ZigZag: Who did the arrangements on the album?
Charlie Whitney: Roger Ball from the Average White Band.
ZZ: Didn't they get a bit pissed off at playing some of it---like that brass band stuff on "Sat'dy Barfly"?
CW: That wasn't them on that track. It was just some guy who played the tuba. They played on "Take Your Partners" and "Save Some For Thee".
ZZ: Was the co-production credit on "Fearless" because of George Ckiantz' growing involvement?
CW: His involvement has been pretty much the same all along, but he does a good job, and we just thought that it would be a nice one to give him the acknowledgement.
ZZ: Why does John Weider [sic - Wetton] get credited with 'guitars, vocals, contracts and keyboards'?
CW: When he joined he had so many contracts, he had a law suit going on with his old band and God knows what else about this and that, so it was just a joke about all the legal stuff he was going through at the time.
ZZ: The cover by John Kosh is amazing, as is his work on "Bandstand". Have they ever won any awards?
CW: I think they both won awards. A lot of people complained at the time that it was wasteful, but we liked it, and it all came out of our money. The American one was better because it was printed on better paper and the design was printed more accurately. There was a lot of fuss. He went bananas because the design on the edge didn't line up, he really went mad.
ZZ: It seems to me that your last two albums ("Fearless and "Bandstand") were in a way, the culmination of what I've always regarded as Family's style, which uses very broken structure to the songs, and employs a lot of pauses in the instrumental notes to give it that "fractured" feel. Do you think I'm talking rot, or have you been aware of the development of that style?
CW: I'm not really aware of it. I don't consciously think of two verses here, middle and an end---I don't see things as that, I see them in sections. What worried me about the time of "Song For Me" and "Anyway" was that there were a lot of moods but there was nothing anchoring it. So I've tried to get some basic rhythmic thing anchoring it and the top things can go through all their trips.
ZZ: You would also seem to be getting into sound effects judging from what I've heard of the new album.
CW: I've always been into that. Things that have really impressed me have been songs like "Tomorrow Never Knows" and a couple of things that The Byrds did. (Maybe "CTA 102" or "The Lear Jet Song") If there's ever a chance to do that type of thing I'll be into it.
ZZ: Is "Sat'dy Barfly" a dapper lad about Leicester?
Roger Chapman: No, it's a dapper 1958 spade driving around Chicago, more than Leicester. I really dig all that Coasters stuff---their imagery. Finger popping stud with a big car. That thing about spats is that they're dapper, not now so much. Maybe it was Leicester because I remember the guys we used to knock about with---with mohair suits and a couple of chicks on the game.
ZZ: One of the best tunes on 'Bandstand' is 'Coronation' and it's credited
to Whitney/Chapman/Whetton. Can you tell me what everybody did?
CW: Ken wrote section two. I wrote the opening part and we got together to write
section three, and Roger wrote the words. I find it a lot smoother, more
back to 'Entertainment', and 'Doll's House', but the biggest thing was
that I think we started to get the mixing together.
ZZ: Where did you get that photo that adorns "Bandstand", where you all look as though you're
waiting in a hospital for news of a good friend's brain transplant?
CW: It was taken at Olympic studios, and there were a lot of hassle because of that, because everyone looked so pissed off.
ZZ: Was the character in 'Burlesque' another dapper type?
RC:I don't think so. I only did half the
lyrics on that one and tidied up the rest. That was basically Charlie's
idea---the guy wears spats. Rita and Greta were a couple of old rags that
Charlie used to get together with at the Burlesque in
Leicester.
ZZ: There's a couple of songs on 'Bandstand' about very
beautiful and superior women---I'm thinking of 'Broken Nose' and 'Glove'.
Do you have a fascination with those sort of women?
RC: There's a difference---in one song he pulls, and in the other he gets a punch in the
nose. One he scores and one he don't.
ZZ: A very profound difference.
RC:
'Glove' is really about nervousness. He sees his chance and wonders
whether he can get it together, and the other is just a young lech, kind
of sneering every time she walks by. You know you see them all the time on
building sites yelling out.
ZZ: "The day that I stopped loving you/was the day you broke my nose" is a great couplet.