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Kid Creole at
Friars Aylesbury 27th November 2009. Photo credit: Neale Wareham
Anybody who
saw those two incredible Kid Creole gigs in 1982 will be very excited at
the prospect of them coming back in November 2009. They broke big in
1982 and we caught them at exactly the right time. As August says below,
the cost of that size band over from the States on the road in Europe
wasn't cheap and subsequently the second gig in October 1982 was a
record admission price (and stayed that way till 2009). What did the
Friars punters think of that? It sold out immediately! As you will read
below, the Kid is making sure that the 2009 band are every bit as good
as they were in 1982. Kid and the band are based all over, mainly
Europe, and we caught up with August in Sweden in November 2009. Over to
you Kid!
We're all looking forward to the return of Kid Creole and the
Coconuts! Those 1982 gigs were two of the best Friars gigs ever! Lot of
people speak very highly of those gigs.
Thank you!
That's good to hear - they were some of the first gigs we ever did in
the UK.
It was your first proper UK tour
wasn't it?
Yes, we
played Leeds and then London and (finished in) Aylesbury. It was the
start of our UK conquest! I have a personal assistant now and she was at
that Friars show in June 1982! She became a friend as she was dating one
of the band members and she has been reminding me of that gig! Then I
got some great emails from David Stopps who has a great memory - he was
telling me what the Coconuts were wearing, that one of them went sick
and so on.
Did you see those photos of you on
the Friars website from that June 1982 gig?
Yes, they were classic photos. They are brilliant! Unbelievable stuff.
The man who took those pictures will
be back at Friars on November 27th along with so many others who saw you
the first time round!
That first UK tour in 1982....by then Off
The Coast of Me and Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places had already been
released....
Yes, but the record sales of those has been truly pitiful. But we struck
gold with the third album, Tropical Gangsters.
That went top ten in the UK
That's the
one that did it for us. You wonder....life is amazing....would the band
have survived if that hadn't have been a hit? I don't hear anything
different between that and the first album. Maybe it was fate...the
planets were aligned or something in 1982 (laughs)
Something worked! It was a breath of
fresh air.
Everybody will always remember I'm a
Wonderful Thing....
It's
incredible...as there are only about seven or eight songs on that album.
It was a short album but it lived and lived on the chart and the UK
success spilled over to Europe and we had hits in Germany and France and
beyond. But the UK was the start. So Wonderful Thing, Stool Pigeon and
Annie was a great home run for us.
Everything was smiling on you! But if
Tropical Gangsters hadn't been the success it was, do you think the
record company would have continued to be supportive?
I sincerely
doubt it. But we had two record companies. Warner Brothers in America
and Island elsewhere. Chris Blackwell was a real believer in the music.
I don't think Chris Blackwell (Island head) would have given up on us
but he would probably have started making some demands on what direction
we should go. We had been allowed free rein up to Tropical Gangsters,
no-one had told us what to do. Our angel in those days was a British
guy, Michael Zilkha, son of the Mothercare Foundation who was putting up
all the money for touring in America before we even did the UK. It was
through Zilkha's connections in the UK, that we got involved with Chris
Blackwell. But to be specific about the question, in hindsight it may
have been the end, but the album was so successful that Blackwell wanted
to carry on.
I appreciate that but there was also
the consideration that the band was physically big....
It was huge! It was a
fourteen piece band.
It was a very expensive endeavour with flights, hotels etc...
And touring, especially for a large
American band coming over was not a cheap thing!
Absolutely!
David Stopps reminded me of what we got paid for those Friars gigs
in 1982, it was quite shocking! (laughs). But when the tour took off and
we got that hit record, we were touring 360 days a year and the band so
was so tight and effective and such a powerful tool for me. Those were
the days I loved touring so much and I realised that touring was the way
forward. To this day, if I hadn't respected that aspect of the music
industry, I'd be dead! Even after the hit records dried up, we still had
such an incredible live band, we could continue playing.
Yes, that line up that played
Aylesbury in 1982 stayed together for quite some time didn't it?
We put a
good twelve years into it. We started out in America in 1980 playing all
the clubs and we had a twelve year run with that band. The only original
member from that band still with me is Bongo Eddie the percussionist.
Everybody else has gone off to pursue other interests, some even out of
the music industry. The guitarist is now a wine taster and a couple have
passed away. Winston the drummer passed away and two of my road managers
have passed away over the last five years. Having Bongo Eddie alongside
excites me as I can say to him "do you remember that gig in Paris" etc.
We moved out of New York to Europe and the band now is European based.
So that was probably the beginning of the end of an American band and
has been European based since 1993.
The current line up of Kid Creole and
the Coconuts, you're in Sweden, some live in England...
Some are in
Scandinavia...Denmark and Sweden. Bongo Eddie is still a New Yorker. An
international band!
It must make rehearsals a nightmare!
It's like a war campaign to be honest
with you! It's OK when you are working six months straight as everyone
is in the same place. Everyone gets paid a salary for the six months.
But when you don't have the gigs everyone goes home, so getting everyone
together is a pain in the ass! We don't tour much any more, we just do
the gigs that make sense. It is difficult bringing everyone together.
