Eric Haydock…views and memories of a Hollie

 

Clem is a great drummer, there was an elite back then, class drummers. Clem, Brian Bennett, Phil Seaman, Tony Meehan, Ginger Baker. They did sessions as well as play with bands. Not because they were cheap. The studios would call the guys in to get the job done quicker. The managements were signing everybody up at the time. All the bands were going down for a session and you had to get it done in the time that was allowed. They’d say there’s three bands in today, you’ve got to 1.30. The Hollies recorded in Studio 2 at EMI and I remember them saying to us ‘come on lads, the Beatles are in at two and they’ve got priority!’ Thing was, the bands wouldn’t be used to playing in a studio or recording. The singer might get it after a couple of takes, the bass and guitar might too but the drummer, that was a different thing. They couldn’t keep time, they would have to speed up and the producers would say, ‘we can’t have this, get Clem in, or Tony Meehan’, or whoever. That’s what happened with our first drummer Don Rathbone. It was the management who decided he should be replaced and Don went into that side of the business. Clem would come in and ask ‘what have you got?’ They’d say, ‘here, look at this, listen to this, the demo, and Clem would say, ‘right that looks ok’ and he’d get it done. Piece of piss! Then pick up his £12! Here, sign here, you had to sign everything at EMI. Clem would take his £12 and he’d be off, probably to another session at another studio. 

The Hollies never used session men after Bobby Elliott came in. Bob was a great drummer, bit flash, he’d swing his arms, crash the cymbals from below, twiddle the sticks, it was all show but Bob was great. It was all in his wrists. You never saw his arms move, unless he was putting on a show! Brian Bennett was the same, and Tony Meehan. Technicians.

I left school and didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. I never learnt anything. I only learnt about stuff when I left! That was the secondary school education. If you failed the Eleven Plus you were fodder, thats’ all. I went
to a factory, got a job, I asked, ‘what do I do?’ they showed me, and that was it. No skills or anything. If you were on piece work you could earn a bit more. The turning point for me was when I went along with a mate to see The Shadows who were playing a gig at a theatre that’s long gone now in Stockport. As soon as the curtains opened, there they were. Meehan’s kit looked brilliant. And the three Strats of Jet, Hank and Bruce pointed up in the air, Fantastic! ‘That’s what I want to do!’ I said. ‘That’s the job I want!’ I couldn’t play the guitar, there was no musical knowledge in my family but I got a guitar and formed a band with some mates. Then a proper guitarist joined and I was relegated to the bass. That’s what happened back then. I’ve since asked loads of bass players over the years and they all say the same. ‘I was relegated to the bass too’. We are all failed guitarists! You were told, ‘just go boom boom’ thats all they wanted to hear, boom boom’. And you did.

I had a Fender Precision Bass to start with but preferred a Jazz bass guitar. I got Vox to make me a 2 x15 amp. Bass gear was so poor back then. Playing through an AC30 amp, by the end of the night the speakers were hanging out.

Jet Harris had an expensive six string bass, cost £199 which was a lot of money back then, you could buy a terrace house for £250. But Jet couldn’t cope with it and he switched to a Jaguar Bass and tuned it down. I bought a six string, it took six months to get here from California. They didn’t fly them here then, came by boat around the Cape Horn. When it arrived it didn’t have a case! I carried it around in a cardboard box for six months! Then I discovered that the new strings would cost £30 too, a hell of a lot of money back then. They weren’t mass produced and like many of us did, I boiled the strings in a pan to clean them up when they were getting dirty. You’d get another 100 miles out of them then.

First band I played with was Kirk Daniels and the Carpenters. I was getting fed up playing the usual stuff and said I like these harmony singers, two part harmonies. Thats why the Everly Brothers were unique. I was walking around an area of Manchester with my mate, we were Teddy Boys. He called himself Honey Bunny and I called myself Crash Craddock! We walked past this club and could hear this singing coming from the basement. I said ‘Who’s that?’ My mate said ‘its a record’. No it’s not I said. Then they finished singing, perfectly, together, in harmony. Not this crash bang wallop that bands did at the end of a song. We went to look and it was Graham Nash and Allan Clarke. I asked them if they fancied joining our band. ‘What do you play?’ they asked. I said well its the usual stuff, bit show band type of thing but we've got this singer who does Billy Fury, Elvis. But he doesn’t hit that high note, that magic top C. That falsetto that Nash had. Thats why you never get any Hollies tribute bands, they can’t get that top C note. You drop the keys and its not the same. Its nothing. They asked how much we were getting. I said a few bob but there’s plenty of work. 

