MORE THAN JUST

Rip It Up, Issue 11, 1 May 1978, Page 1

MORE THAN JUST

Duncan Campbell

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Leo Sayer bounces into the airport interview room, looking like he’s just finished a five-mile run, followed by a brisk shower, a rubdown and a couple of dozen vitamin pills. Surprising, really, since he's just flown for nearly 12 hours solid and should be jetlagged beyond all reason. To cap it all, the flight made him sick to his tummy. But then, the little chap always has had a reputation for having plenty of guts and a determination to succeed. When it comes to hard knocks, Leo Sayer wrote the book. He started his long climb up the dizzy stardom ladder busking in the streets of London, an experience he won’t forget and which he later wrote a song about: ”... You find a nice soft corner, you sit right down, pick up your guitar and play . . . but then the lawman comes and says ’move along’, so you move along all day. I’m a one-man band. . . Later, he really pushed his luck in pubs and clubs, getting up on stage and singing without being invited. One such episode earned him a beating at the hands of several goons. He teamed up with Dave Courtney to write songs, and was later picked up by one Adam Faith. Roger Daltrey recorded “Giving It All Away”, and hey presto. Leo Sayer is suddenly A Name. At first it scared the little guy stiff, performing in front of big audiences. To hide this, he dressed up as a clown. “That was good at the time,” he recalls, “it used to shock people, y’ know, but people would listen to my lyrics, so it was good in that respect. But I don’t think about it now, I practically walk on like I am now (i.e. in street clothes). “The ultimate balance now is to try and be as natural as you can, and I don’t try now to approach it as a separate thing.” When the opportunities came, Leo was determined not to compromise himself for the sake of success.

“I wanted to sing my own songs, I wanted to write my own lyrics,” he says.“l thought ‘lf I get involved in music it’s got to be on my own terms. I wanted to make my own music, I didn’t want to get up there and sing Dylan songs.” The groundwork was laid on the hard British provincial gig circuit, playing the universities and the little town halls. Leo reckons he was working “367 days a year.” Adam Faith produced Leo's first album “Silverbird”, and since then, he’s never looked back. The next album, “Just A Boy”, showed Leo again paying a debt to his past, the back cover portraying his visual transition from the clown to the natural guy who makes it on his own talent. The hit, “Long Tall Glasses”, broke him Stateside. “America was the place I was always aiming to go to. Most of my influences are American. America was always a dream . . . I used to sit with an American atlas, saying ‘Cor, I’d love to play there.’ ”

His introduction to America also brought him into touch with ace producer Richard Perry. Together, they’ve made pop magic, and Leo, though he’s still a British citizen, spends most of his time today in the States. Wouldn't you, with two consecutive number one hits to your credit there? “I’ve certainly developed a lot more as a singer with Richard,’’ he says. “I think he's really made me concentrate on the fact that I am a singer. Before that, I was always the songwriter, and then I’d sing the songs. I used to get so worked up singing the songs, thinking Oh Gawd, the songwriter will kill me’, then realising I was the songwriter. I used to be really mixed up, but Richard made me realise that it doesn't matter, that I’m the singer, and to just concentrate on that. “America can be a frustrating place, a dreadful place to be in, if you’ve got nothing to do. But if you’ve got plenty to do, then it’s a fabulous place. The lifestyle is very much geared to the music business, so it’s easy to get work done.”

His last two bands have been practically all-American and past members have included the infamous Nicky Hopkins. At one stage, Leo was working with an 11-piece band, but now it’s down to a fivepiece, which he enjoys working with, because it's easier to control. I m quite happy now, because we’ve achieved the same big sound we used to have, but with a smaller outfit.’ The current stage show features material from all the current albums, and three tracks from a new album, which will just be called “Leo Sayer.' The likely single will be a tune called Dancing The Night Away”, written by Russell Smith of the Amazing Rhythm Aces. The new album, Leo says, is a lot simpler in its approach, after the dense, glittery disco of Endless Flight and Thunder in My Heart. Some of the older numbers have come in for a bit of a reworking, mainly because . they've evolved over the years through the different bands. Leo has a totally new band on this tour, with the exception of synthesiser player Don Preston, whose previous credits include The Mothers of Invention. Preston has been with Leo for two years. And, of course, we cannot pass here without mentioning the truly wonderful Frank Gibson Jnr, Local Boy Made Good, on drums. And what’s the stage act like? “Wait and see,’’ says Leo. “It’s very difficult to describe it, really, because I'm always putting things into the act that I'm not aware of unconscious things that come in. “I live for every performance of every song. The live performance is very important to me." Leo wants to record a live album, but your chance to catch him on stage is here, now. One thing for certain is you won't be disappointed. The lad's come too far and been through too much to give it all away now.