TRUE to form, the good old English rain was lashing the windows of the RM office when Herman phoned me from Kentucky. And what he said didn't help much.     "It's 85 degrees here and it's only 4:30 in the morning. We've just been swimming in the pool. It's only five yards from my door," he revealed.     Having inflicted his own brand of mental torture on me, Herman told me how his mammoth one-nighter tour had been going over the past couple of weeks.     "It's fabulous," he enthused. "We played top billing over the Stones on Saturday in Philadelphia. There were 15,000 people there. Andrew Oldham arranged that they went on after us, but we arranged that there was a 45-minute break between our acts.     "I don't think the Stones liked it!"     The audiences, it appears, are a lot older in America and are liable to stand on their seats and dance the Monkey if they enjoy a fast number. FANTASTIC LITTLE ANTHONY     "It's like the old days of Jerry Lee Lewis at the Odeon," was the way Herman described it. "Every night, we get presents of cakes and things, but Dick Clark won't let us eat them because one bloke got poisoned once."     Sharing the bill with Herman's Hermits are Freddie Cannon, Bobby Vee, The Hondells, The Ikettes and Brenda Holloway. But it was another group that Herman raved about.     "Hey, have you seen Little Anthony and the Imperials?" he asked. "They're fantastic. Little Anthony sings and the others do the splits, lean over backwards and everything. We'd never seen anything like it."     When Herman played in Oklahoma City, the group found themselves being transported by helicopter. They landed on a roof in a fairground and performed up there. Trouble was, it was about the only cold night they've had.     Then in Dallas, they were presented with the keys of the city by the Mayor. The ceremony took place on the high street where President Kennedy was assasinated. But the only shots when Herman was there were from the cameras.     I wondered if Herman's Hermits had to change their act for American audiences.     "You put more into it," Herman replied. "After travelling six hundred miles a day in a coach or on a plane, you're shattered, but they expect a lot more because they only get one chance to see you, then you're gone."     Herman said that all the U.S. radio stations have their own charts. "Just like the good old Radio London," and his "Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter" is top on just about every one.     "All the stations play English records all the time. There's the Moody Blues, the Seekers, Unit Four Plus Two, the Yardbirds, and all of them," he went on. "It's great out here for British groups."     The group recently received a gold album and gold singles for "I'm Into Something Good," "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat," "Silhouettes," and "Mrs. Brown." Not bad, eh?     "We've had no nights off in two weeks so far," Herman revealed. "But we've got a week off after the recording. I want to go to the clubs in New York that the Stones and the Animals talk about."     Herman will be Stateside for about another four weeks, then it's back home to the rain-lashed streets of Liverpool where he now lives.     But he'll be one up on the other residents.     "We're all buying white suits so that we can flash our suntans," he laughed.

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