Saturday, May 6th, 1967

Record Mirror carries an article titled "The Who lose money and write a science fiction story" by Bill Harry

 

Transcript:

 

The Who lose money and write a science fiction story
BY BILL HARRY

THE WHO’s new H.Q. in Old Compton Street is in a starkly modern office block. ROGER DALTREY and I took over RICHARD GREEN’s office, MOUSE sitting at his feet. Mouse is a sleekly beautiful Arabian Saluki dog who sat bored, sometimes whining throughout the conversation.

Roger himself, remarkably enthusiastic about a lot of things, regularly using the word “fantastic” for anything he was delighted about. Their recent American trip for instance, that Murray The K. show at the RKO Theatre did the trick for us. Not the show at the RKO Theatre did the trick for us. We’re not short of talent over there—we’ve achieved what we wanted to. We lost money on it but we had a real time. It was also a great experience for the four shows in one day in one theatre and during the first three days all we did was phone radio stations. The DJ’s announced the calls and started playing “Happy Jack” — now it’s 47, with a bullet, which is higher than we’ve ever been in the American charts before.

“We just met some great people, the kids in the business, over there are fantastic. They’ve got such real ideas and great thinking. I felt like I was at home at last. I don’t like the older people in the States, though, they like to keep up with the people next door. No, I wouldn’t like to settle in the States—but being there for about two weeks was real.”

A few months ago there was a lot of talk about The Who becoming a television series which would be a British equivalent of THE MONKEES. This has been dropped. We found that The Monkees series itself lost money—and the networks weren’t really interested in it was too much of a gamble. Besides, people feel bored. I think they’re already sick of The Monkees after such a short time. Our ideas for the films were really good, the ideas alone would have made us more popular than The Monkees—but for how long? We didn’t think it would be good for us. We also think it is a mistake for THE TREMELOES to do it. It could do them a lot of harm. We want a lasting career and we don’t think that a series like that would particularly make us more popular than we are. A feature film would do much more good—and we’re going to do one this year. Kit Lambert has a couple of scripts and we’ve got a very strong story.”

Roger was guarded when we discussed the story-line because he believed that the British pop scene was such a bad way that any new ideas were likely to be stolen. For instance, JIMI HENDRIX came over here with a sound for now everyone’s stealing that sound. What I like about the States is that people think of ideas themselves and really try to be original. Over here they’re content to slow down and nick other people’s ideas.

Interest and controversy have been aroused by the HAMISH GRIMES press advertisements for “Pictures Of Lily”. “They were fantastic adverts, really great. No, we didn’t decide to have the adverts like that, we were in Germany when they came out. ‘Pictures Of Lily’ is so good anyway, it’s a publicists dream.”

Concerning the group’s instrumental E.P.’s for Track Records, Roger said: “The instrumental market now is pretty small and there’s a lot we can do instrumentally anyway which we used to do a long time ago. It’s merely a trombone and John plays a lot of brass anyway. It’s wide open.”

Later in the week I saw KEITH MOON, new short haircut and all, sitting alone in a pub sipping his favourite Vodka and Bitter Lemon. We engaged in a conversation concerning pop films. “Privilege”, THE BEATLES movies, “Only Lovers Left Alive”. I know they’ve been discussing it for a long time, but I’m sure that THE ROLLING STONES will make a film.

“And The Who’s first feature? We wanted to make a horror film. Not a comedy horror, but a really strong film—like Hammer make with Werewolves in it. That’s what we really wanted to do most of all—but we couldn’t get away with it because it wouldn’t be given an ‘X’ certificate. That’s no good to us, a lot of fans wouldn’t be able to go and see it—and we owe loyalty to the fans, we’re concerned about them.

“However, Keith saw the solution in science-fiction. There are some terrific Jules Verne stories, but there’s difficulty with copyrights, so Pete and I have worked on an original script. Original? It’s quite unique. Pete and Keith are Earth scientists who travel to another planet which threatens Earth. The other planet is a hollow world where people live on different levels underground. There is a ruling council of four—John, Roger, Pete and Keith (dual roles for K & P) and some of the people are telepathic. After many interesting adventures all four of them are killed.

“The Who intend to go to the Monterey Festival Of Pop—and on their return Pete was bringing back a talented American artiste he discovered on their last trip there. TINY TIM, who was going to record for Track Records. However, the trip might be postponed due to John Entwistle’s marriage around that time. However, the boys will be returning to the States for a six-week tour with HERMAN’S HERMITS and seem set to make a far bigger name for themselves over there.”