Eric, Bip and Fido

First time we met the Stones was at the first Top of The Pops show. They had a barney with the Blue Jeans but it was more tongue in cheek. They were cocky, had a bit of an attitude but the lads from up here, up north, didn’t get too bothered about it. ‘They’re alright.. ’ they said, ‘they’re just pussycats’. It was an image Andrew Loog Oldham was trying to cultivate for them. He knew that musically they weren't that good. Bill Wyman recalled in his book, the first time the Stones played up north, at the Top Rank in Middlesbrough. They were making their mark, playing in London, ‘we were the new sensations’ Bill said, ‘then we played this gig in Middlesbrough. We had our gear all set up, guitars, AC30 amps, drums, mics, and this band came in. A Manchester band. One of the guitarists brought a sideboard in. ‘Whats that?” Bill asked. ‘Thats my amp’ he said. I asked ‘what do you mean?’ He opened the cabinets and there were two 8” speakers in them! Then he opened a drawer and there’s a little Linear amp in there! Then another guy came in with a Tea Chest. ‘Ive got a 15” in there he said to Bill. Toe rags they were Bill said! They went on before the Stones and tore the place up. Story goes that later, when they were back in London, Oldham told Mick Jagger ‘Mick, I was at the gig with the Manchester band and I tell you what, I’m not being funny but, Mick, you better to learn to dance! Quite frankly, for the rest of your life, you've got to dance your fucking arse off! Because you’ll never be able to sing like those lads! Never in your natural’ Brian Jones was a good leader but he had too many daggers in his back.

We did a tour with The Outlaws which featured Ritchie Blackmore. What a guitarist. Absolutely brilliant player. The Outlaws were backing Heinz. The tour with the Dave Clark Five was fun. They were everything I hated about the business. A manufactured band, put together because they were good looking, a good size and Dave Clark couldn’t play drums to save his life. I loathed them. it was a 18 week tour with them and The Kinks who had been booked on the bottom of the bill. The Dave Clark Five were the headliners. Within a couple of weeks ‘You Really Got Me’ was released and powered its way to the top of the charts. And the Kinks were getting bigger receptions and it became a resentment. We had been playing for years before the DC5, had more hits and they were going around like the BIG stars, aloof. Dave Davies hated them as much as I did. Dave was a wild man, different to his brother. Ray was more studious and serious. It came to a head at a theatre in Norwich when me and Dave decided we’d had enough of the DC5. ‘I’ll put an end to this lot” I said. We got some bolt cutters and cut their power cable, killing their act stone dead! As Graham Nash said in his book ‘Wild Tales’, ‘served the f——-s right!’ They never mixed with anyone on that tour, never joined in. They thought they were the fucking Beatles! The Kinks were great. They weren’t last on the bill for long. Mick Avory was a lovely guy, got on great with him, like brothers! During that tour they acquired a manager who for some reason decided they should have an image and told them to do a Shadows like goose step on stage! Well, when we saw them doing that we all fell about laughing! ‘Fuck me Ray’. ‘I know’ he said. “Fuck that manager off, get your red hunting jackets and stand up and rock!’ We were pissing ourselves. 

The songwriting in the Hollies was covered with the front three, Nash, Clarke and Tony Hicks. As you know, the bass player and drummer are always at the back. We never got any of the credits. Bobby Elliott said to me ‘you know Eric, we could have wrote fucking ‘My Way’ and it still it wouldn’t have made a B side!’

And it was me that started the band, which was finally acknowledged by Graham Nash during an interview we did in America. That was the first time we’d gone over to the States and when we arrived we discovered that our agent hadn’t sorted out visas for us! So we couldn’t work. It was frustrating to say the least and we were interviewed on the tele. ‘Who started the group’ the guy asked Graham. ‘That guy at the end of the line with the cowboy hat on his head’ pointing at me. ‘If it wasn’t for Eric we wouldn’t be here, we’d be working some other job’. 

We’d had a number of top ten hits, million sellers, toured incessantly, Europe, America, constantly on the road and yet we were skint! I couldn’t see how this was. We came back from a six week tour of the States and I went to see our management about getting some money for a house I wanted to buy in Hazelgrove. I had a mini at the time. When I went to the office in Tottenham, I saw a bright yellow E-Type Jaguar outside. This isn’t right I thought. ‘How much is the house’ he asked. ‘Two and a half grand” I said, three bedroomed house’. ’You’ll have to get a mortgage’ he said. ‘Where’s all the money we’ve been making?’ I asked him. ‘There isn’t any money’ he said, ‘There’s bills to pay, and don’t forget there’s five of you in the band’. I walked out. ‘Ive had enough’ I told the others. They thought I’d cool down  and get on with it but I couldn’t. They would work for nothing. I wouldn’t. Its a familiar and typical story of the music business though. One big fucking rip-off! There were some gigs and recording sessions to fulfill and they asked Jack Bruce to replace me but he turned it down. They got Bernie Calvert eventually. Lovely lad is Bernie but meantime I had a phone call from the Kinks management. It was a Friday night and they asked me if I would be interested in joining them to replace Pete Quaife who had his own issues. Must be something with us bass players! The Kinks had a gig in Southport. Anyway, I told them I had one gig to complete with the Hollies and I’d have to turn them down. As soon as I put the phone down, I thought to myself, ‘what the fuck have I done?’ I should have joined them. I got on great with them all, Mick, Ray and Dave. Their manager told me that for some reason I had a calming effect on the brothers who were always fighting and I’d be great for the band. Biggest regret of my life that was!

