| THEY'RE REALLY so close on the heels of the Beatles that they may very well overtake them. They have made a movie all their own for MGM called There's No Place Like Space and before that they did a cameo appearance in the Connie Francis film Where The boys Meet the Girls. The amazing thing about these boys, all five of them, is the fact that they really are all bachelors and the oldest is twenty. They come from Manchester, all of them, the hometown of Freddie and The Dreamers, and their records have all been hits. They include I'm Into Something Good, Can't You Hear My Heartbeat, Silhouettes, Wonderful World and I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am. Their Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter continues to be one of the popular songs of the day. The merry lads - and that's what they are - are extremely cooperative and they haven't let fame go to their heads. They all like girls - birds is what they call them - but they never have the time to date as often as they'd like. They get along very well together. "If we didn't," says Herman whose real name is Peter Noone, "it would be a fine kettle of fish." They find their work more like fun than work, but they do get tired now and again after long recording sessions. With one | movie to their credit, they think they'd like to do more. They are good friends of the Beatles and like them. Herman fooled everyone, including himself, when he was named one of England's ten best dressed men . "It's just that as a whole, singers, especially in groups, have a reputation for being a bit seedy," he says. Well, a catastrophe happened on a recent visit to New York. His luggage got lost from the plane somehow and here he was scheduled to meet the press who had been told via press release about his best dressed honor. So there really was a dilemma - to get Herman an outfit in a hurry that wouldn't disgrace him. The suit he'd worn on the flight from England was wrinkled, a bit worse for wear, of course. So an ensemble was assembled and they met the press - and endeared themselves forever to them by Herman telling them his sad tale of wardrobe woe. They were immediately chalked up with one more virtue - the group with the amazing sense of humor. Though, there's a cockney hint to their speech, the boys are ironing it out a bit what with all the travelling they do, but there is still enough to keep the charm. They're the group on the go, all right, on the go-go-go! |
Herman, left, is really Peter Noone. The others are, left to right, Barry Whitwam,
Derek Leckenby, Karl Green and Keith Hopwood. All but one, Derek, are teens.