and I just decided
I didn't want to do that anymore.
Johnny went back to Brenda
and to quickly cement their relationship
and their getting back together,
they got married.
We were married
in Croydon registry office.
Brenda's family
didn't want her to marry me.
It was a private reg, just me, my wife
Me and my bride-to-be
and two witnesses, that was all.
There was no members
of either family present.
Um
It didn't make for, how should we say
Um
The normal progress
that a group like that would make
because you were having
to deal with things
that possibly lots of other people
wouldn't have to deal with.
For example,
having to kidnap your lead singer,
and also having your bass player
completely unable to stand
because he was so drunk.
Desperate times.
We were aiming the band forward,
and there always seemed to be something
that wasn't right.
Fred was a typical artist,
he had moody depressions
and then extreme humour,
and that could be at any time.
The drink was beginning to take its toll,
and he was becoming
more and more erratic in gigs,
and I think it was beginning
It was certainly frustrating the others.
He was a total pisshead.
I remember when we was going up the M1,
he had this big grey mac on,
and he was pulling out
flagons of bloody cider.
We played the Sandpiper club
in Nottingham,
he was playing bass quite well,
then all of a sudden the bass stopped,
when I was half way through a song,
and there's Fred, a crumpled heap
in front of his sound system
with a bass slung over him,
and I went, "Oh, no!"
You can't sustain a band
where the singer doesn't turn up
and the bass player
is completely pissed all the time.
And there was another incident
at the Lyceum Ballroom,
where The Lurkers had played.
Fred was playing
all the wrong bass lines
and Dave got so pissed off.
We were on the verge of a fairly
lucrative deal with Decca records,
and all we had to do was play one gig
and hold it together.
Uh
And Fred said to me before the gig,
"I'm not going to bother
to hold it together."
And he got completely drunk and I didn't
hear him play a right note all night.
But of course,
the thing that ultimately blew it,
was the fact that I threw him
off the stage at the end.
Yeah, Dave just got off the drums
and pushed Fred off the bloody stage.
And he was sent off with a concussion.
We might have gotten away with it,
I don't know.
So that was the end of the band really.
The door had opened,
you'd seen what was in there,
and you just didn't want to
It was just not
I didn't like what I saw, it wasn't
Johnny Moped was gonna remain legendary.
It wasn't gonna be a dizzy heights
or it wasn't gonna be on-going,
he's always gonna be a "leg end."
Fred left the band, and then
Slimy Toad lost interest in playing.
Because the pair of us, me and Slimy,
were the driving force behind the band
and we got so frustrated
with the other two, it
Yeah, I think
that's what did it for us really.
One day we were looking
through the local paper,
which had just come out,
my wife and me,
and we saw that a local man
had been killed under a train,
and just looking through
we saw the name was Colin Mills,
which is Fred's real name.
The manic depression
I suppose it was compounded
by the beer and maybe
the downers he was taking,
and ended up with him taking his life,
which was a terrible, terrible waste.
I saw him about a month
before he threw himself under the train.
We were drinking
in a pub in Croydon,
and he was fantastic,
he was just like the old Fred,
it was just absolutely a joy to behold.
Obviously we were drinking,
but it wasn't anything unpleasant.
And I said,
"Fred, what's with the madness?"
And he said, "Nah, it's alright,
I'm just doing it to upset my mum."
So, um You know, that was about it.
That was about the limit
of our discussion with it.
And, um
And then Dave rung me up at home
to say that he'd
That he was dead. And
And I miss him every day.
If you can think back 365 days,
you might even remember
that this particular record
by The Pretenders was number one,
its title is "Brass in Pocket."
I got brass in my pocket
I got bottle, I'm gonna use it
Tell me
about how "Happy Talk" came about.
That was a terrific hit for you.
It was just a pure and utter
stroke of luck really.
We were looking for a song to cover
and that's the one we chose.
When we were recording it, we actually
thought that we were going too far.
Actually, they wacked it out,
and in two weeks it was a hit record,
so you just can't tell, can you?
You have had a couple of In fact,
three records into the Top 30 already.
Yeah, and The Damned
have had some hits as well.
imagination
'Cause I'm gonna make you see
There's nobody else here
No one like me
I'm special
Special
So special
Special
I got to have some of your attention
Give it to me
We were all signing on,
and surviving as best we could,
on a rock and roll doll.
Slimy Toad, a guy called Jacko,
who played bass, and myself,
were all living
in the same flat together.
We decided,
"Well, we might go out and play a tour."
We'd get a little generator
and see if we could go out
and play obscure places.
I remember it because it was my birthday.
We put the band in the back of a van
and we got Jacko Pistorius
to play bass for us.
The ideal singer to get
was Johnny Moped.
I said to them at the time,
"I'd have to be pissed to do this."
It came about that to pay the rent,
I would have to sell my guitar,
so that's what I did.
Yeah, we went
and borrowed a guitar.
Is this the promotional video, Dave?
We took the band out in a transit van.
Drums and all, everything, PA
Back of the van,
and set up outside the pub.
I got the lumps in my throat
When I saw her coming down the aisle
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me
And sweetly smiled
There she is again
Standing over by the record machine
The last piece of footage
you saw on this video
was shot in Wallingham,
outside the White Lion pub.
And
I think it was
a really tremendous experience,
you know, we've never done
something like this before.
Go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said, go, go, go, Little Queenie
We played Warlingham Green
and proceeded down to Wapses Lodge
and played inside a roundabout.
We decided to do this in the middle
of winter, which was a bit crazy.
We were all huddled up
in scarves and gloves.
It was refreshing.
Everyone was into it, it was fun.
It's how music should be.
From then on,
we went to Croydon.
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me
And sweetly smiled
There she is again
Standing over by the record machine
We played outside the Fairfield Halls.
Go, go, go, Little Queenie
We did get to play
outside the Fairfield Halls,
'cos we never managed to play
inside the Fairfield Halls.
Until the commissioner came along
and slung us off.
It was an experience,
it was different,
but not one I'd want to repeat.
It was good,
the band were back together,
and it was functioning again.
It started the band
getting back together again
and we played a few gigs after that
as the Johnny Moped band.
- Right, okay, let's pack up.
- Thank you!
Please, if not, they'll be onto me
like nobody's business.
Right, okay, cheers, gov.
That's The Pretenders at number one
this week and maybe next week,
you'll have to tune
into Top Of The Pops to find out.
We'll see you then.
My one artefact, probably, from 1970
Probably the only thing I have
from days of yore.
Yeah, Brenda must be in her late 70s now.
Awesome.
And she still won't let him
do anything, amazing.
It's just unbelievable,
when you think back on it
and stuff like that.
Mind you, it left me scratching my head.
I thought,
"What the hell was going on with me
all them years ago?"
You don't have
a choice of lives, this is it.
I loved it at the time, it was fantastic.
I can't believe we're still doing it.
- One, two, three.
- One, two. One, two.
One, two, three, four!