Allan Clarke was a funny individual, always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. He never mixed with the fans, sign any autographs afterwards or anything. He’d be straight out after show. He had his problems. And he was in and out of the Hollies all the time later. When his mate Graham Nash quit the band, he took it very badly. He was devastated. They’d been friends since school. Clarkie’s wife then became very ill which obviously didn’t help. They went to America to live for a while, a care home type of environment in South Carolina. Plenty of sun, heat, but there was nothing to do but look out of the window all day long. They came back, Allan was drinking heavy, smoking. That’s what knackered his voice up in the end. His voice was shot and he had to pack in. Doesn’t keep in touch with anyone anymore. He was a great singer, it was a great shame.

When Nash left the Hollies, which was a year after I left, they were at the crossroads really. The songwriting which was shared between the front three had dried up. You get to the stage like in the studio, you’d be looking at each other for ideas, what can we do next? Graham was a prolific writer though and coming out with stuff like ‘Marakesh Express’, ‘Our House’. Which he later recorded with Crosby, Stills and Nash and achieved great success. When he took these songs to the boys in the Hollies they said ‘we don’t want to play all that hippy shit’. That’s what caused the split. We had become friends with the Mamas and the Papas when in the States and Graham had seen the way ahead for him. He took up with the fat girl, Mama Case…you had to be a brave man to take that on!..but that was Graham. If he could get a toe in, he’d do it! I still believe that if the Hollies had recorded Graham’s stuff it would have been them as the superstars, not Crosby, Stills and Nash but there you go. 

After I left the Hollies I put together another group, an eight-piece, Haydock’s Rockhouse, playing heavier rock stuff. We had a Hammond Organ, a horn section. I loved it, thought it was great but trouble was, it was too big. Too unwieldy, getting around gigs was a lot of hard work and the money was spread around eight of us, it was untenable really. The other thing was that when we played, people would be shouting for us to play the Hollies stuff! We couldn’t get away from it. Because they saw the name Haydock they thought they were going to get a Hollies show. Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch of the Shadows had a similar experience when they formed a trio with John Farrar to go in a new direction as a harmony group. You can’t get away from your past, the fans won’t accept it. Rockhouse was a great band though - we recorded a few things which are collectors items now! 

I spent four years in the High Courts battling over the rights to the name The Hollies. I put a group together and went out as Eric Haydock’s Hollies which attracted attention from the lawyers. Clarkie, Hicksy and the boys tried to stop me from using the name Hollies. We had toured Australia three times when they suddenly insisted we should be called Eric Haydock Ex Hollies. It caused a few arguments with promoters and what have you and in the end it went to court. Cost a fortune! We were going down really well in Australia, and the thing was, The Hollies didn’t go there, it was too far for them then, they couldn’t be bothered. Anyway, the only winners in these disputes are the lawyers. They love it. ‘Hey there’s someone down the road using your name! I’ll issue a writ against them.’ That’s another grand! It was finally settled and I won but the case cost me thousands. I remember the judge saying ‘I’m going on my holidays now, six weeks, can I say something? It amazes me, do you know something? I have to be frank about this. I love your music, think it’s great but you could have all settled this argument about the name over a pint of bitter in the pub across the road. See you boys!’ In other words, the lawyers are taking your trousers down and shafting you, just like the agents, making thousands out of you, you’re exploited right up to the hilt. That’s what they do.

Playing the Cavern, Liverpool was an experience I have to admit. It was a shit hole. It was always packed, crammed with youngsters, a great atmosphere. There was a vegetable market in Mathew Street above the Cavern and the walls would drip with sweat and the smell from above! Stank! Dressing room was tiny. Stage wasn’t much bigger. When you were packing your gear away at the end or next morning, there was urine and sick on the floor. Awful.

Ready Steady Go was a great gig. Every Friday night it was on. It was like having an afternoon off. Do your spot, miming. You didn’t get any satisfaction out of it though, it wasn’t like playing a ‘live’ gig. It was a good time though.