{"id":17846,"date":"2020-01-15T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T10:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=17846"},"modified":"2020-01-15T08:13:12","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T13:13:12","slug":"no-such-thing-as-rock-n-roll-a-conversation-with-mott-the-hooples-morgan-fisher-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/15\/no-such-thing-as-rock-n-roll-a-conversation-with-mott-the-hooples-morgan-fisher-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"No Such Thing As Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Conversation with Mott the Hoople’s Morgan Fisher (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Released in March 1974, The Hoople<\/i> was the last one that the band made before Ian Hunter left. At that point, was there a sense that the band might not continue?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, obviously, it was a huge shock because we thought we were about to make it really big. I think they may have even already booked Madison Square Garden for us. And Mick Ronson had just joined as well, which was a real thrill for me because I was a big fan of his. So, we lost him as well at the same point, which is enough for most bands to want to give up. I can see that.<\/p>\n

But what I think is that, although Ian Hunter is the frontman and the main songwriter, the core of the band is actually the bass player, Overend Watts and the drummer, Buffin, Dale Griffin. Because they started together in high school and it\u2019s almost like their career has been one single line right up to the end of Mott or British Lions with different people coming and going.<\/p>\n

\"\"You may know that Ian Hunter was actually an add-on. He wasn\u2019t in the original band who had a different name. And when they auditioned for Island Records in \u201868, I think, they said, \u201cGreat band, but you need a different singer. Singer\u2019s not right.\u201d It\u2019s a bit like when The Rolling Stones auditioned. They said, \u201cGreat band, but the pianist has to go. He\u2019s got the wrong image. Get him out.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they had a good singer. I didn\u2019t think there was anything wrong with him, but of course Guy Stephens, who was a producer, knew better. And he found Ian Hunter, said, \u201cHow about this guy?\u201d And at the beginning, they didn\u2019t know what to make of each other, but look what happened. It all worked out.<\/p>\n

So, in a way, Ian was an add-on. So, when he left, we were back to the core of Overend and Buffin, and they don\u2019t want to give up. So, we just thought, \u201cWell, we need some more<\/i> add-ons!\u201d So, we looked for a singer and a guitarist. And we found two good guys and just carried on.<\/p>\n

Shouting and Pointing<\/i> from mid-1976 was the first album with your songwriting \u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n

Probably, yeah. We did two albums as Mott; that was the second one. I started to contribute because Ian \u2013 who’s an amazing songwriter \u2013 was out of the picture. I didn\u2019t even bother when he was in the band, but now Overend was writing most of it. And he said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to help me. I don\u2019t have enough songs.\u201d So, I did.<\/p>\n

Were the songs that you were writing a continuation of what you were doing with Morgan, or were you consciously writing in a different style?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, I mean, there\u2019s one particular song on Shouting and Pointing <\/i>called \u201cCareer (No Such Thing as Rock and Roll),\u201d which is a big ballad,<\/i> and it has some pretty sophisticated chords in there. So, I think what I was doing in prog, some of it did go into that. I couldn\u2019t just start writing great rock songs because I didn\u2019t really know how. I still don\u2019t know how, really. I mean, I still like adventurous harmonies and melodies and things. But I just brought it out of a kind of rather, yeah, snobbish prog rock world into the rock world as The Beatles did with a great ballad amid the great rock. So, it\u2019s kind of more like that. So, I think it fitted in, but it was something that the guys in Mott the Hoople would never have done.<\/p>\n

\"\"I play keys, and a lot of times I can tell, \u201cOh, that song was written by a keyboard player,\u201d or, \u201cThat was written by a guitarist.\u201d There are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but I think as a rule it\u2019s harder for keyboard players to write rock music because we\u2019ll use these interesting chords and things like that, whereas a guitarist can make something great out of a couple of barre chords.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Ian Hunter can do it. Because \u2013 let’s put it politely \u2013 he has limitations on the keyboard. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I love John Lennon\u2019s keyboard, too. He had limitations, but he had some great feeling. Ian actually said something to me \u2013 and he might<\/i> have been joking \u2013 about \u201cAll the Way from Memphis.\u201d A great piano rock song. He said, \u201cI wrote it on the black keys because there\u2019s less of them.\u201d Why not? There\u2019s only five!<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the Way from Memphis\u201d and David Bowie’s composition \u201cAll the Young Dudes\u201d were hits in the U.S. But earlier albums like 1970’s <\/b>Mad Shadows<\/b><\/i> are virtually unknown here in the States. Mott the Hoople was always much more popular in the UK than they were over here. Do you think there was anything about the band that was peculiarly English that made you go over better in the UK than the U.S.? <\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. And it\u2019s happened to other bands too. I think Status Quo never got anywhere in the States. There are a lot of anglophiles in the states, people who just love British rock. So, with our career, eventually we were about to crack it big. We made the transition from playing to just anglophiles into playing to bigger audiences who would fill Madison Square Garden. So, we were about to crack it.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s kind of hard for me to look at the band and say, \u201cWell, what is it about the band that would not have us cracking in the States?\u201d Because we almost<\/i> did. And of course, \u201cAll the Young Dudes\u201d kicked down that door, I think. Bowie really gave us the keys. That was our trump card, shall we say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Released in March 1974, The Hoople was the last one that the band made before Ian Hunter left. At that point, was there a sense that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[4054,1528],"class_list":["post-17846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-morgan-fisher","tag-mott-the-hoople","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17846"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18092,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17846\/revisions\/18092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}