All you tom cats
Haven't got any bread
Smashing up the suburbs
'Cos we ain't been fed
Betting on the horses
'Cos we need to pay the rent
Skipping over barriers
And the fog machines get bent
Tension and unrest
'Cos the panic button has been pressed
There's gonna be nothing left
Panic Button, Panic Button
Panic Button, Panic Button
Stabbed my teacher when I was young
Stole mum's money for my fruit gums
Never learnt much
I was always on the run
What's wrong now
Well, I'm always getting drunk
I'm left out
'Cos I'm always called a punk
Don't wanna work
Just wanna have some fun
Maybe cause a riot
Gonna hit and run
Panic Button
Panic Button, Panic
What was that?
Well, that'll be
The day when you say goodbye
Yes, that'll be the day
When you make me cry
You say you're gonna leave
Ah, let's do it
Let's do it in style.
Well, that'll be the day
When you say goodbye
Yes, that'll be the day
When you make me cry
You say you're gonna leave
You know it's a lie
'Cause that'll be the day
I live in Caterham-on-the-Hill,
which is off the Couldson Road.
At the moment
I'm a full time carer for my wife.
She has mobility problems
and stuff like that.
So I'm practically hands on
almost 24 hours a day.
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Oh, she hasn't forgotten, has she?
- That's right.
- Yeah.
Johnny was
a great rock and roll singer,
harking back to much earlier days.
Kind of the real heart
and real core of rock and roll.
Johnny could do that kind of thing,
he was great at it.
The guy is a genius,
and he deserves
every success that he gets.
He was a star,
Uh
Just not quite in the same world
that everybody else existed in.
We're gonna do
a number of our Roxy album,
it's a number called "Hard Lovin' Man."
Riding down to Memphis
Solo head
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
Well, Saturday night
I was boogying on the town, yeah
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
This is our original guitarist,
ladies and gentlemen.
Captain Sensible.
He's our founding guitarist.
Yeah!
Riding down to Memphis
Solo head
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
Oh, please.
Ow!
Johnny Moped!
This guy
is our original guitarist,
Captain Sensible, from years ago.
Somebody threw
some knickers at you, Johnny.
No less than he deserves.
The legend is back!
Croydon's finest, Johnny Moped,
I thought I'd never see the day.
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
ling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
Oh! On our second honeymoon
Darling, when we have our baby
I'll be quite happy
To wash and change its nappy
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
are Johnny Moped.
- Johnny.
- Yeah.
Where does the band come from?
- Uh, hell.
- Hell?
Well, we come from Croydon,
it's about ten miles south of London.
What sort of gigs have you
been doing in London and around London?
- Well, we started at the Roxy.
- Yeah.
- The Roxy.
- Yeah.
There is no one faking it less
than Johnny Moped,
he was tailor made for punk rock.
He was a legend back then.
The Captain and everyone just
loved him and talked about him a lot.
The worse you were,
the better people liked you in 1976,
isn't that great?
It was tremendous fun,
having battled for so many years
to just get one gig,
suddenly two, three gigs in a week.
It was a spectacle to behold,
you never knew what was gonna happen next.
The Mopeds and The Damned
and the Pistols and that
were going up on stage singing stuff
that related to normal people.
And um That's why everything changed.
One, two, cut your hair
Walking down the road
With my incendiary device
Looking for an ear
To blow it up with gelignite
Stick it in a lughole
Watch it blow her head apart
Stick it in a lughole
Stick it in her other part
Stick it in a lughole
Watch it blow her head apart
Stick it in a lughole
Stick it in the hole
I'm gonna blow your lips,
sweetie, hahahaha!
Ow, yeah, baby,
I really go for you a whole bunch!
Croydon is essentially
a very dull place.
It's full of people shopping
and lots of office blocks.
I never considered that there was
anywhere else to be, really.
I didn't know any different,
it was just Croydon.
But as we got older,
I think we sort of collectively realised
that Croydon is the butt of the joke,
and although we were very Croydon-centric,
we would sort of half support it
but half also take the piss.
And that was very much the ethos
of how the band grew up,
in what I now know is
this goddamn awful place to live,
and if I ever go back there,
please kill me.
The band
that we had in the early days,
three of us were from the same class
at Selhurst Grammar School.
I sat next to Phil
and in front of me was Fred
and in the next class was Xerxes.
John was just John until I looked
in one of our history books
and there was a story
of King Xerxes of Persia.
He seemed to think that John
possibly wasn't rock and roll enough.
I think because
it was the name of someone
who was quite powerful and important,
and John thought he was important.
Xerxes was always very cynical
and he still is very cynical.
Fred was always really cool.
At the age of 13,
Fred was quite remarkable,
he could grow sideburns
quite successfully.
He was probably the coolest guy in school.
Why did we all get together?
I don't know.
I was only asked in the band
because I had a drum kit.
My mum bought me a drum kit,
I didn't want to play the bloody drums,
but it was an opportunity
to be in a band, playing drums.
Captain went
to a different school, to Stanley Tech.
Ray, my brother,
he became a close friend to all of us
through music, really.
We used to watch
Top of the Pops religiously.
We just saw The Sweet
and Slade and The Glitter Band,
and we just wanted to be up there
doing that stuff.
It's the age old story,
I'm sure it still goes on.
Um, the...
Through friends and school
and things like that,
a group of people get together
that want to make music.
If we had spent half the time
Um
We'd spent discussing
what the band should be called
that we had on actually playing it,
that may have brought things further.
The band was
the Black Witch Climax Blues band,
but when Johnny joined,
we thought we'd better change the name,
and Genetic Breakdown seemed a good name.
I am the singer
of the group Genetic Breakdown,
the true singer.
No, believe me,
I'm not joking, this is true.
I met Johnny at a party
in South Norwood.
One of my school chums was having a party
and he lived about four or five doors
down the road from him.
And you know the expression
"life and soul," and he certainly was.
He was dancing and singing,
and I just thought,
"This guy is just like
a bundle of frenetic energy,
he's a megastar waiting to happen."
I think Paul
had this aspiration to be a biker
and he used to hang around with people
who thought they were bikers,
maybe they were bikers, I don't know.
One of them persuaded him one day
to go down the tattoo shop
and get "Hells Angels Croydon"
tattooed on his arm,
which he did.
He was a biker,
he was a wannabe Hells Angel.
He wanted to be Johnny Harley
or Eddy Vincent, or something like that,
but
He ended up with Johnny Moped.
He may have dreamed of being James Dean,
but at the end of the day
he was just Paul Halford,
and Moped was
as good as he was going to get.
I think he was
quite pissed off. He was
"Guys, do you think it is a good idea
then, this Johnny Moped thing?
Don't you think it sounds a bit weedy?"
"No, no, Johnny,
really, it's a happening name.
Don't worry, everything is fine!"
Johnny became the identifiable face
of Johnny Moped
and Johnny Moped was Johnny Moped.
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby, let's groove
I said, baby
You've gotta rock the joint
Ray's Dad very kindly
let us use the place to rehearse
and it would normally be Phil's bedroom,
which was downstairs.
They weren't actually really
rehearsals, they were an event.
You didn't want to just keep playing
the same old crap over and over again,
you would just make it up
as you go along, and that's what we did,
we'd just make things up as we go along,
completely fearless.
