“It’s the only time I've written a song about a bass player”: Paul Carrack on Ace’s How Long?

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After five decades in the music industry, vocalist, musician and songwriter Paul Carrack has a new album of hits and a new tour to celebrate. Both showcase his lengthy career providing unmistakable vocals on much-loved classics and playing with some of music’s biggest names.

From playing with Roxy Music, providing keys and vocals for Squeeze and fronting Mike and the Mechanics' ‘80s hits - through to behind-the-scenes session work for Eric Clapton, The Pretenders and The Smiths, among many others - Carrack really has done it all.

50 years after his first single - the ever memorable How Long, by Ace - we caught up with the man with the liquid voice in his home studio as prepared to head out on the road one more time.

Tell us about the new tour. Where are you playing?

“We’re off all over the place. About 20-odd shows. We’re at the Royal Albert Hall in October. I’ve played there with bands several times, and headlined it myself about three times. Most notably, last year.

“I play with the SWR Big Band, based in Germany, which is always a bit of an event. They're a great band - they've got Grammys coming out of their ears - and they were desperate to play at the Albert Hall. So I did the first set with them and the second set was with my regular rock and roll band and plus up in the gods we had The Funky Voices Choir. They came on for the The Living Years and How Long. It was quite a night, I gotta say it myself.”

Tell us about your band. Who are you playing with?

“It's the band that I've had for about 20 years now. Whenever I made a solo album I would have to put a band together. I'm based in London and so the band would usually comprise people I knew from the London scene - whoever was available and was willing to come down a peg or two in their lifestyle for a few weeks and slug it out with me on the road!

“But then I made a connection with a band from my hometown, Sheffield, which arose via a tenuous connection with my support for Sheffield Wednesday. And it’s been a great move because they’ve made a band leader out of me and we have a lot of fun and there's no drama.”

So the only ego in the band these days is yours?

“That's right. I'm allowed one wobbler per tour. I try to keep it to that.”

And there's a new album, too. It’s amazing that you’re celebrating 50 years in the music industry.

“That's not true. It's more than that…  It's been 50 years since How Long with Ace, which was recorded in 1974. I was 23 in 1974 but from leaving school at 15 I was out there gigging, struggling, living a proper hand-to-mouth existence. I probably weighed about half what I weigh now!

“But we thought we needed to mark the anniversary for How Long. So it’s been a great excuse to put together a compilation of stuff that I've done over all these years.”

And how’s that voice these days? Sounding better than ever?

“We’ve done some festivals this year and it's been great. But there's always that constant fear. If you get a cold on the road. Oh my God, that's when the drama comes in. But I take care of myself. I don't have any fun. I go to bed early.

“One thing I love about going on the road and playing with other people is that I don’t have to worry about singing. It's great. Touring as part of a band is like going on holiday!”

So what first got you into music?

“It’s all I’ve ever loved - music and football. I had a musical gene which I think came from my father's side of the family. I've never had any tuition whatsoever. Never had any musical education. I've learned by ear. I just used to love any kind of music.

“I started out playing a set of made up drums in the attic, playing along to records, and, along the way taught myself to play keys and guitar. So I'm kind of limited in some aspects theory wise and technique wise. But instead, I have good ears and good musical instinct, and that's how I've bluffed my way through all these years.”

What did you excel at first? Was it your vocals or keyboards?

“When I was a kid, people said I had a nice voice, but when I was in bands I started out on drums. But I wanted to join this local soul band in Sheffield and they needed keys, so I persuaded my mum to sign the HP agreement to get a crappy little Selmer Capri, which was a cheap version of the Vox Continental. I couldn't couldn't spring to the Continental, so I got this thing. Somebody showed me a few chords and took it from there.

“I used to listen to records trying to figure out ‘How do they do that?’ and I bought that Billy Preston album The Most Exciting Organ Ever. He's always been my favourite. I just spent the time trying to figure it out. But I didn't sing in bands, literally until How Long with Ace. That was the first time I sang on a record.”

I was looking at the chart placing for How Long I was amazed that it only got to number 20. How did you feel about getting to number 20 back then?

