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Remember Herman's Hermits? Remember they were big back in 1965 with Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, The Searchers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Dave Clark Five and of course the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Who and the Animals. The first seven of the bands listed above, for all intents and purposes, had died by 1968-1969. They represented what was the vanguard of the original British Invasion. The Hermits, along with the first four other bands mentioned, toured North America between June 21 and July 21 on one of Ralph Nader's revival packages, the first repackaging of the sixties' sensations. Herman and his Hermits had the feature billing. The Hermits had an incredible number of hits ranging from their first, "I'm Into Something Good" (a Goffin-King tune) to the double hit "No Milk Today"/"Hush". On their first two albums alone they had eight number one singles including "Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter", "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat", "End of The World" and their biggest "I'm Henry The 8th, I Am". At the time they were in their heyday, Herman, whose real name is Peter Noone, was only sixteen, Karl Green (bass) was seventeen, Barry Whitwam (drums) was eighteen, Keith Hopwood (guitar) was seventeen and Derek Leckenby (lead guitar) was the old man of the group at twenty-one. During the four years of fame and fortune that followed their first hit, they toured North America ten times (with the Animals, the Who and the Hollies - the first time with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars), they played every major television show including Ed Sullivan and Shindig and they constantly had one and occasionally two or three singles in the top ten. Peter insists that during the ten tours he didn't meet one Canadian or American. Everywhere they played they were being mobbed by hordes of screaming girls. They spent every second of their tours on airplanes, in limousines, at the concerts or barricaded in their hotel rooms. Every concert they played was an instant sellout. Every one. This time around they are all eight years older, Peter having reached the ripe old age of twenty-four, and things have changed. No longer are all the concerts sellouts, one recent show selling only eight thousand out of a possible eighteen, and Peter and the rest of the Hermits are finally meeting North Americans. (In all fairness, the tour has been doing well, selling out Madison Square Garden.) Why did a band who can still draw good crowds cease to exist four years ago? "The weird thing was that in Canada and America we didn't have any records out because the record company we were with, MGM, went out of business. We gave them product that was number one in England and they couldn't release it. We had some fantastic hits in England that weren't even released here. Exactly the same thing happened to the Kinks; that was a record company screw-up as well." "What happened was that we just decided to forget it, because you can't beat the record company. Every time we tried to put something out on another label, MGM stopped it. We were still under contract; I don't want to explain the legal part of it, but they had a way to stop us; they had us under contract." "It wasn't the same company as Mike Curb's MGM. The old MGM has completely busted up. Mike Curb just bought the name MGM. It's not the same company at all. It was bought by Curb in about '69 or '70, which is when we got out of the deal. Then it was too late, because |
we had lost the sort of thing that had been working good. We no longer had a following in Canada and the States. We were the only band who was really doing that type of music. Other bands were going a bit more heavy and we were still into fun things. We did funny records that were half-comedy and half-music. We couldn't even get them out." When the Hermits did break up, Peter took an acting part in a BBC television series. He was an actor at the age of fourteen and that is how he eventually got into singing and the Hermits. He also released a single featuring the David Bowie tune (from the "Hunky Dory" album) called "Oh You Pretty Things" which went nowhere. The Hermits' biggest hit was "I'm Henry the 8th, I Am", one of the biggest hits ever in rock, it was an old English song originally done in the 1920's by Harry Champion. Two other of their biggest hits, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter" and "Leaning On A Lampost", were old English tunes from back in the 20's. Peter had some really interesting stories to tell about how they got into doing old English tunes. "We did it just for a gag at a session. We did "Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter" for a gag at the session and we put it on the album ("Introducing Herman's Hermits") because we were using it as a stage number. We loved camping it up on stage. We put it on the album and when it came out in America, all the disc jockeys started playing it. We said we don't want them to release it as a single because it would ruin our image. We were going to the courts to stop them from releasing it. Eventually they released it, because they had the right to release it, and it went to number one, the album sold a million, everything happened. So, we did a couple more because they are really fun to do. They are much more fun for English audiences because they know all the little 'isms' in them. Canadians and American's can't relate to them as well." The Hermits were always produced by Mickie Most who has long been a center of controversy in rock. Most credits himself for the success of the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Donovan, Jeff Beck and the discovery of Rod Stewart. Stewart, Beck, Eric Burdon and Donovan have all openly attacked Most in the press. Not so with Herman, who, although he has now split from Most, feels that Mickie was always very helpful when it came to Herman's Hermits. "We picked most of the material for the albums ourselves, but the singles were picked by Mickie Most. We just went down to London and auditioned for him when we were about fifteen. He liked what we did and we cut our first record, "I'm Into Something Good". "We were quite happy with Most. Other people like Jeff Beck have had problems with him because Mickie Most likes hit singles. We're not with him anymore. The guys have got a deal on their own and I have a deal on my own. I'm just in the process of doing one because I want to make my own records. Now I'll be able to do exactly what I want to, I'll have one hundred percent control. I might not have any hits, but I'll have some fun." "I like doing this. It's the first time we've been together in two years and doing the old hits again is really a lot of fun. They bring back a lot of memories for both the audience and us but I think we actually get a bigger kick out of it than they do." They are having so much fun they'll probably star on another one of Nader's revival packages before the end of the year. If you missed them this time don't miss them then. They're into something good. |