He was very good at improvising,
that was the whole ethos of the band,
that we would improvise.
And he would make words up
and Xerxes would make words up,
we would make the music up,
and every week
we would do something different.
Okay!
Yeah!
Met my baby in an old side walk
She was coming through the town
Down an old side alley
We just aspired to play a gig,
just a gig in front of an audience
would just suit us fine.
There was this natural
amphitheatre called Beaulieu Heights,
up near where
the Crystal Palace TV aerial is.
And they had
a local festival there, in this park.
What did we do?
Most bands would sit down,
they'd work out a set list,
they'd have some kind of rehearsal.
Nah.
How did we start it?
Well, we started it by just following on
from the song
that the DJ had been playing,
and just off it went.
And where was the frontman?
Where was the singer?
The mic was standing there, on the grass,
in front of this bunch of local people
waiting to be entertained.
And they soon found out where he was,
because they heard the sound
of this Moped careering down the hill,
actually through the audience,
and he was a bit out of control
because it was such a hill,
that he was careering
through these people,
they were throwing themselves
out of the way,
kids getting out of the way of Johnny.
The picnics, he was riding through
on his moped.
And it kind of ground to a halt
in front of the microphone
and everyone was like looking aghast,
with disgust,
"Who is this complete pillock?"
And he said,
"Hi, baby, my name's Johnny Moped,
I've just flown in from LA,
come on, let's take it away, one, two"
What? I don't remember that.
I don't remember that at all.
That is
No.
No, I didn't turn up at Beaulieu Heights
because I was on holiday, but I forgot
to inform the rest of the band.
There she is again
Standin' over by the record machine
Lookin' like a model
On the cover of a magazine
She's too cute
To be a minute over 17
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said
Go, go, go, go, Little Queenie
The funny thing is, when you start a band,
you have to interact, I suppose,
with all the other bands
in your local area.
And, um
We were universally despised
by everyone else who played
a musical instrument in Croydon.
There was a group.
I suppose, theoretically,
they were our rivals in Croydon,
called Dominus Contraband.
I'm sorry, I should say
Dominus Contraband
If you couldn't play your instruments
you were never gonna get anywhere
and they could play them,
because they could play
King Crimson's,
"21st Century Schizoid Man."
I remember the guitarist saying,
"They can't play their instruments."
And of course, that became
a great source of pride for us all.
You know, we can't play our instruments.
Give me an M.
Give me an O.
Give me a P.
Give me an E.
Give me a D.
What's that spell?
What's that spell?
What's that spell?
Ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce to you, Johnny Moped!
We couldn't get a gig anywhere
so we put our own gig on
in the back garden.
And we did put posters
all around Croydon advertising it,
"36A Broadgreen Avenue,
Saturday Afternoon."
I mean, we were so lousy that, you know,
where could you play
but the back garden, really?
There were a couple of kids
walking past
and we paid them six pence
to come and stand at the back.
Looked like there was an audience.
And they kept going,
"Can we go now?"
And the police came around,
"Okay, The Beatles over there,
turn it down."
I think Johnny piped up,
"We're not The Beatles,
we're loads better than that!"
I think the neighbours
were complaining
that it was so boring rather than loud.
Brenda was standing by the back gate.
There was a woman
on the horizon for Johnny,
and the 20 years difference
between them
was no bar to getting together
and being in love.
Johnny used to say
that he had 82% disability
and that's why he worked
at the rehabilitation centre.
At the same time,
Brenda was also working in there.
Yeah,
she was working in the kitchen,
I was washing pots and pans,
and at that time
she was a little cracker,
I couldn't keep my eyes off of her.
I remember a Geordie woman
who was a pastry cook, she said,
"That young feller,
his eyes are following you
around the kitchen like anything,
when you walk around."
She said, "Why don't you go
and say hello to him," stuff like that.
Such an opportunity arose
when I was behind with the washing up.
She said, "Come on, lad,
let's get this washing up done."
Brenda said,
"D'ya wanna come out with me tonight?
Meet you down the Windsor Castle
in South Croydon?"
That really spurred me,
I thought, "Oh, yes!"
Woosh, woosh, woosh! Washed out
these pots and pans and everything.
The boss lady, in the kitchen
at the Government Trade Centre,
couldn't make out how I'd done
all the washing up so bloody quick.
Well, all right, so I'm going steady
Well, all right, let people know
About the dreams
And wishes you wish
In the night when lights are low
Well, all right, well, all right
It did fizzle out, you know.
We just thought
it wasn't going anywhere, you know.
We're just playing the same old shit
all the time, blah, blah, blah
Phil had gone to Uni,
and Xerxes had moved north to go to Uni.
The other members of the group,
quite possibly, quite rightly,
thought that I had
sort of abdicated from the band,
and I suppose I had, but it wasn't
one of those things that you discussed.
It wasn't as though,
"You're in the band,
you're not in the band."
I'm in it for life, this is a life thing.
Johnny had gone off with Brenda.
Captain, myself and Fred,
we experimented
by joining different bands.
I was invited to join a band
with Slimy Toad in it.
Tor was
a progressive musical bore.
Which, you know
Well, in those days
it was enjoyable to play,
but things moved on.
Ray played
in another band called Oasis,
um, and he basically
learnt his craft in that band.
Because they were doing
different cover versions,
musically, you had to get
your shit together.
I found myself working
at the Fairfield Halls,
um, cleaning toilets.
One of the other porters,
he ended up being Rat Scabies.
And I remember he disappeared one day,
he said, "I'm off to answer
an advert in Melody Maker,"
which was known as the Bible.
He came back the next day
with all his hair cut off
and he'd joined this band
run by this mad, kind of visionary,
who ended up to be Brian James.
So that was The Damned.
He said, "They are looking
for a bass player, do you fancy it?"
I gave it a go,
had my hair chopped off and
Yeah, it was just a whirlwind.
Alright
Yeah
I was on Denmark Street,
and I saw a sign on the wall that said,
"Bass player seeks groupie."
And I called and said,
"You mean Do you mean a group?"
And he went, "I'll have either."
I played with Fred
in a band called The Unusuals.
That was me, Fred and Chrissie Hynde.
I called them
the "Berk Brothers."
They just looked like a couple of berks.
And we would rehearse
in Fred's mum's front room.
We rehearsed lots of songs.
Some of them, I think, turned up
on the first Pretenders album,
I know "Precious" is on there.
You're so precious
I think the way you move, move, move
Is 'cos you're precious
I think the way you
I think the way you are
Is 'cos you're precious, yeah
And then they fired me,
but they didn't tell me.
Make me wanna
Make me make it
Oh, baby, you're so mean
I was working
in a woodwork factory.
A colleague said, "There is
a couple of guys that wanna see you."
And there was Captain and Dave,
and they asked me,
do I wanna bring the band
back together?
Much as the local scene
in Croydon
hated the Johnny Moped band,
we were actually
just right for what was coming,
which was punk rock.
Whilst Captain was
in the Johnny Moped band,
he was also having some success
with his other band, The Damned,
having released
the first punk single, "New Rose".
