and excitement and adrenalin and stuff but we wanted it to be very
melodic. We wanted the harmonies to scream over the top of this
heavy backdrop.
Q Had you seen Jeff Beck perform with Rod Stewart?
Oh, yeah, that made a lasting impression. And also Cream, I
was a huge Clapton fan. I saw those early shows at Eel Pie and it
was obviously an adventure for them at that point; it was really
electric, they were all feeling each other and it was amazing. And
very single-minded; they knew exactly what they were doing.
The Cream were a standout for me. The fire and the aggression of
his playing, the sheer beauty of the sound. And they were doing
harmonies, too, two-part harmonies mainly; they did ‘N.S.U.’ and
I think Ginger was even singing.
And really Hendrix was my biggest idol; I saw him a lot in
England. I loved him. I saw him in the very early days when he
was supporting The Who and everyone was sort of skeptical and
didn’t want to think he was that good and I was so knocked out
I couldn’t believe it. I never really copied him but the style and
the feel influenced me a lot. I think he made the guitar something
better than it was before he came along. He was using just one
Marshall stack which was pretty ordinary, and a Stratocaster, and
The Who at that time were using like four stacks each. And I saw
him with The Move and they had four Marshall stacks each. And
Hendrix came on and just blew them totally away.
Q So, you were influenced by the trio format because Smile
was a three-piece, right?
Yes. We did a heavy version of ‘If I Were a Carpenter’ and a
lot of jamming that would start with a riff. We had an elemental
version of ‘Doing All Right’ which was on the first Queen album
and a particular track called ‘Earth’ which was a Smile single and
sold zero. We did heavied up versions of Motown songs and some