“It was alright! Yeah, definitely. I remember, we were on our way to a gig, in the transit, and we got a play on Emperor Rosko's Round Table on Radio 1. They played the new releases and a jury would give their verdict. And that week it was The Three Degrees judging. So we pulled over into the hard shoulder and Rosko says ‘Guys, what do you think of that?’ and they say ‘Not strong enough’. We were absolutely gutted. So when it got to number 20 we were delighted. And it did a lot better in the States. [US Billboard number 3]”

Everyone presumes it’s a song about infidelity. What’s your take?

“It’s open to interpretation of course, but the reason I wrote it was because… Well, we were in a band. We were together. We were playing in pubs around London and we started getting better gigs in some nightclubs up and down the country. Things were going OK. But you always have pals who are doing rather better than you.

“They had a recording contract and tours supporting major artists… all that. And they borrowed our bass player for a few gigs. And during the course of him playing with them they tried to persuade him to leave us and join them. I think if he took the bait he could have got a steady 30 quid a week. But he didn't. He stuck with us.

“But I was sufficiently annoyed about the whole thing that I wrote the song. It’s the one and only time I've written a song about a bass player…”

And after that, how does one land a gig in Roxy Music, I wonder?

“I think what happened was that Ace had How Long become a really big hit in the States, so we lived in the States for a while. But when we came back to the UK things had changed. Music had gone punk and new wave. And well, that was it. It was all over.

“So I started to hang out with what we used to call session guys. Guys who could play and would work a lot of the recording sessions. There’s not such a scene now. But I held these guys in very high esteem, and I wanted to learn from them. These aren’t household names but Alan Spenner - a fantastic bass player - Neil Hubbard on guitar. Guys who could really play in the way that I aspired to, and some of those guys had worked on Brian Ferry's solo stuff.

“So while I was hanging out with these guys they got Roxy back together to make the album, Manifesto. And I got rolled in to come along and play on those sessions. I played on a few tracks and I really enjoyed it. So I played on the next album Flesh and Blood and some of those tracks went on the next, Avalon, as well.

“I enjoyed it a lot, and then they asked me to go on a tour with them. I went on tour across Europe. I was used to being dressed in very sort of boring denim and plaid but this was something else. To play in front of these sorts of pop audiences. It was quite a life…”

You mentioned the advent of punk and new wave. Roxy were very much moving with the times on Manifesto and Flesh and Blood. 

“Yeah, they had a couple of keyboards. The Prophet-5 was a big thing, so there was quite a lot of Prophet-5 there. And a Solina String Ensemble. And the Wurly [Wurlitzer electric piano]. Which I still use. I love the Wurly. But I was brought in by these session guys and they were always a bit sniffy… Probably a very wrong word to use there. Let’s say they were snobby - yes, snobby - about synthesizers.

“Synthesizers weren’t what they wanted to do, and I kind of adopted a little bit of that bullshit attitude. With Roxy with Eno there was that very electronic stuff, but I didn't know anything about that. I'm just really an organ and piano kind of guy, but I was willing to try.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Brian [Ferry]. I think Brian had got into his solo thing anyway, and that was a bit more sort of groovy and souly so he took Roxy in that direction.

There were a lot of prog and rock players that pushed against synthesisers and stuck with piano and Hammond. Were you one of those?

“Yeah, there were people who hated synthesizers. I worked a lot with Nick Lowe during the eighties. He wouldn't have him in the place. He said that when he was working with Elvis [Costello] and Steve Nieve would be fiddling about trying to get the sounds, he said it would make him physically ill.”

I think there was a feeling that the spiky experimental Roxy had gone. They’d got a little too slick at this point. 

“Yes, there you go. I'm not taking the blame for it! I was there to help and support and that was the way it was going.”

And after Roxy you were with Squeeze. And I’m not sure how many people know that it’s you singing the lead on Tempted. Not Difford. Not Tilbrook.

“Well, there’s actually a lot going on. I sing the first verse and the chorus. Then Glenn [Tilbrook] sings the first part of the second verse and it’s Elvis [Costello] doing the bit that goes ‘The people keep on grindin’, ain't wishin’ I was well’. That's not Chris. That's Elvis. And then I take over again and do the rest of the song.”