I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why, I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be
I gotta new rose, I got her good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town
Oh
Na na na
We opened up this club
because we felt it was
the right thing to do at the right time
and things were bubbling up nicely
on the whole scene.
When we took on The Roxy,
unbeknown to us,
it had actually changed its name
because it had gone bust and lost
its licences a couple of weeks before.
Because it was originally called
Chaguaramas,
which was like a gay club
and it was just outside of Soho,
north end of Covent Garden.
No one else would have had us.
If it was any decent club,
it would have never allowed us
even to hire it and put a band on.
It was grotty.
The seats were torn
and stuck together with gaffer tape,
chewing gum on the floor,
and you know, it was pretty naff, yeah.
It was a basement place,
it had a really low little stage,
low ceiling, mirrored walls.
It was like an old gay club, really,
but really tatty and shabby.
I can remember watching bands
I'd watch one band,
Don would be in the DJ booth
and I'd be out right in front of the band,
and I would just laugh
throughout the whole show,
and so would Don,
we'd be crying, actually.
I'd see a band
come off stage and I'd say,
"Guys, is that like your own tuning,
or can you just not tune your guitars?"
They'd say, "No, we don't know
how to tune the guitars."
That was just magic.
Everyone would get up and have a go.
That really didn't matter, even if you
didn't know how to tune a guitar.
The thing about The Roxy,
what was important is that it provided
a really necessary ingredient
of any movement.
You've got your soundtrack
and you've got your main players,
but then you need
a place for them to congregate,
a sort of HQ
where they can exchange ideas,
and out of this exchange
came other things.
Johnny Moped was
introduced to us through The Damned.
Just a crazy, crazy young band.
But he was
one of all the crazy young bands,
he did stand out
because he was quite nutty.
Ray's commitment
to The Damned was too much,
so we had to find another guitarist,
so we got Slimy Toad
from that band, Tor,
that I used to be in,
and Chrissie Hynde,
who had re-named herself Sissy Bar.
She wanted to be in the band.
I got a copy of Sniffin' Glue,
and there was an advert in there
that the Johnny Moped band
were looking for a guitar player.
I called and it was like,
"Hey, it's you guys?"
"Yeah, you're the only person
that's called."
They fired me and I reapplied
for the job not knowing it was them.
So we had two guitarists,
and then we eventually did do a gig
at The Roxy Club.
I remember
I was wearing that pirate hat,
that's when I sing "Johnny It's You."
We redid a song called
Instead of "Baby It's You,"
it was about Johnny Moped.
"You should see
what they say about you,
they say you can't even
start up your moped."
He was kind of famous too
because his girlfriend was 40
and we all thought that was,
you know, really radical.
Toad's Les Paul guitar
kept going out of tune
because it was
so hot and humid in there
and I think Chrissie Hynde
held the first number together,
"Groovy Ruby," and stuff like that.
I was trying to get
a band together with a lot of people
but that was the one that really
We really worked out songs together
and tried to write together.
It was really important for me.
It wasn't
It wasn't a little thing to me,
you know. I mean
It didn't pan out, I don't know why.
After the gig, Slimy Toad said,
"Well, two guitarists, you know.
Me or her, make your choice."
I think that rings a bell.
I think he got in there
and got rid of me, but he wanted in.
It was one of those things.
You didn't take it
too personally or anything.
It's just What are you going to do?
Maybe it's the best thing
that ever happened to her.
Could you imagine
what it would have been like?
Chrissie Hynde, this mega talent,
standing behind Johnny Moped,
while he is singing "V. D. Boiler."
In a way, Johnny Moped band
launched Chrissie's career,
because she was excluded
from the band,
because you didn't need
two punk rock guitarists
playing the same loud power chords.
I was shit. I couldn't play.
They were more musical than me,
that was the thing, so no hard feelings.
I had a certain something,
which I took with me,
but they couldn't use it.
I was the last one.
Everyone else I knew in London
eventually got in a band.
I would just get a bottle of wine
and sit on the tube and go from
Stay on it for two hours and cry,
because everyone was in a band but me.
One, two, three, four!
Walking down the road
Johnny Moped band
came home to Croydon
and they played at the Red Deer.
Because it was Croydon,
Johnny's wife came along.
Stick it in her lughole
Brenda was there
because she was gonna see a concert.
And of course, what you do at a concert
is that you sit down.
She sat down on this bar stool,
in the middle of this crowd.
Once the audience
started pogoing, it was chaos.
We had to get her out of there.
Punks pogoed all over Brenda.
She fell off her stall.
She wasn't thinking
that they were
gonna start leaping all over the place.
She went down
and some of the other guys
went through the crowd
to bloody well grab her
and bring her to the side of the stage
before she got trampled on or stomped on.
She should have joined in.
Mind you, she was
She's been eternally 60, I think.
Yeah, she would occasionally
come to the gigs,
very rarely.
I think she just wanted
his time, and we wanted his time.
A conflict of interest.
Brenda's mother
exerted quite a lot of influence.
She disapproved of Paul
being a rock and roll star
because it would detract
from him looking after Brenda.
My mother in law wasn't into it.
No. She said,
"Oh, you're gonna bugger off
with that load of reprobates again?"
I said, "Yeah, I've got a gig, you know?"
"Ah, what about Bren, doesn't she count?"
"Well, she can come along if she likes,
I'll get her in on the guest list."
"No," she said. "No, you bloody won't,
and I'm not having her
on stage singing either,
making a fool of herself."
You can get on with it, girl.
If Bren wants to come with me,
she comes with me,
if she don't, she don't, end of, you know?
I mean, she's an adult,
she can do what the hell she likes.
She's not a bloody kid anymore.
So what's the bloody problem?
But there you go,
a bit overprotective mother in law,
who was rather feisty as well.
Used to give me bloody grief
at the best of times,
but mustn't speak ill of the dead,
I suppose.
Hey.
Watch out.
My friends were picking up guitars
and I wanted to pick up something too,
so I picked up a super eight camera,
and reinvented myself
as Don Lett's the filmmaker.
It was a lady that bought me the camera,
she was the fashion editor of either
Vogue or Nova magazine at the time.
Caroline Baker was her name,
and much respect to her.
He just started learning
how to use it at the club.
Hey, Groovy Ruby
To learn to use the camera,
he was just focusing
on what was around him, obviously.
And just amazingly
caught this footage at that time,
and it's a really good accident.
Don't come on now
Don't give me no jive
Groovy Ruby, groovy Ruby
Groovy Ruby, yeah!
Oww!
I'd been listening
to the tape for months.
Most people had heard the tape
or heard of the tape
or heard of Johnny by then,
you know what I mean?
And it was like The Beatles,
there was a whole thing around it,
a whole hype, you know what I mean?
Which is real, you know what I mean?
People wanted to know how Fred was,
how Slimy Toad was
and how Johnny was.
The great thing about seeing the Mopeds
was the attitude of it all.
You know, the fact that Johnny had been,
apparently, dressed by his mum
and the complete,
absolute lack of any care
about being cool,
which is very, very attractive.
They were like a bunch of kids
having a laugh,
which is what all rock and roll
should sound like.
Okay, everybody,
are you feeling alright
or are you half pissed
or half knackered or what?
