was in a group with these two birds, twins. They
were called The Highlights. He used to camp it up,
but in those days everybody did. He watched us
sound-check, and told me later that he knew then
that he wanted in. So he had some drive.What was the young Rick like?
He had a great quality inasmuch as you wanted
him to like you. The first gig he was with us was at
the Welcome Inn in Eltham, and he borrowed the
clothes I got married in – green-and-yellow striped
blazer, pink shirt and white trousers.
But he hadn’t learned the songs, so he
unplugged and mimed all night. The
others wanted to get rid of him, but
I said: “No, I like him too much.”When Pictures Of Matchstick
Men reached No.7 in the
UK you were pop stars. Was
it all champagne and
screaming girls?
Nope. I thought when we have
a hit, everything will be fine. But
you woke up the following
morning and the only difference
was you’d sold a few records.
And if you thought the struggle
of getting there was hard,
hanging on to it was even harder.Pictures Of Matchstick Men is now
revered as a classic of the
psychedelic era. Were certain
‘influences’ at work when you
were writing it?
Drug-wise? No. I don’t even know what
the song meant. And I still don’t know.Really?
It just sounded good at the time. And
I never thought that sound would come
back. But then all those years later,
out come Oasis.‘Quoasis’, as some put it.
Yeah. Ha ha. Ain’t it new?By the turn of the seventies, the
‘real’ Quo had emerged.
That transition that they said we could
never do – Quo are goin’ ’eavy!Famously, you had that eureka
moment when you heard The
Doors’ Roadhouse Blues.
Rick and I were in Bielefeld, in Germany, at this
place called the X Club. We watched this girl
and a guy dancing, and the way they moved to
Roadhouse Blues was just phenomenal. So that
song is where the Quo twelve-bar boogie
shuffle came from. That was us: rinky
dinky dink...Most fans view 1972’s Piledriver as
the first definitive Quo album.
Would you agree?
Yeah. We started to double-track the
guitars. That made the sound bigger.
The cover was a funny one, though- a cartoon of a gorilla with a bomb.
What’s that got
to do with
a piledriver?
Nothing at all. But
at the time I thought:
“Yeah!” Drugs, eh?
How did you view
the other heavy rock
bands who were
around at that time?
Ooh, Black Sabbath! Fucking man’s stuff,
innit? Not that poofy Queen lot!Did they take this piss out of you too?
Well, everybody thinks they’re better than
Status Quo. They do. “Anyone can do that.”
Fucking tossers! They liked us beingaround so they could say they were better than
us. But we were like that too. You want to be
better than everybody. And we had the most
fabulous following.Who were your famous friends in those days?
We always got on well with the Queen guys, and
with Reg.You mean Elton John?
When I first met him he was Reg. We’re not
allowed to call him that any more, apparently. But
he was always Reggie to me. And Rick and Rod
Stewart were such good muckers, always out
getting rat-arsed. That’s one thing I miss about
those days. We were all muckers, all happy for each
other to be successful.In the seventies your drugs of choice were
speed and weed.
They lie to young people about drugs –
how terrible they make you feel. The truth
is, drugs make you feel great – at first.
I remember when we did Mystery Song [in
1976]. We left Rick in the studio one night,
sitting on a stool, playing: da da da, da da
da... We came back in the morning and
said: ‘You all right?’ He said: ‘I ain’t been
home yet!’ Still speeding. Da da
da, da da da...Was cocaine the logical next
step for you?
Here’s another lie: cannabis
leads to harder drugs. What
led me to cocaine was the
alcohol. Once you’re full of
alcohol you’re Jack the Lad.
“Go on, then, give us the
coke!” I was frightened of drugs, but I became
a coke addict for some time. I get really
annoyed when people talk about the ‘rock’n’roll
lifestyle’. No, we’re indulged. It’s arsehole
behaviour, but it’s allowed because you’re making
money for people.For a long time the band was a tight-knit unit.
So tight, in fact, that on early-seventies tours
you would get together in a hotel room to
watch porn.
That was in Deutschland. There were girls
outside the hotel, going: “Shag, Englishmen?” But
we were busy inside, having a ‘polish’. I shouldn’t
keep telling that story. I’m more ashamed of it the
older I get.What do you think it was
that changed your
relationship with Rick?
Everything changes when
we grow up and we get
married and have children.
When we’re young and in
a band it’s us against the
world. Then the money comes in and it’s: “That
bloke’s got more than me.” And off it goes. It
was around seventy-seven, after Rockin’ All Over
The World, that Rick started to push himself
forward. He said to me: “I’m fed up with being
number two.” I told him: “Don’t do that.”
He was my friend, a person I loved, and he was
soiling that.“I was frightened of
drugs, but I became
a coke addict for
some time.”
Parfitt and Rossi at full tilt in
Copenhagen in the mid-70s.GET
TY;(^) KE
VIN
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