Over a career spanning five decades, founding member of 70s rock band Starry Eyed & Laughing, Tony Poole, has released three albums with that band, produced music for a range of artists from Barbara Dickson to Gilbert O’Sullivan, and, in more recent years, produced and recorded two albums with U.K. supergroup Bennett Wilson Poole. Incredibly, Tony did not record a solo album until earlier this year when FAITH IN US was released. ‘I might be like David Crosby; he took forty-seven years to record his second album and then made four records in the last few years of his life,’he told Lonesome Highway when we recently spoke with him.
Had you always intended to record a solo album over the past five decades?
To put it mildly, over the years, I have been trying to keep the wolf from the door workwise. There have been times when I’ve had to live in my car for a while. I had been thinking about it all my life, and people had been saying that I should do it, so it’s a relief to have it out. The weird thing is that over the past few years, with the Bennett, Wilson, Poole records and the Starry Eyed and Laughing record, they were virtually solo records because I had done everything on them apart from them singing, using Danny (Wilson) and Robin (Bennett’s) great songs. So, they have been in effect solo records without my name on them.
Were the songs written over a long period of time?
There are a few that are quite new, like Chelsea Girls (1965) and the last track on the album, Film Noir. The oldest song Chasing The Rain is from about 1990, when I had a relationship with a girl in Denmark. I started it in 1990 but only finished it a couple of years ago. Love Or Something is from about five years later; those two are the oldest songs on the record.
I’m playing everything on the record except the saxophone parts. My girlfriend at one time was a really good saxophone player, but we didn’t have a very good parting. We used to have jam sessions, and I sampled a bit of her sax playing to put on two tracks, and I know if I asked her, she would probably send a hit squad out on me.
Were any of the songs intended for the Bennett, Wilson, Poole records?
The Slice Of Time was a song I introduced to Bennett, Wilson, Poole for our second album. We played it live a number of times, but for one reason or another, we didn’t include it on that record. I also had Imagine This as a perspective for the second Wilson, Bennet, Poole album, but Danny, and I don’t think he will mind me saying this, but he doesn’t like Imagine by John Lennon. Although unlike John Lennon’s song, it wasn’t about materialistic things, but about what’s happening in the States these days. Those two songs are from around 2018.
1965 was a purple patch for classic pop music.
Yes. I chose 1965 for the album’s inspiration because it seemed to be the peak year for that classic pop and because The Byrds released Mr Tambourine Man that year. I don’t think I could do anything that wasn’t rooted in that style of music.
You were in your early teens in the mid-60s. Was the song Chelsea Girls (1965) written from film and photographic details of that period rather than personal memories?
Exactly, I was too young to be around London at that time, although I was at a boarding school, and I do remember going down to the West End when I was sixteen and going to The Marquee to see a band called Green Ginger. That song mentions Ready, Steady, Go and other 60s things. Some people have picked up on the fact that Twiggy’s manager was Justin de Villeneuve. I use him as a cypher for all those people who cashed in at that time. I wanted to include 1965 in that song title to be like a time traveller going back to when everything was new, colourful and fresh. But at the same time, we didn’t realise that they were bombing the hell out of Vietnam. I hadn’t planned on putting it on the record, but I played it live last year at a solo gig, and several people told me they liked it. There's nothing like getting a compliment to give you some incentive.
Other than your devotion to The Byrds, what other bands stood out for you at that time?
The Beatles, obviously, there are a few songs on the album with similar arrangements to theirs. When I was a teenager at my nightmare boarding school, in the back of my exercise book, where I was supposed to be doing schoolwork, I kept a chart of the top records at the time. The Move, The Who, Small Faces, The Animals, The Walker Brothers and American bands Jefferson Aeroplane and particularly Love, I remember buying their first three records. I could also mention Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black, and there was a guy who wrote songs for Sandie Shaw called Chris Andrews; he had a song called I’m Her Yesterday Man. I was lucky because my dad had a Grundig tape recorder, and he used to record the Radio London shows because he was into that type of music at the time. I actually still have some of the tapes from those shows.
How long did the recording process take for the album?
I did demos in 2018 for the two albums' oldest tracks, which I had done for the Bennett Wilson Poole albums. Film Noir, Chelsea Girls, Love or Something and Broken Glass were all recorded over the past year. I think that is important because it keeps things fresh. The others would have been done over a five-year period.
Glenn Phillips’ guitar breaks on Film Noir are wonderful. Had you worked with him before?
I mastered a couple of Glenn’s records for a label called Shagrat Records about five or six years ago. Nigel Cross, who runs Shagrat, suggested I ask Glenn to play on the track. I sent him the raw track with my vocals and instrumentation; he sent me back his guitar parts, and I used exactly what he sent me. He really followed the narrative in the track. I can play lead guitar, but sometimes you run out of your own repertoire, and he got it so right.
In contrast to the album's upbeat nature, This Slice Of Time speaks to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
It’s a good way to express yourself without being on a soapbox; there are enough other people writing about broken hearts, and I’ve always liked songs like Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth and even if some people don’t like it, Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction. I had written the songs Lifeboats and Hate Won’t Win for the first Bennett Wilson Poole album and thought This Slice Of Time would work for this record.
Am I correct in describing the album as a labour of love for you?
Yes. I’m very much a one-man operation. I don’t put my music on Spotify; the balance between what you get and what the shareholders get is all wrong. When I promoted the album before Christmas, and the orders came in, I was sitting on the floor putting the CDs in jiffy bags and posting them. It does cost money to make an album, but the fans who have bought this record have already paid for it three times over.
Do you have live shows lined up to promote the album?
Yes, I’m playing at The Betsy, Trotwood in London in April. It’s a little late to call it a launch gig, but it will be with a full band, and because we have to rehearse as a full band, I’m going to get some other gigs.
Do you listen back to the early Starry Eyed and Laughing albums
Not the albums we did in the 70s. And even the last album, BELLS OF LIGHTNING, that we did, I haven’t listened to in a while, I will have to listen to it because we will do some songs from it at the live shows. I am planning to make a new Starry Eyed and Laughing record, hopefully this year. I’ve also already been asked if I’ll do a follow-up to FAITH IN US. I might be like David Crosby; he took forty-seven years to record his second album and then made four records in the last few years of his life.
Interview by Declan Culliton