Jesus! It's fucking hot in here.
Are you gonna pogo for this number?
Basically, it's called "Hard Lovin' Man."
In my diary, Easter 77,
I've got a flyer from The Roxy Club,
and The Buzzcocks, Johnny Moped
and X-Ray Spex played.
All for 1.50,
which was expensive in those days.
I remember going down
to see Johnny Moped
and we'd jump up and sing backing vocals
on "Hard Lovin' Man."
But that was unusual for me
'cos normally I'd stay in the shadows.
I wasn't really such a poser
as a lot of the characters around
in those days, such as Shane,
who always, if there was a camera,
he'd like leap in front of it.
I think
I first saw them at The Roxy.
They were amazing gigs,
all the gigs were amazing.
There was nothing
The band was the most exciting band
since the Pistols, The Damned,
The Clash, you know what I mean?
I think Andy Czezowski
was recording it for Live At The Roxy.
Johnny Moped there,
on side two, track one: "Hard Lovin' Man."
When you hired the Manor Mobile,
it was like the top tool of its day,
and it was full of engineers
with these big desks
they were all mixing
and reels were spinning
And all they did was to run a whole pile
of cables out of the back of the truck,
into the club
and down onto the stage, that was it.
It was a live album
and it was far from perfect.
What it does do,
it does capture the essence
of what punk was about,
and certainly The Roxy.
And it was a huge success,
it sold something like 40,000 albums,
which is like crazy, really.
At that time,
Roger Armstrong was
a talent scout for Chiswick Records.
He was at The Roxy Club,
and he was looking
for some signups.
Captain Sensible first mentioned to me
about maybe recording them,
I think maybe he tried to take them
to Stiff or mentioned to Stiff
but there was no interest.
I was kind of
helping things along.
There was a
I was just there.
I wanted to see this album made.
I knew it was going to be brilliant,
and if there was anything
I could possibly do to make it happen,
I would do it.
I'd seen them live,
thought they were fantastic,
part of the Croydon tradition
of musically competent punks.
He didn't want to sign up
any rubbish bands,
but he was rather interested in us,
so he made us a deal.
Yeah, I think I was ambivalent
with the deal with Chiswick at the time.
I was pleased that it was a deal.
There it was on the table.
But Chiswick Records I don't think
were gonna make us into superstars.
Uh, I mean, The Damned
had major companies chasing them,
and so did The Clash and the Pistols,
but we had Chiswick Records.
Dave and Toad weren't too happy
about signing to an indie label,
but they came round to it in the end.
And that was the launch
of Johnny Moped on vinyl.
He was out there. All of a sudden,
it was real. He was there.
Can't take it away,
he's a living "leg end" now.
The first single
was called "No One,"
and then we recorded a B-side
called "Incendiary Device."
And the B-side actually sounded better
than the A-side at the end of the day,
but because the lyrics contained
"Stick it in her lughole,
stick it in her other parts,"
it remained as the B-side.
But it has remained
one of our more popular tunes.
It was
our first Moped vinyl release,
and it wasn't gonna be our last,
so I was happy that we were on the tracks,
we were involved.
You won't tell me no lies
Tell me what you're doing
Remember where your time goes
I know what the news is
I am no one
And that then turned into the LP.
Yeah, recording Cycledelic
was a great pleasure.
I was really, really into it.
Well, working with Mopeds was,
to say the least, an experience. Uh
Let's say, Johnny was
less than enthusiastic at times
about coming to studio sessions.
Of course, you had to book
a studio session sometime up front.
Dave Berk,
Toad, Fred and all that
were absolutely serious
when we turned professional,
but I was having other problems.
We went in and did the music ourselves,
spent about a week doing that.
Uh
But of course, it came to the point
where we needed Johnny on the record.
A lot of the album tracks were interrupted
because we needed Johnny to do overdubs.
And he just wasn't available.
And despite Roger Armstrong
phoning him up,
and trying to persuade him
to come along and do the vocals,
there was nothing for it.
We had to go to where he worked
and we had to spin a story
to the receptionist
that there'd been an accident,
that his mum had been run over
so he needed to come out
and have a word with us.
Which he did.
And we said, "Don't worry,
your mum hasn't been run over,
but just let's go
for a cup of coffee in the car."
But whilst he was explaining
why he couldn't make it,
you would be coercing him
into the back of the car.
So as soon as he got into the car,
we locked the doors
and we were off to Chiswick.
And I believe
we also took his trousers away
as an emergency measure,
to make sure he wasn't
gonna run away from the studio.
But if you wanted to make sure
he was there,
you had to get to Johnny
before his wife did.
It wasn't so much Bren that was a problem,
it was her mother-in -law.
I seemed to let the mother-in-law
twist me around her bloody finger
just to keep the peace.
I've got to forgo this or forgo that.
I could have said to her,
"Bollocks to you,
I'm going out and finish this album"
or "I'm gonna do that gig,"
but she was a very domineering woman.
Once he got there,
he stopped being reluctant.
It was obviously some nervousness
about doing it in the first place
and coming up.
Yeah, Johnny sang the vocals okay
because he knew
that if he hadn't sung them well,
we'd be back the next day,
stalking him.
Fred was always
a little reluctant to be in the band,
and in particular, I don't think
he enjoyed playing the bass guitar.
He wanted to play the piano,
he wanted to do something
more sophisticated.
Fred actually had
a fantastic melodic sense,
and he was very keen as a musician.
He was a great bass player
but at his heart
was really beautiful melodies.
He quite enjoyed classical music,
and he enjoyed experimenting.
He liked being creative.
And I have a tape of Fred
playing solo piano music
in the style
of the French composer Erik Satie.
It was almost like a demo
that we did in the studio one day.
A bit of down time, he was playing piano
and I said, "That's nice"
and put a role of tape up,
a couple of mics around the piano
and we recorded him for a while.
I had an idea to do
the Fred Berk solo piano record
but unfortunately we never
got back to it and it never happened.
Because we were
on stage each night,
we were playing very similar songs,
and it was the shear intensity of it,
I don't think suited him.
He didn't think
that playing in the band,
the same songs,
was such a great thing.
But he couldn't think
of anything else to do
and he was increasingly becoming
an alcoholic,
with the problems
that came along with that.
With Johnny's reluctance
to turn up to gigs
and Fred's reluctance
to engage in the spirit of the thing,
we were always firing
on two cylinders.
Yeah, they were great players,
and you didn't have to work
too much with them,
in terms of struggling
to get performances.
They really were an extremely good band.
Johnny just had a completely natural,
instinctive approach to vocals.
The one he struggled with
was "Darling, Let's Have Another Baby".
Not surprising in a way
because it was a completely quirky
and eccentric piece
that virtually any singer
would have had difficulty dealing with.
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'd cry a million tears
I'd go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
And it was always a delight
when we were making the record
if the Captain turned up.
Captain suddenly became
this very responsible guy
who was there to look after Johnny.
He was terrific with him,
and he really put Johnny at his ease.
He so obviously loved the band
and Johnny in particular.
I knew there was
a genius album in that guy,
and Cycledelic
proves me right, really,
'cos it's just a
Just the most sensational record.