But I’m intrigued. How come you end up doing the main vocal?

“Well, it was Elvis's idea. I had joined the band… Well, I didn't even know I was joining the band, to be honest with you. This was about a week before they started recording the album East Side Story, and Jools [Holland] had left, and they tried a few people and nothing had caught the selectors’ eye, so to speak.

“Now, Jake Riviera - who founded Stiff Records - and Elvis Costello had taken Squeeze under their wing because not only had Jools left but they’d split from their manager, Miles Copeland. So Jake was managing them and I knew Jake from when he was a roadie. And Jake says to them ‘What about Paul Carrack? He’s back in town. He’s been playing with Roxy Music…’

“So I went down. I didn’t know much about Squeeze. I knew the singles. And I liked Jake. But they played me all this new stuff and I was knocked out. It was high tempo, loads of chords, melodies, and they asked me if I wanted to come in and work on it. Or I think they said ‘join the band’. But I thought it was going to just play on the album, and that would be it.

“So anyway, I played on the album and they'd already recorded a version of Tempted with Dave Edmunds producing but it was very different. And we were messing about in the studio one day and we started doing Tempted in that groovy style. I'm soloing away, playing the Hammond and Elvis comes running in and says, ‘Let's put this down!’ So we recorded it like that and he said, ‘I tell you what, Paul, you should sing it’.

And were Difford and Tilbrook in the room?

“Yeah, we were all in the room and we recorded all at once and, yeah, they were very supportive. I don't know if I'd have been so pleased if I'd written that song and they suggested somebody else sing it because I think it's one of their best.”

It’s great that when they re-recorded it for Spot The Difference in 2010 that they didn’t replace your vocal. They got you back again.

“And they said that I could use that version for myself. That’s the version that’s on the new compilation.”

Tempted is another one with a surprising chart placing. Number 41 - surely the most evil chart placing of all…

“Well, it was probably too long. Probably something as silly as that. You had to be three and a bit minutes, and it's probably four minutes or something like that. But it was a bit of a breakthrough in the States for them. It got a lot of airplay, for sure.

And needless to say, that's your Hammond on the track.

“And piano, too.”

And so how do you transition from Squeeze to Mike and the Mechanics? Were you doing solo stuff at this point?

“It's all a bit messy. Music had gone punk and new wave and I'm writing little soulful lovey dovey ditties. So I started just meandering about playing sessions here and there. I did the Squeeze thing and I loved it and I was there for about a year and I was quite comfortable just playing keys.

“But people were saying, ‘Well, it's a great gig, but you know, if you're gonna be a singer-songwriter…’ I didn’t want to try and muscle in on their songwriting because it was very different to my own stuff, which is very simple. And their stuff was more interesting and exciting basically! But more importantly, it was their identity.

“So I was in a bit of a comfort zone really, and people were encouraging me to step out and have a go myself. So I started to work with Nick Lowe and did two or three albums with Nick for him and one album for me called Suburban Voodoo which had a top 40 song on it, I Need You, so that was great fun.

“We did loads of bus tours of America. We were opening for people like Tom Petty and that, but it became a bit of a burden for Nick to keep it all going. So that fizzled out. That's when, out of the blue, I got a call from BA Robertson. He tracked me down because he wanted me to sing a demo for him of a song that he was pitching to a movie. So I went along and did it for free, and after the session he said, ‘By the way, I'm writing songs with Mike Rutherford from Genesis. They've recorded a load of tracks without vocals in Montserrat…’ So I went down to a studio near Guildford. And they put on this backing track of this song - Silent Running. A very simple three-chord job. And they had no lyrics except ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me running?’

“So I go in and just blues away, whatever, and they must have been impressed. BA went away and wrote this mad apocalyptic lyric about guns and ammunition and I went back the following week and we cut the track.

“I just came in as a designated singer and when that album came out a few months later, I’d kind of forgotten about it. But Mike had quite a profile and the power of Genesis kind of set it up, so it did quite well. And soon he put the band together to go on tour. And that was the beginning of that.

“Soon we're getting UK number ones. US number ones. Living Years was number two for two weeks running. We thought it was bound to be number one the next week. But we were held off the top by Gene Pitney and Marc Almond.”