With you being European based, the
Conquest of You album (1997) appeared to be very German?
(laughs). A
German producer who had the idea that he thought he could break Kid
Creole into the German market. I've had a lot of calls like that over
the years of people saying they know what Kid Creole needs! This guy was
Austrian, working in Germany and we put together a lot of German
musicians for that working with his formula. Since I have been in Europe
I have been all over the world working with people who want to get on
the bandwagon. I worked in Italy with a group called the Cappadei Family
who have been around for fifty years, a generational thing and I worked
in Spain and all over the place with different musicians. Once I lost
the core band (the American one), we struggled to get a band as good as
they were.
I've seen you over the last few years
with different musicians....including the Here and Now tour earlier this
year.
That was a
pick up band (house band). When I got the call, I didn't want to do it
initially as I wasn't sure what sort of a band they would give me as
they couldn't afford to bring my band over, all they could really afford
was me, they didn't even want the Coconuts. I refused to work without
the girls as it is Kid Creole and The Coconuts after all. I couldn't
afford to bring Bongo Eddie to many of those shows as they weren't
paying enough dough to warrant it. But we worked and worked with those
guys.....the Kid Creole music, you need to be a musician to appreciate
all kinds of music, so many these days are only into one thing. The Kid
Creole music has always been eclectic, you have to know your jive, R&B,
swing, calypso and reggae. It was difficult at first with the Here and
Now band as while they got the funk of Stool Pigeon, but I wasn't
comfortable with the calypso of Annie. We worked and worked and worked
on it and by the end I was quite satisfied with the band, it was tight
at the end. I missed the fact there were no horns as we are horn based
so had synthetic horns but it's not the same! I have different feelings
about it as people will feel you are retro, but I also need to expose
the band to a younger audience too and it worked in my favour as they
realised we were still out there.
On the show I did see, you had Marc
Anthony playing with you (who has been with you a while now)...
You caught
one of the ones he played. He's fantastic. He 's the son of Jimi
Hendrix. I love that guy! He is so talented (as a player and songwriter)
but hasn't had that break yet. He's worked with the band for over eight
years and is working on new material here with me in Sweden.
When will that new album be out?
That comes
out in the Spring and will be called Hercules Unchained. I am working
with another guy who has a band called Hercules and the Love Affair. His
record company wanted to hear a combination of his band and mine. He's a
huge Kid Creole fan.
Bongo Eddie and Marc are both on that
album?.
Absolutely!
Let's go back quite a way here to
before Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
which predated the band.
That was a
learning curve. It was my brother's band primarily. He was the leader
and I was his right hand man. He wrote the music, I wrote the lyrics and
played bass, keyboard and guitar. I was a very attentive pupil of (my
brother), Stony. I would go to the recording studios and watch with wonderness even when I wasn't needed. I learned a lot about production
and song writing and got introduced to Cory Daye the lead vocalist. It
was a great learning period. And we got lucky, the first album went gold
in America. It's a huge place (America) and we also had a number one
with Cherchez La Femme.
So how did that all end? Was it just
that you wanted to branch out and do your own thing?
Yes, it was
sibling rivalry and he (my brother) was very dictatorial in his ways and
only his ways. I wasn't allowed to be involved and it was a case of "I
write the music and you write the lyrics....forever" I was growing up
and wanted to be more than a lyricist and I couldn't do that in the
Savannah Band. So it built up and I said if you're not going to allow me
to build up my skills....so I jumped ship and took Sugar Coated Andy
Hernandez (later Coati Mundi) with me and we formed Kid Creole and The
Coconuts. We were partners and outcasts in the Savannah Band as we
weren't into drug culture so we bonded that way. We were free of drugs
and the others were into drugs to aid their creativity. I'm not knocking
that, to each his own, but Mundi and I formed a friendship through being
sober as we didn't do drugs or alcohol. My wife came on board to bring
in the Coconuts. The Savannah Band was a great learning experience, it
was fantastic. 1976, we had our first hit.
You've also kept yourself busy with
musicals, notably Oh What A Night....
I did it
for ten years! I started in 1997 in Blackpool on what was a three month
run. I remember leaving saying I will never come back to this city as
long as I live! I also remember saying I wouldn't do this show again as
it turned out to be harder than I thought it would be as it required a
very different discipline from when I had been the boss in the band to
being very regimented in when I turned up and what I did although I was
still the star of the show. It was more tiring on stage. In Kid Creole
we
did the the choreography (originally through Adriana and now with Eva) so I did on stage whatever I wanted to do and
when I wanted to do it. With Oh What A Night, there was a choreographer
telling me what to do and when. It was tough, but I enjoyed it because
it celebrated the disco era because I am a child of the disco era and
the only one in the cast who lived that period.
The show
was very successful and so the producers then asked me if I would carry
on and that went on for 10 years. It wasn't continuous, maybe three or
four month stints and in between I was still doing the band so I had the
best of both worlds.
OK, here's the big question......have
you been back to Blackpool?!
(laughs)....no, I have not been back to Blackpool! I know loads of
people love it!
