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Doubts which, I am glad to say have been swept overboard this week by the record's leap into the NME Top Twenty, overtaking people like the Cream, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Kinks, Tremeloes and Isley Brothers! "Have you heard the new single?" he asked when I went round to his Belgravia pad. "D'you wanna hear it?" This last remark being accompanied by the placing of the said disc on the turntable. "whaddya think? D'you like it?" - "Yeah, it's fine, no worries." - "Listen to it again, it gets better after a flew plays. I've heard it about fifty times already." Be assured that I wasn't putting him on. Herman relaxed slightly and said, "It's the first record I've really sung on. The rest was all . . ." Here he went into an impersonation of himself in teeny-bopper days, bending his knees, grinning wildly and clapping his hands, while bouncing up and down. "It's so different from what I've done before. I dunno if they'll like it much. Listen to this and you'll see what I mean." He played bits of each track on his new album and the change was instantly recognisable. From a happy-go-lucky feel to a soft ballad in one go. We left to go round to Knightsbridge to meet Mireille (his wife), who was being coiffeured in a haute manner. We found her not yet ready so we repaired to a dainty tea shop behind a chocolate shop where we drank from delicate cups, nibbled scones and were amused by the startled looks on the faces of the genteel ladies who frequent the place. "It's great in 'here, isn't it?" Herman said smiling. "I've heard about places like this but not been in one before." Tea done with, we walked back and met Mrs. Noone, then continued down Sloane Street where a Frenchman leaning against the wall (that's all they seem to do) chirped "Herman Her-meet" as we passed. "Oh, it was easy, really," he admitted. "You don't have to work all that hard. My only trouble was that I kept chatting with people too long. "We had to do it really so that we'll be okay for when we go to Las Vegas. We've got a bloke coming over to teach me a bit of patter, a few |
 cracks and things like that, and there's a scriptwriter working on it for us too." Back at the flat, windswept and tired after our route march, Herman began detailing his high cost of living, pointing out that his high income landed him in dire income tax straits. "it works out that when I buy a packet of fags, it's costing me about twenty-three shillings," he pointed out. "It's ridiculous, I'm not surprised people go and live in Switzerland. "Mireille and I were on holiday out there and we met Geoff Stephens, who wrote the new single. He's living there now. He gave us the song while we were out there. If we lived in Switzerland, we'd be far better off, but I'm English, and because I am and choose to live here, I have to pay all this money for it." And then there was the tour. "It was gonna be great, because all the Hermits live in Manchester and we don't see each other much," Herman commented. "We would have a chance to rehearse together and everything. "BUT," he said loudly, "It'll be a long time before I do another tour over here. It's 1969, not Liverpool '63. Everything was chaos. "The reason we went on the tour was because we like to do business. It did us no good at all. It was a step backwards for us. "we wanted to do some teenage work. There was no tour manager, people were swearing on stage, nothing was properly organised. We finished up practically having to run the tour, so we pulled out. Business, it seems, was far from all it could have been and the manager of one venue reported having to hand back a fair bit of money to fans after Herman pulled out. Herman's manager, Harvey Lisberg told me: "The reason Herman pulled out was because the promoter failed to carry out his contractual obligations." |