Darling-mmm-ha-ho-ha-ho
We did do a promo video
for the first single
and the second single.
The very strange promotional videos
produced by Barney Bubbles.
And he had some pretty weird ideas
that I thought were interesting.
Hi, Tom Cats,
this is Johnny Moped speaking.
Head case, ahh!
I hope you listen to it.
One, two, cut your hair
We tied up a naked lady
to the track of "Incendiary Device."
The idea was to walk around this girl
and to tie her up.
That was it.
I think we all just went, "Alright then."
Looking for a girlie
Blow her up with gelignite
Fred was so embarrassed,
having to look at this naked woman,
that you can see on the video
that he's just walking around like this,
as he's doing the ropes.
As an artist, he must have felt
that was the wrong way to portray it,
but in the end, that was the outcome.
It wasn't
a particularly good idea,
but nobody thought of anything better.
Some of the lyrics,
especially "Incendiary Device,"
nowadays are a bit hard to take,
to say the least.
Barney sort of managed somehow,
in the way that he presented that,
to turn it into a kind of art.
Sort of a kind of outsider art
kind of piece.
Very primitive, as we can see now.
The girl in them was
Steve Naive's girlfriend.
I would have to say they didn't make
Top Of The Pops , either of them.
Thinking back on it,
I don't know where we thought
they might get shown.
I actually had a bit of a hand
in the editing of the video myself
'cos I was quite fascinated
by how it was all put together.
And then they held this launch party,
and the only comment I can remember was
that it was described
as though it had been edited
by a chimpanzee
and it was universally slated.
The videos to me
really tie in with the whole idea
that Johnny Moped were this outsider art
'cos likewise Barney was like that.
Very strange take on the world,
Barney very much liked them.
The visual representation
of the band
was really down to Barney Bubbles.
He designed everything.
He designed the album cover,
singles, advertising,
and even the light bulb logo
that we've got.
The light bulb.
Barney was not a man necessarily given
to explaining his work.
It's interesting
the way it's used on the album,
because it's superimposed
on Johnny's face.
So it's obviously something to do
with that image
that Chris Gabrin took of Johnny.
It was a great sort of collision,
if you'd like,
between this kind
of art-world person, Barney,
and these guys that came from Croydon
with this very eccentric
and very strange take on the world.
It was a lovely match.
Chiswick put on a gig
at the Roundhouse,
and the idea
of the gig at the Roundhouse
was to put on four of their own bands
and make a live album.
'Cos we had a bunch of acts on Chiswick,
we were doing quite well by 1978.
They had the Manor Mobile outside
and the recording all set up,
but the one thing they'd forgotten
was the critical factor,
getting Johnny Moped to the gig,
nobody had organised that aspect.
So there were some frantic phone calls
to Johnny at the last minute,
and we had Xerxes lined up
to do the vocals instead.
We'd done the sound check,
we were about to go on
in about 15 minutes.
I can't say I was particularly
looking forward to it.
When this chap came up to me
and he said
He said, "You won't believe it,
Moped's outside and he's queuing
to get into his own gig."
I went outside and it was poor Johnny.
I'd got to the door
and they just wouldn't believe him,
that he was actually singing.
I turned up
with a mate of mine,,
just a few short minutes
before the band were due to go on stage.
Ahh, fuck it,
let's do it. One, two, three, four!
Hey, groovy Ruby
Get out of my life
It's way past time
I'm getting my knife
We had a few beers
In a side coffee bar
Don't come on now
Don't give me no jive
Groovy Ruby, groovy Ruby
Groovy Ruby
I don't know-ooo-yeah!
But again, Moped sounds great
on that live stuff,
they were able to do that,
they were able to play the stuff
very well live.
Those are the recordings
that are on the Johnny Moped
The live tracks
on the Johnny Moped album,
which very, very nearly
didn't happen.
I first met Johnny
at the Roundhouse gig,
because I had been to the rehearsals
with the band before
and they did it without Johnny.
I don't think he knew of my existence
or anything at that gig.
He didn't know that I was anything
to do with them or anything.
And I didn't know
I had an existence with them either
until the end of the gig
when somebody asked Berk something
and he said, "Ask our road manager"
and pointed at me.
So I got elected by default.
There was a point
when Johnny had split up with Brenda
and he started going out with Kay.
But because he had split up with Brenda,
he didn't have anywhere to live,
so the pair of them were offered a place
by Tony, our manager.
When they were at my flat,
I didn't have anything to do with them.
I just used to shut myself in my room
and leave them to it,
because it was such a bizarre situation.
The rest of the band didn't want him.
Because I'm the manager,
I've got to deal with it.
While I was with Johnny,
I celebrated my 17th birthday.
And he was a gentleman,
he was such a gentle soul.
He said, "We've got to get you something
for your birthday."
It's a shame I didn't keep the piece
of jewellery, but I've kept this.
"To Kaysa on your birthday,
here is a little something
to remember your first birthday with me,
Johnny Moped."
It's in one of those nice
corny envelopes
they used to do at the time
with jewellery.
"Shape, Gift and Fashion Boutique."
"The Whitglift Centre
at Croydon, Surrey."
It was a really good time
for the Moped band,
so there was always lots of things
going on and happening at the time.
Going to the gigs,
helping him to get ready for the gigs,
getting him to band practice,
you know, stuff like that.
It was lovely to be involved
and everybody was great.
It was really, really good fun.
A very good chapter,
especially for a 16-year-old girl.
When the publicity shots were done
for the Cycledelic album,
there was one of Johnny,
and on his left arm
was a "Hells Angels Croydon" thing.
The front cover of the album
you can still see
"Hells Angels Croydon" on his arm.
Not a great idea really,
because as soon as they find out
and you're not a real Hells Angel,
they get a little bit pissed off.
We were playing at Dingwalls,
and this Hells Angel turned up
at the front door on his chopper.
He parked his chopper
right on the front door.
The guy on the door
went to stop him or something,
he pushed him out of the way
and walked straight through the crowd.
Leaped up onto the stage,
come up there to the back room,
where we was all congregating,
and said, "Right, you, that tattoo,
that's coming off your arm.
You're not a Hells Angel,
you've never been a Hells Angel
and you're not entitled to have
that tattoo.
I'm warning you now,
if you don't get that tattoo
covered over or taken off,
I'm cutting your arm off
and I'll be at your next gig to do it."
We just shut up.
It was a case of We had, you know
We were super wimps.
His name was Goat, if I remember rightly,
he did introduce himself
before he proceeded with the threats
that he made, and then he was gone.
That was it and he walked outside
and Lemmy was in the bar,
and he spoke to this guy,
and he said,
"We'll get rid of it, the guy's not
what you think, don't go hard on him."
Shortly after that episode,
obviously, another gig was coming up,
and I said,
"We'll have to get it sorted out."
So there was a tattooist
that worked in Wandsworth at the time,
near Garratt Lane, in South London.
And I said,
"Come on, we'll have to get you in there."
All I had was a fiver on me.
We showed the tattooist this tattoo
that he had to get covered over.
He looked at it and thought,
"What the hell am I gonna do with this?"