From the old band, I believe you are
working again with Peter Schott?
Yes, we're working on an opera and musical called I.V. League. We've
worked on this for three years and finished two months ago. So now we
are looking for producers. Peter and I got back after a ten years
absence and decided to write a musical. He co-wrote Wonderful Thing and
is a wonderful musician. We came up with a story about a young lady who
doesn't know her parents but who does meet them in an auspicious and
strange way and finds out that her childhood was a complete lie. It's
not as heavy as it sounds as there are light moments in there. There's
no old songs, all the music is brand new and I am quite proud of it.
Apart from the new album in the
Spring, when is this musical likely to debut?
Right now,
it's looking like it will debut off Broadway in New York. We have some
strong connections in that direction, I don't want to say too much and
jinx it but it's looking very good to open in Summer 2010 to open for
previews and to get people involved.
To open on Broadway would be pretty
good going!
It would be good if we
get that successful with it.
The Broadway musical route is even harder than the music business,
especially right now with the economic climate. And this show is
expensive to mount with a cast of hundreds...obviously! (laughs)
You don't do things by halves do you!
No (laughs)
because I was brought up on those Cecil B DeMille movies like The Ten
Commandments with casts of thousands!
I'm sure it's going to be brilliant!
I'm really
happy with the libretto and the music, so we're hoping we can get it
mounted and past the first base and we'll have a home run with it.
2010 sounds like it's going to be a
busy year!
It's
exciting as the new album is coming out and also we have a 2 CD
anthology of some of the old songs re-done with new musicians. The album is half
new and half re-visited songs from the Creolian golden era. That's at the Rainman Records site
(link below) - my manager has created this to get this album out. Then
the Hercules album and then the casting for the musical. It looks like
an exciting year. But every year has been exciting, I'm so lucky as so
many of my fellow musicians have given up and fallen on the wayside but
I am still in there. I did a show in Copenhagen last night. The
audience, although we did only two songs, and didn't know us wanted to
know more afterwards.
YouTube......people
not familiar with the band have sent emails and fan mail having
discovered us on YouTube. We have got new fans that way. YouTube...it's
a great tool, I love it!
You're probably one of the few
musicians that does!
I know a
lot of people have issues with it because they aren't being paid, but
you ARE being paid! You are being paid by reaching people you would
never have reached otherwise.
That is some people's argument with
illegal downloading....
I love
illegal downloading! (laughs). It's the future. Why invent something and
then say oops I made a mistake - you shouldn't have invented it!
Well, the people who invented it
would have done it on the basis that there were rules you were supposed
to play by...
You just
put your finger on it! Shakespeare had a great line...."as a woodcock to
mine old springe" - I love that line as you are making your own tracks
in life - accept what you have created. Same with the atom bomb. Give us
the tools to destroy ourselves! I love that hat quote as it says we are
masters of our own destiny as we have created the tools to destroy
ourselves. And downloading is a clever thing but the internet is the
internet and it is growing day by day. You can't stop illegal
downloading, you gave them the means to do it, it's impossible. The
people who download without paying for it, good luck to them. I don't
even know how to download! My kids do it and I used to scold them
telling them it was taking money from their father's coffers and they
would say "hey Dad, this is the future, we can't stop the future!" I
know people are furious on both sides.
Just to finish....when you come back
to Friars on November 27th, what can we expect?
For Friars
we have a fourteen piece band, a great cast. Bongo Eddie and Marc
Anthony will be there. I have told the band that because this is
Aylesbury and the historical connection, they have got to kick ass and
prove they have the fire and they all agree. Everyone of those guys has
seen footage from the 1982 gigs and they want to be at that level.
Friars is in for a treat as we are revved up. There are new younger
Coconuts and have stepped into the footsteps of the incredible original
girls and that is not easy. I am so proud of them. One of them, Eva,
I met with Oh What A Night and has been with me 12 years, even longer
that Adriana Kaegi who was there when the band started. We call her Mama
Coconut as she has been there the longest and is responsible for getting
the right Coconuts. The youngest, Amy Bramall is Baby Coconut!
We will be
doing stuff like Stool Pigeon, Annie and Wonderful Thing, the things
that people remember and other favourites like Gina Gina and Casual Sex.
It's going to be a great show!
I was hoping you would say
that.....stuff like Gina Gina. I really love You Had No Intention (which
you did back in 1982)
Gina Gina
is one of my favourites. You Had No Intention, you can do that! We don't
do that anymore. I don't know people who remember that song although I
like it.
And Table Manners of course!
Table
Manners? Oh yeahhhhh! Oh yeahhhhh! All I will say is that there will be
some surprises on the night!
The fact you are ramping the band up
for Aylesbury is brilliant! Finally, say something in a nutshell for the
good Friars people coming along on November 27th.
The race is
not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but I am damn sure proud
to be returning to a place I played so long ago!
August, thank you so much for your
time!
I can't
wait!
Official Kid Creole website
Official
Rainman Records company website covering the new Anthology
This
interview and its content are © 2009 Mike O'Connor/www.aylesburyfriars.co.uk and
may not be used in whole or in part without permission.
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