‘Jesus, there was a gig. We were just breaking big, you know? We were on quite late on the Saturday, that was the middle day, and the band who played before us, Electric Sundance, they were called, they were dreadful. The crowd were sick of them and they started chanting, “Heartbreaker, Heartbreaker.” They gave in and got off and we went on. We felt bad about it, the other band was gutted, but what can you do? They were crap. Their vocalist was so pissed he could barely stand without something to hold on to.
‘Anyway, we went on stage and the place went wild. I couldn’t hear my guitar, but our equipment was okay; it was the roar from the crowd drowning the monitors out. They quietened down a bit when we started to play, went ape at the end of every number, then when we played
Rescued
the whole place just went up. It’s good on film, but the real thing was seismic. They were singing the riff, can you believe it? Singing the bloody riff. That was the first time I’d heard it done. Christ, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. Or they were. We were scheduled to do ninety minutes, played for two hours and then did encores. If it had been up to us, we’d have gone back out and done some more, but we were told to call it a night, let things start to wind down. Something about noise and licences.
‘Funnily enough, I never heard of Electric Sundance again.’ Colin smiled, lost in the memory. ‘I remember Tom that night, he was on such a high. He kept asking Johnny if it got any better than this.’
‘What did Johnny say?’
‘He said, “Course it does, mate. We haven’t conquered the world yet.”’ Colin shook his head. ‘I don’t think Johnny ever doubted we would, not after that. He didn’t make a fuss, never talked about his ambitions, other than musically. He practised for hours, wanted to be the best, you know? Always tried to learn new things and just get better and better at what he does. But he steered us surely and inexorably towards success. He was the real driving force behind Heartbreaker, whatever people might have thought about Tom and his influence. Johnny and to a lesser extent Dan made everything happen. The rest of us were just along for the ride.’
‘Heartbreaker was one of the most hardworking bands there’s ever been. The schedule was pretty punishing. How did you cope with it?’
‘Badly, a lot of the time. That’s why so many of us ended up in such a state. I think Paul came out of it all better than anyone, and even he was pissed more than he was sober. Johnny did drugs recreationally, until you know when, of course, when he did them as if his life depended on it. He seemed hell-bent on destruction, then when it happened, he turned right around and got clean. I’m glad he did, though, we’d lost enough mates.’ He reflected. ‘In the early days with the band, everything was so new and exciting for us, and we were relatively young and naïve. It’s no wonder we went off the rails, we were completely overwhelmed by what was on offer, what we could do, the whole experience.
‘We got a lot of stuff on film over the years, you know. We’d been planning to put out some sort of tour diary or something and use our own amateur footage in amongst the professionally shot stuff. I wish I knew what had happened to the tapes.’
Marilyn wandered over and sat down with them. ‘Hi Alex, is he boring you with old tales of superstardom?’
‘Hi. Not boring me, but yeah, we’re talking about the old days with the band. I just so wish I could have seen them play live, you know?’
Marilyn grimaced. ‘Not me. Not my kind of thing at all, I’m afraid.’
‘Marilyn likes Westlife and Take That. She only came to see me play once, I was guesting with the Blueberries about six years ago.’
‘We’d just met,’ added Marilyn, ‘and I was curious to hear him play. I’d heard of Heartbreaker, of course, but had never heard any of their music. I hadn’t heard the Blueberries before, either.’
Alex judged that Marilyn was late twenties/early thirties, so in one sense this didn’t come as a great surprise. But she wondered how you could have such a close relationship with someone and not share even a passing interest in something they were passionate about.
‘When they came out onto the stage, I was so excited. I couldn’t believe that was my boyfriend up there. And then they started playing and I really couldn’t believe it. I’d never heard such a racket. Colin was doing something to his guitar, it sounded like he was trying to strangle it.’
‘I was playing slide.’
‘Then this bloke started singing, wailing on and on about dying.’
‘Our arrangement of Bukka White’s
Fixin’ to Die
.’
‘What a dirge. I nearly jumped on the stage and finished with him there and then. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the fortune teller saying I’d meet a musician and marry him, it was my destiny, I would’ve. I stuck it out for about twenty minutes, then I went down to the bar and got a drink. You could hardly hear the music down there, it was much better.’ She looked at Colin and laughed. ‘Honestly.’