I said, "You've got to do something."
"Well, pick a design."
I said, "We've only got a fiver."
And he said,
"The best I can do is a parrot,
because we've got to think of the colours,
I could do you a greeny-coloured parrot."
He tattooed over it and produced
this eagle with shooting stars.
When the Hells Angels turned up
in the dressing room,
they said, "Oh, look at the tattoo,
that's better, okay.
We'll let you off, we're happy with that."
Saved having my arm
carved up like a Sunday joint.
Tony and the rest of the band
were relieved
that somebody was gonna
actually take this in hand,
because nobody else
could afford to do it or sort it out.
So, yes, it was my responsibility
to get it covered over
with the parakeet.
I think looking back on it,
by the nature of the Mopeds,
being what they were,
there wasn't this sort
of long-term career in it for them,
by what they did.
There was nowhere for them to develop.
I mean, the Pistols broke up,
The Clash sort of developed
into a more mainstream rock band
with reggae overtones, etcetera.
The Damned sort of gave full vent
to their pop sensibility.
And Mopeds sort of had just
a wilful eccentricity about them.
If it was just down to the press,
the band made it,
they were the darlings of the press.
Nobody had a bad word to say about them.
We had a record company magnate
behind them, Roger,
who was well into it,
but it just wasn't happening.
So given that we'd made an album
with Chiswick
and they didn't seem
to be offering to fund a second album,
we went and looked
for another record deal.
I'd talked to the band and said,
"I can't do the things
that they want done,
I don't have that experience.
Maybe we should just find
a proper business manager."
I don't know what Tony was doing
or he was meant to be doing,
but I don't think he was doing as much
promotion as they probably wanted.
And all of a sudden,
these two blokes appeared.
Roger and James came along.
They seemed to have very clear ideas
about record deals
and visually
how we should be represented,
touring, etcetera,
so they became our managers.
They were getting him
some good gigs, I'll admit that,
but they wanted to change him
and market him a bit.
But you don't do that to Johnny Moped,
Johnny Moped is Johnny Moped.
What you see is what you get.
You don't start trying to create
this kind of image,
when he's already got his own image,
it's his own personality.
So all of a sudden,
this pair of leather trousers arrived.
"You make sure
that he wears these trousers."
I said, "You can't make him wear
a pair of flared leather trousers,
punks don't wear flared trousers."
"What do you mean?"
They didn't like it, but I said,
"He's not comfortable in them,"
so they went
and got these tarted up and done.
I still didn't think
they looked right on him,
but anyway,
he went ahead and wore those.
Uh-look-ah there
Here she comes
They got him
this very prestigious gig
at the Music Machine,
which was really good venue
to play at the time.
But she don't notice me when I pass
All of a sudden,
word had got about,
"Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen
are here, oh, my God!"
She's sure fine lookin', man
She's somethin' else
The word was
that the reason Sid Vicious
had come to see Johnny Moped
was because he heard that he was doing
a version of "Something Else."
There was a lot of excitement around,
there's people saying, "Oh, my God,
it's them, it's them, it's them."
And this lovely little girl came along
and started to take a couple of pictures,
and next thing you knew,
Nancy Spungen went into fire mode.
And this poor girl was on the ground
with her camera.
She stamped on her camera,
it was a terrible scene.
Obviously, Johnny
was very anxious about that gig
because there was a big crowd there,
Sid Vicious was also there.
There was a lot of expectation put on him,
and of course, the managers wanted him
in those leather trousers,
and there was makeup involved.
I thought, "If we're gonna go for it,
let's put a bit of makeup on."
Looking back on the photos now
he looked very good, he did look good.
I don't think he was
particularly comfortable with it,
but he did go ahead with it, and I think
he gave a really good performance.
I got that girl
And I'm-ah thinkin' to myself
She's sure fine lookin', man
She's somethin' else
Then, all of a sudden,
there was an announcement,
"Right, we've got
you and Johnny a flat."
It was a quite a nice little flat.
"This is it, you're gonna move in here,
you're gonna live together
and you're gonna look after him."
I said, "All right, okay then."
"You're gonna pay your half
of the rent, here's your rent book.
You'll pay your half of the bills,
and you make sure he's alright."
And they just left us to it.
Dave Berk moved my stuff in,
Johnny didn't have much stuff to move in.
And we were there a couple of weeks.
We even got a kitten called Kipper.
And we tried to do
this kind of domestic bliss thing,
but unfortunately,
at that time I was quite flighty.
I mean, I'd just turned 17,
and I thought, "Oh"
Looking back at it now, I can see
that I was there to look after him.
At that age, I was just having trouble
looking after myself,
let alone looking after somebody else,
and I just decided
I didn't want to do that anymore.
Johnny went back to Brenda
and to quickly cement their relationship
and their getting back together,
they got married.
We were married
in Croydon registry office.
Brenda's family
didn't want her to marry me.
It was a private reg, just me, my wife
Me and my bride-to-be
and two witnesses, that was all.
There was no members
of either family present.
Um
It didn't make for, how should we say
Um
The normal progress
that a group like that would make
because you were having
to deal with things
that possibly lots of other people
wouldn't have to deal with.
For example,
having to kidnap your lead singer,
and also having your bass player
completely unable to stand
because he was so drunk.
Desperate times.
We were aiming the band forward,
and there always seemed to be something
that wasn't right.
Fred was a typical artist,
he had moody depressions
and then extreme humour,
and that could be at any time.
The drink was beginning to take its toll,
and he was becoming
more and more erratic in gigs,
and I think it was beginning
It was certainly frustrating the others.
He was a total pisshead.
I remember when we was going up the M1,
he had this big grey mac on,
and he was pulling out
flagons of bloody cider.
We played the Sandpiper club
in Nottingham,
he was playing bass quite well,
then all of a sudden the bass stopped,
when I was half way through a song,
and there's Fred, a crumpled heap
in front of his sound system
with a bass slung over him,
and I went, "Oh, no!"
You can't sustain a band
where the singer doesn't turn up
and the bass player
is completely pissed all the time.
And there was another incident
at the Lyceum Ballroom,
where The Lurkers had played.
Fred was playing
all the wrong bass lines
and Dave got so pissed off.
We were on the verge of a fairly
lucrative deal with Decca records,
and all we had to do was play one gig
and hold it together.
Uh
And Fred said to me before the gig,
"I'm not going to bother
to hold it together."
And he got completely drunk and I didn't
hear him play a right note all night.
But of course,
the thing that ultimately blew it,
was the fact that I threw him
off the stage at the end.
Yeah, Dave just got off the drums
and pushed Fred off the bloody stage.
And he was sent off with a concussion.
We might have gotten away with it,
I don't know.
So that was the end of the band really.
The door had opened,
you'd seen what was in there,
and you just didn't want to
It was just not
I didn't like what I saw, it wasn't
Johnny Moped was gonna remain legendary.
It wasn't gonna be a dizzy heights
or it wasn't gonna be on-going,
he's always gonna be a "leg end."
Fred left the band, and then
Slimy Toad lost interest in playing.
