Page 49 - Classic Rock (January 2020)
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ELO on children’s TV
show Supersonic in 1975.
“My mum hated me
doing music. She’d go:
‘There’s a job going at
ATV for a cameraman.’
I’d already had about
three hits by that point!”
of French horn. It was just an odd sound. The first
tour was supporting Deep Purple, which you
wouldn’t think would be a good match, but we
went down great. So we started touring America
on our own and it just gradually built up from
there. I think the biggest one was in Cleveland, in
front of about sixty thousand people.
The following year’s Mr. Blue Sky is one of
Lynne with your most enduring songs. Among other
ELO circa 1979. things, it became Birmingham FC’s unofficial
anthem, and it’s been used as a wake-up call to
to where the Idle Race were recording and, of There’s a story about Beatles producer astronauts on NASA missions. Which of
course, it didn’t sound quite so good. George Martin popping in to listen to ELO those two are you most proud of?
recording Roll Over Beethoven at AIR Studios [Laughing] Being a Blues fan, it’s got to be
Was joining The Move a stepping stone to ELO in 1972. Birmingham. I’m just kidding. Obviously the idea
for you? He was doing Paul’s Live And Let Die in the studio that it’s been used to wake up spacemen is amazing,
The Move weren’t as famous as they used to be next door, so he came in and gave Roll just the fact that someone sent
when I joined. It was okay, but we didn’t really do Over Beethoven a thumbs-up. He actually my tune up there.
anything good or play anywhere other than little sat and listened intently to it all the way
clubs. We joined to make ELO. That’s what Roy through, because it was a bit of Does the idea of that kind of
[Wood] and I were attempting to do. But it didn’t a strange arrangement with all those extensive reach blow your
work out, and Roy left after less than a year after classical things in there. It was a great mind sometimes?
we’d started ELO. The gigs were a real mess; you experience, and I got to know him It makes me feel good about
couldn’t hear the cellos, because they only had a little bit then. the music I’ve made. I didn’t
microphones for the string instruments at that ever get a proper job, I just
time, rather than pick-ups. I don’t know what it ELO’s 1976 album A New carried on doing this. My mum
sounded like for people in the audience, but it World Record was a massive hated me doing music. She’d go:
didn’t sound particularly good from where I was international hit. Was that “You don’t want to do that all rubbish.
standing. I’m still friends with Roy and I see him the turning point for ELO? There’s a job going at ATV for
every now and again, every time we play I think it was. Just prior to that, a cameraman.” I’d already had about
Birmingham or wherever. we’d had two really big hits three hits by that point!
with Evil Woman and Strange
Many of those great early ELO songs, like Magic, both from Face The Music Presumably your mum changed
Showdown, were written in your parents’ [1975]. We’d got a different her mind after a while.
front room, right? line-up together and started Yeah – when I bought my parents
True. I had a studio in the front room at that point, doing these American tours, which a house. That’s when she changed
where I’d record those old ELO tunes. It was right turned out amazingly well. We a bit, but not that much. She wasn’t
by the bus route, so I used to get these giant buses seemed like such a strange group that kind about the music, and really
GETTY x2 rumbling through my demos. Then I’d send them for an American audience, with two disliked my falsetto, when I used to
do high screamy ones. It would
off to the record company.
cellos, a violin, Mellotron and a bit
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