‘So we made a deal. I don’t play any of my music to her, and she doesn’t play any of the stuff she likes when I’m there.’
‘What on earth do you play when you want to listen to music together?’ asked Alex, intrigued.
‘We’ve got some neutral stuff we can both live with, so we get by on that,’ said Colin. He smiled towards Marilyn. ‘It seems to work for us, anyway.’
Marilyn got up, shaking her empty glass. ‘I need a refill. Anyone else?’ Colin and Alex both shook their heads, and so she went off on her own in search of more wine. Alex watched her go. She was tiny, five foot two at most, with a mass of blonde hair that formed a halo about her face, and round, blue eyes. She was very little-girlish all around, with a lisp that Alex thought was affected. Heartbreaker was a tall band, and at about five-ten, Colin was the shortest of them. He towered over Marilyn, though. He was in good shape, broader now than in his Heartbreaker days, and his formerly flowing locks had been shaved close to his head. Marilyn looked just like a doll. If she didn’t know that they had been together for so long, Alex would have given them about a fortnight. It just went to show how wrong you could be about people.
‘So, what are you looking for?’ Colin asked Alex. ‘Excessive spending on ephemera? Taking helicopters to parties that were only a few miles away? Scandalous tales of drink, drugs and women? Using hundred dollar bills to snort mountains of coke? Fountains filled with champagne?’ He laughed. ‘Because if you are, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve done it all, believe me. Mind you, compared to the crew, we were choirboys.’ He scratched his head. ‘Do you remember when there was all that stuff in the papers about us? Back in’79, that would have been. We were touring in the States, promoting
Icarus
, that was the fifth album, and things went crazy back here
.
’
Alex nodded.
‘There was a load of shit about the drink and drugs we were all supposed to be taking, and women being “procured” for us. That was the word they used; “procured”. Like we couldn’t get girls for ourselves. Jesus, we were beating them off with sticks. If we’d had two dicks each we couldn’t have got through them all, there were so many hanging around. They used to scam their way onto our floor in whatever hotel we were at and sleep in the corridor. I’d get up to go and see Johnny or whoever and be stepping over teenagers all the way to his room. Talk about trampled underfoot. And it seemed like they were all steeped in hippy juice.’ He laughed. ‘We figured if the band crashed, we could go into business selling patchouli oil, there was clearly a massive demand for it. Anyway, all this tacky stuff got printed in the tabloids back home while we were over there touring, and the shit hit the fan. Next thing I know, my mother’s on the phone asking me what the hell I think I’m doing, dragging the family’s name through the mud. She said she’d never be able to hold her head up in church again. She’s deeply religious, my old mum. It was bad enough that I was in a band, without this. It took a lot of time to sort things out with the family, I can tell you.
‘Still, at least Tom and I weren’t married. Johnny, Andy and Paul got no end of shit from their wives. Tiff said she would have left Andy but there’d be no point, because he was so smacked out he wouldn’t have noticed. It all calmed down, but that kind of thing does so much damage.’
Alex nodded. ‘It must have been rough when things like that happened.’
‘Yeah, especially since we thought we’d dodged that particular bullet.’
‘How so?’
‘Six months before, this journo …’ Colin paused then shook his head. ‘Never mind. Old news. Do you know, we used to wonder what people expected of us. I mean, we’d go out there and whip a stadium full of people into a frenzy, have them in the palm of our hand, take them high, bring them down again and then bam! The big finish. We’d get so hyped up we could barely sit still, and some people seemed to think after all that we should go back to a hotel room and play Scrabble. People should realise they can’t have it all ways; if you want bands that can create that sort of energy, then there has to be a way for them to release it again afterwards.’
Alex nodded. ‘Are you saying that the families had no idea how you behaved on tour?’
Colin picked at the grass. ‘Of course they knew. Not every last detail, but the gist of it.’ He met Alex’s eyes. ‘They understood the sheer fucking tedium of touring; the travelling, the hotels, the bars. Performing was brilliant, we lived for it. It was the rest that would grind. The arrangement, unspoken, admittedly, was that if we were out of the country, we could cut loose, just so long as we were careful. Discreet, if that’s the right word for some of the shenanigans we got up to.