Because the pair of us, me and Slimy,
were the driving force behind the band
and we got so frustrated
with the other two, it
Yeah, I think
that's what did it for us really.
One day we were looking
through the local paper,
which had just come out,
my wife and me,
and we saw that a local man
had been killed under a train,
and just looking through
we saw the name was Colin Mills,
which is Fred's real name.
The manic depression
I suppose it was compounded
by the beer and maybe
the downers he was taking,
and ended up with him taking his life,
which was a terrible, terrible waste.
I saw him about a month
before he threw himself under the train.
We were drinking
in a pub in Croydon,
and he was fantastic,
he was just like the old Fred,
it was just absolutely a joy to behold.
Obviously we were drinking,
but it wasn't anything unpleasant.
And I said,
"Fred, what's with the madness?"
And he said, "Nah, it's alright,
I'm just doing it to upset my mum."
So, um You know, that was about it.
That was about the limit
of our discussion with it.
And, um
And then Dave rung me up at home
to say that he'd
That he was dead. And
And I miss him every day.
If you can think back 365 days,
you might even remember
that this particular record
by The Pretenders was number one,
its title is "Brass in Pocket."
I got brass in my pocket
I got bottle, I'm gonna use it
Tell me
about how "Happy Talk" came about.
That was a terrific hit for you.
It was just a pure and utter
stroke of luck really.
We were looking for a song to cover
and that's the one we chose.
When we were recording it, we actually
thought that we were going too far.
Actually, they wacked it out,
and in two weeks it was a hit record,
so you just can't tell, can you?
You have had a couple of In fact,
three records into the Top 30 already.
Yeah, and The Damned
have had some hits as well.
imagination
'Cause I'm gonna make you see
There's nobody else here
No one like me
I'm special
Special
So special
Special
I got to have some of your attention
Give it to me
We were all signing on,
and surviving as best we could,
on a rock and roll doll.
Slimy Toad, a guy called Jacko,
who played bass, and myself,
were all living
in the same flat together.
We decided,
"Well, we might go out and play a tour."
We'd get a little generator
and see if we could go out
and play obscure places.
I remember it because it was my birthday.
We put the band in the back of a van
and we got Jacko Pistorius
to play bass for us.
The ideal singer to get
was Johnny Moped.
I said to them at the time,
"I'd have to be pissed to do this."
It came about that to pay the rent,
I would have to sell my guitar,
so that's what I did.
Yeah, we went
and borrowed a guitar.
Is this the promotional video, Dave?
We took the band out in a transit van.
Drums and all, everything, PA
Back of the van,
and set up outside the pub.
I got the lumps in my throat
When I saw her coming down the aisle
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me
And sweetly smiled
There she is again
Standing over by the record machine
The last piece of footage
you saw on this video
was shot in Wallingham,
outside the White Lion pub.
And
I think it was
a really tremendous experience,
you know, we've never done
something like this before.
Go, go, go, Little Queenie
I said, go, go, go, Little Queenie
We played Warlingham Green
and proceeded down to Wapses Lodge
and played inside a roundabout.
We decided to do this in the middle
of winter, which was a bit crazy.
We were all huddled up
in scarves and gloves.
It was refreshing.
Everyone was into it, it was fun.
It's how music should be.
From then on,
we went to Croydon.
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me
And sweetly smiled
There she is again
Standing over by the record machine
We played outside the Fairfield Halls.
Go, go, go, Little Queenie
We did get to play
outside the Fairfield Halls,
'cos we never managed to play
inside the Fairfield Halls.
Until the commissioner came along
and slung us off.
It was an experience,
it was different,
but not one I'd want to repeat.
It was good,
the band were back together,
and it was functioning again.
It started the band
getting back together again
and we played a few gigs after that
as the Johnny Moped band.
- Right, okay, let's pack up.
- Thank you!
Please, if not, they'll be onto me
like nobody's business.
Right, okay, cheers, gov.
That's The Pretenders at number one
this week and maybe next week,
you'll have to tune
into Top Of The Pops to find out.
We'll see you then.
My one artefact, probably, from 1970
Probably the only thing I have
from days of yore.
Yeah, Brenda must be in her late 70s now.
Awesome.
And she still won't let him
do anything, amazing.
It's just unbelievable,
when you think back on it
and stuff like that.
Mind you, it left me scratching my head.
I thought,
"What the hell was going on with me
all them years ago?"
You don't have
a choice of lives, this is it.
I loved it at the time, it was fantastic.
I can't believe we're still doing it.
- One, two, three.
- One, two. One, two.
One, two, three, four!
All you tom cats
Haven't got any bread
Smashing up the suburbs
'Cos we ain't been fed
Betting on the horses
'Cos we need to pay the rent
Skipping over barriers
And the fog machines get bent
Tension and unrest
'Cos the panic button has been pressed
There's gonna be nothing left
Panic Button, Panic Button
Panic Button, Panic Button
Stabbed my teacher when I was young
Stole mum's money for my fruit gums
Never learnt much
I was always on the run
What's wrong now
Well, I'm always getting drunk
I'm left out
'Cos I'm always called a punk
Don't wanna work
Just wanna have some fun
Maybe cause a riot
Gonna hit and run
Panic Button
Panic Button, Panic
What was that?
Well, that'll be
The day when you say goodbye
Yes, that'll be the day
When you make me cry
You say you're gonna leave
Ah, let's do it
Let's do it in style.
Well, that'll be the day
When you say goodbye
Yes, that'll be the day
When you make me cry
You say you're gonna leave
You know it's a lie
'Cause that'll be the day
I live in Caterham-on-the-Hill,
which is off the Couldson Road.
At the moment
I'm a full time carer for my wife.
She has mobility problems
and stuff like that.
So I'm practically hands on
almost 24 hours a day.
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Oh, she hasn't forgotten, has she?
- That's right.
- Yeah.
Johnny was
a great rock and roll singer,
harking back to much earlier days.
Kind of the real heart
and real core of rock and roll.
Johnny could do that kind of thing,
he was great at it.
The guy is a genius,
and he deserves
every success that he gets.
He was a star,
Uh
Just not quite in the same world
that everybody else existed in.
We're gonna do
a number of our Roxy album,
it's a number called "Hard Lovin' Man."
Riding down to Memphis
Solo head
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
Well, Saturday night
I was boogying on the town, yeah
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
This is our original guitarist,
ladies and gentlemen.
Captain Sensible.
He's our founding guitarist.
Yeah!
Riding down to Memphis
Solo head
Well, I won't be back
I won't be another day
Well, baby, baby
There's something I've got to say
I'm a hard lovin' man
Oh, just a hard lovin' man
Oh, that wine and whisky
Don't knock me stone dead
Oh, please.
Ow!
Johnny Moped!
This guy
is our original guitarist,
Captain Sensible, from years ago.
Somebody threw
some knickers at you, Johnny.
No less than he deserves.
The legend is back!
Croydon's finest, Johnny Moped,
I thought I'd never see the day.
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
On our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch
I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer
ling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon
Oh! On our second honeymoon
Darling, when we have our baby
I'll be quite happy
To wash and change its nappy
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh
Darling, ohh-ooo-ohh-ohh