"IT'S when you start thinking too much about it all that your head begins to swell, and you start wearing wigs and dark glasses in the street," said Herman of Herman's Hermits.

    "We don't want any of that, do we boys?"
    Herman's Hermits were talking about success, the startling world-wide success they had achieved in the 18 months since they emerged from obscurity in England's Midlands. It is a success that has obviously surprised the Hermits, especially Herman, alias Peter Noone, who wears an almost perpetual look of astonishment.
    He looks surprised when he sings, surprised when he hears that another of his records has reached the top of the pop charts, and surprised with the money he can spend at random.
He was still looking surprised when I arrived at the broadcasting studio where Herman and the Hermits were recording a track for a radio programme.
    The Hermits looked more and more surprised as I kept insisting that they were a success.
    "Do you realise that you're bigger than the Beatles in the States right now?" I asked.
    "Oh come off it," said Herman waving the idea away with his hand. "you wait until their new film Help, comes out. They'll be bigger than ever then."
    "But you have three records in the first five," I argued.
    "Have we?" queried Karl Green, the 17 year old bass guitarist. The others - Barry Whitwam, 18, the drummer, Keith Hopwood, 18 rhythm guitar and singer, and Derek 'Lek' Leckenby, 22 - lifted their eyebrows nonchalantly.
   As Herman explained, "It's no different to working in a bank and being promoted, really, though naturally we're pleased when our records do well. I can remember how as a kid, I used to pray for Elvis's records to get to the top. I was his biggest fan. Now I pray for myself."
    If that has anything to do with their success, their prayers have been answered to a very great extent. On top of their record hits they have proved their live audience appeal in packed pop concerts during tours in England and the U.S.
    Now they are off on a second tour of the United States and to make two films in Hollywood. This year they hope to make their first tour of Europe, where their recording of Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter has won a spot on nearly all the charts.
    Luckily, in light of such success, the group's name has nothing to do with its members' natures. It would be hard to imagine the group living the life of real hermits. They chose the name by a sort of logic peculiar to themselves.
   They had already nicknamed Peter Noone Herman and they thought hermits sounded good with it. But the only time they ever retire from the limelight on purpose is when they have to go for their own safety - as they did in the U.S. last time when they were under strong police protection.

Baby image
    "We had to be protected almost every minute," said Barry.
    "One night the girls were sleeping all over the hotel stairs, so they could be the first to see us in the morning.
    "And then there were the ones in the bathroom who locked us out."
    They have a simple explanation for all this hoopla and adoration.
    "It's our little boy image," said Herman, with a little boy grin.
    "We have the innocence that appeals to grandmothers. None of this sex stuff like Presley or the Beatles. Just a baby image.
    "That's why we're not as popular over here as in the States. We're not way-out enough for English kids. Their parents and kid sisters like us too much.
    "Everyone says I'm cute," he continued, making just the kind of face that would provoke such a comment. "It's makes me mad, MAD, I tell you," and he smacked his fist into the palm of his hand to emphasize his mock anger.
    Though they joke about their "little boy" image, they know it is practically money in the bank - especially the lovable image projected by Herman himself.
    His is a true entertainer's personality; he is ready to sing at the drop of a hint.
    Even a request for a simple pose for our photographer sent him scurrying for the microphone, where he burst into a slapstick version of the Hippopotamus Song - a comical English ditty about a hippopotamus going into ecstacies over the cool mud in which he was wallowing.
    "mud, mud, glorious mud ..." sang Herman, belting out his hippopotami version of singing in the bath, complete with crazy pantomime.
    The Hermits say they hit on the off-beat Mrs. Brown type of song by accident.
       "It was a fluke. We heard Mrs. Brown on the radio and thought we'd record it for a novelty. For a laugh, really. We were flabbergasted when it did so well," said Herman.
    "Now that we've done so much of that type of song, we'd like to try something new - beat or something - but our fans expect it so we have to give it to them ... anyway, being a little different than our image is more lasting than some of the more obviously successful groups. I think we'll last."
    I asked them if they ever sang in another language.
    "Well, there's Midland, Cockney and yes, we parle a bit of the old Francess," laughed Herman.
    "But we don't like to sing in other languages, because you don't understand what you're singing about, do you?"
    Has all this changed them? Looking at them slouching about in casual, well-worn clothes, it hardly seemed so.
    "Our parents are dead chuffed - which means pleased - about our success," said Herman.
    "Money hasn't changed us to a great extent, but we can go and get little things ..."
    Like houses?
    "No, not houses," said Herman, as if wanting to disassociate himself from every pop star who has ever bought his mother and father a house, "but it makes a difference. I bought my little sister a bicycle. She wouldn't believe it was for her, but when I managed to convince her, she was delighted.

Rare car
    "And we all have cars, which isn't bad going, considering we're all about 17. I can't tell you what mine is," he said, suddenly becoming discreet in response to my questions.
    "It's too rare - just say it's a 'poor man's Bentley'."
    As for their leisure time, "We don't have any. We're always working." they unanimously agreed.
    "But we like to go for drives," said Barry, who was once a ladies' hairdresser. "We all like driving."
    "And swimming," said Karl, a former engraver.
    "Personally, I like beating up old ladies in the streets," laughed Herman. Minutes later he was reprimanding Barry for injuring a bird with his car.
    "We all like music, of course, the Beatles are our favourites," said Herman.
    "They're great. They just can't do wrong. Each one of them is a personality in himself."
    They said they liked folk singing. Bob Dylan? "There's a place for him," they said, but did not say where.
    "What about girls?" I asked. "Do you have any steady girl friends?"
    "No, we don't," said Herman.
    "We don't have time," echoed all the others, in tones that implied they wished they did.
    "Still, there's a girl in every town," said Herman.
    "True or false?" queried Keith.
    Anyway, they are not likely to have much more leisure time in the future. As budding film stars, they are to spend two days of their current U.S. trip in Hollywood, working on their appearance in a movie tribute to the late George Gershwin.
    Later they will be making a film with director Sam Katzmann, who has made several films for Elvis Presley.
    Katzmann has aready flown to England especially to see the boys.

off-the-cuff
    Do they like acting?
    "Well, we act all the time," Herman said.
    "Our act on stage is completely off-the-cuff. We never rehearse. It would be so dull.
    "In fact, we never know what we'll be singing except we always end with Silhouettes - one of their best-selling records.
    "I just say: 'And now folks, we would like to sing ... ' and I turn around and whisper to the boys 'Mrs. Brown'.
    "We love clowning and telling jokes - they laugh at anything.
    "I went to Manchester School of Music in the evenings while I was still at school. I fancied myself as a big movie star," said Herman, winking.
    "Well there was this agency there, and they used to get me lots of work. Whenever they needed a little kid who could sing - I was in the school choir, you know - I was given the part.
    "Usually the part consisted of walking on and tripping over."
    Then one of Britain's independent television companies gave him a part in Coronation Street, the popular serial about life in a Midlands town.
    "I quite liked that," Herman said.
    "I once got the part of a king in a school play," said Karl.
    The group as it now is, has only been in existence for about 10 months.
    It was formed around a group known as The Heartbeats, which played at a youth club where Herman, then always known as Peter Noone, often went.
    They needed a singer so he stepped in. Karl Green is the only other member of the original group. As others dropped out Barry, then Lek, and finally Keith joined up.
    Lek, the old man of the group, went to Manchester University for two years where he studied Civil Engineering.
    "It was too much brain work," he said.
    "I wanted an easy life. Then I joined the Hermits - and it's just as hard. People make me laugh when they say what a lazy life we have."
    They seldom see each other when they're not working, because they like it better that way.

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