‘The problem with this was, it was public. It broke the arrangement, they felt humiliated.’ He paused. ‘And public humiliation is difficult to swallow. Come on,’ he said, scrambling to his feet, ‘let’s go and get another drink.’ Alex nodded and they headed back towards the others.
‘Hey, there,’ hailed Johnny. ‘Are you back with us?’
Colin plastered a grin on his face. ‘We are, mate. Just been reminiscing.’
Chrissie squeezed Colin’s arm and Johnny handed fresh plates of food over to him and Alex. ‘Get some salad and stuff on that. Wait ‘til you try it, it’s dynamite.’
Alex laughed. ‘If I eat much more, I’ll burst.’
‘Just a taste, then. It’s my new marinade, I want to know what you think of it.’
Chapter 24
‘You look pensive,’ Johnny said to Siobhan later that afternoon. She was sitting quietly, a faraway look in her eyes.
‘I was thinking of Andy,’ she said, smiling slightly. ‘He’s been dead … what … seventeen years next month? And Tom, of course.’
‘Of course. But mainly Andy.’
She nodded. ‘I miss them both such a lot, Johnny, but it’s Andy who tugs at my heart.’
Johnny put his arm around her shoulders and they propped each other up.
‘What’s up?’ Paul joined them.
‘Just thinking about old friends.’
Paul nodded, his expression thoughtful. Then he smiled, a big broad grin that lit up his face. ‘Do you remember Tiff and Andy’s wedding?’
Siobhan and Johnny nodded, laughed. ‘What a day.’ Siobhan turned to Johnny. ‘Go and get the photos, there’s a love.’
Johnny headed off indoors and was soon back with a couple of packets of prints. Siobhan shouted to the others and they all gathered round as Johnny dug out the photographs.
Christabel broke into a smile as she saw what they were. ‘I haven’t seen these for years,’ she said, as she picked up a group shot. ‘Here, Alex, have a look at this rogues’ gallery.’
Andy Airey was in the centre of the picture, dressed in a green suit and with his hair tied back. Tiffany, looking ethereal in a long floaty dress, was on his arm. Around them stood their bandmates and friends, dressed in the height of fashion for 1973. Alex started to giggle.
‘Oi, you, that’s enough,’ admonished Paul. ‘I’ll have you know those lapels were the latest thing.’
‘You look like a gangster,’ Alex exclaimed, then laughed again when she saw the stacked, striped soles and heels on Colin’s boots. Siobhan sported white knee length boots and a floppy white hat, along with a smock-dress that just about covered her underwear. Tom had turned up in jeans, but, in keeping with the fashion of the day, his feet were completely enveloped by them, and Johnny was at his shoulder wearing an ugly if trendy brown suit.
‘God, we had a great day, didn’t we?’
‘Where’s Dan on that shot?’
‘Behind the camera.’ Siobhan rooted around amongst the other photographs. ‘Here’s one of Dan.’ Alex looked at it and laughed. Dressed in a purple suit and toning paisley shirt, Dan looked no better than any of the others. ‘And that’s Killer.’ She pointed to a guy in a denim suit, hair pulled back in a ponytail, camera to his eye.
‘Where did Andy and Tiffany get married?’
‘Register office in North London. These were taken at the hotel where they had the reception.’
Alex flicked through the shots.
‘God, we’re just kids there, aren’t we?’
Siobhan nodded. ‘I was seventeen. I thought I was really grown up, going to a celebrity wedding with my famous boyfriend.’ She looked at Paul and giggled.
‘How old were Andy and Tiff?’
‘Let’s see, Andy would have been nineteen, so Tiff was eighteen.’
‘Christ.’
‘They were lovely together, though, weren’t they?’
‘Made for each other.’
‘Andy wrote such lovely songs for Tiff. Made me cry, some of them.
Midnight Angel
was my favourite.’ Siobhan smiled at Johnny. ‘You wrote some beautiful songs too, you know. You always had such a way with romance.’
‘Course with Johnny, you never could be sure who they were written for,’ observed Paul.
‘Depended on which little honey he was trying to charm at the time. He wrote one song for three different girls, as I recall.’ Colin grinned. ‘Do you remember? Paid off like a rigged deck at poker.’
‘Do you remember that little Irish bird? What was her name, now …’
‘Morag.’
‘No, you dummy, she was Scottish. Long hair, big nose …’