What people might not know is that you played on the first Smiths album

“It was an organ and piano kind of thing. That came about because I knew John Porter. John was producing the Smiths, and he just got me to go down there after the pubs were closed. [Paul plays on Reel Around the Fountain, You've Got Everything Now and I Don't Owe You Anything]

“I think I got about 50 quid for that.”

Tell us about your studio at home

“I was encouraged to do this by my good friend, Pete Van Hook. I've lived in this house now for about 35 years, and one of the first things I did was to convert the garage into a demo studio. I had a little eight-track, one-inch tape, that I used to do my demos on. And, then I pushed the boat out and got a 16-track machine. That served me well, then I got dragged kicking and screaming into digital because I was frightened to death of it. But I realised that it was a great move because it's obviously so useful for writing.

“I started with a program called Studio Vision and that was working all great and then they suddenly pulled the plug on that, and I was in a mad panic. ‘I can’t learn another program!’. But I was advised to go for Pro Tools which is what I did. I have my own way of working - I’m really doing ‘tip of the iceberg’ stuff - but it’s a really useful tool. I've made a lot of albums just playing everything myself and programming.

You must have worked out which microphone suits your voice best by now?

“Well, I've got a few mics and I've always tended to go for what was the most decent, expensive mic, so I have a Neumann M49 which is a classic. But I've also found that I like working with cheaper mics, especially if it's on rock and roll, because they just sit in the track. I have a Shure SM7b - the one all the podcasters use - and that’s great.

“I’ve also had a mic sitting in the bass drum for years - an Electro Voice RE20. That’s great for vocals, too.”

What sort of keyboards have you got at home with you?

"I've got a Yamaha Baby Grand - a C7 - and a Hammond B3. I bought it when I was on tour with Squeeze. We were in Chicago, and I went round to this massive warehouse where this guy did all the organs for all the churches around Chicago. I mean, he had tons of them. He said, ‘What are you playing?’ and I said, ‘Rock ‘n’ roll’ and he just picked me one out. It’s a beautiful thing. I think I paid $3,000 for it. It cost me more than that to ship it over! That one’s in the studio and it never moves.

“I’ve got a great guy - Drawbar Dave - who looks after it. The thing with Hammonds is they’re tricky to fix. It takes expertise and the guys are getting older… There's so many parts so if you’ve got an issue they can spend hours. But Drawbar Dave is younger and he knows his stuff. I was introduced to him by Steve Winwood’s engineer, James Towler.

“And I've got a [Hammond] C3 - a chopped C3 - which I've spent a lot of money getting up to scratch and I use live. I ditched the Leslie because we don't use amps on stage, it’s all modellers. I’ve got a Fractal FM3 and the guitarist has one. And the bass player goes through a [Tech 21] Sansamp.

“So it's pretty quiet out there! When we're all on in-ears the only sound you can hear is the drums. But the sound guy loves it because he's got so much control.

“Keyboard wise, I use a Yamaha CP1 and just one little string unit that I have on a foot pedal.

“These days we can do what we call ‘flyaways’. We can go and do a festival somewhere. Everything fits in four small cases. You can check it in as excess baggage, we take our Fractals and we turn up and we’re good to go.”

You’ve worked with so many people over the years. Is there anybody that you've never played with that you would like to?

“Not really, no. I want to concentrate on doing my own thing. There's loads of people I admire. I did the Eric [Clapton] thing, which was fantastic and right up my street, because basically, the music is simple. It's all down to the feel. I can sit in that bluesy situation.

“I had played on several of his albums. Pilgrim and others. I played a few tracks here and there. And I've done a few charity shows which were usually put together by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum. He would get some faces together and some support. But about 10 years ago Eric called me up because his regular organ player couldn't make it and he asked me to go out on the road with him. And I did more or less all of his touring for about 10 years.

“I didn't do this year because I had a tour in place and I was playing at the Albert Hall and that clashed with Eric's situation.

“So no, I've got enough on. I want to get more recordings in the musical bank. And I've got my touring, so it would just be greedy to want any more.”

Paul Carrack’s How Long - Has This Been Going On? Greatest Hits is available to stream now. For the latest tour dates, check out his website.