Graham Gouldman
When Graham Gouldman co-founded 10cc in 1972 with Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, he was already an accomplished songwriter, having penned such British Invasion classics as “Bus Stop” (The Hollies), “For Your Love” and “Heart Full of Soul” (The Yardbirds) and “No Milk Today” (Herman’s Hermits). [He reminisced about those earlier favorites with Best Classic Bands in a 2015 interview.]
Gouldman subsequently earned considerable acclaim and success as a recording artist, with 10cc. The Manchester, U.K.-based band featured two songwriting teams: Gouldman and Stewart, and Godley and Creme. Each year, from 1974-1978, they scored a Top 10 album in the U.K. (Three reached #3.) Their output yielded 11 Top 10 singles in the U.K.
This photo appeared in the March 23, 1974 issue of Record World
Though Gouldman toured the U.S. in 2018 as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, it’s been three decades since he played American stages with 10cc. That drought ends this summer with a 20-date coast-to-coast itinerary. The U.S. edition of their “Ultimate Greatest Hits” tour, featuring such classics as “I’m Not in Love” (#1 in the U.K. and #2 in the U.S.), “The Things We Do For Love” (#6 U.K., top 5 U.S.) and “Dreadlock Holiday” (#1 U.K.), begins July 24 and continues through August 17. [Tickets are available here. After a month’s break, they’ll play several dozen U.K. dates in the autumn, followed by shows in Denmark and Sweden.]
The 10cc live lineup is led by Gouldman on bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals. He’ll be joined by Rick Fenn (lead electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals); Paul Burgess (drums, percussion, keyboards); Keith Hayman (keyboards, electric guitar, bass guitar, vocals); and Andy Park (electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, percussion, mandolin, keyboards, vocals; replacing multi-instrumentalist Iain Hornal, who will be performing with Jeff Lynne’s ELO).
10cc in 2022 (Photo: Martin Porter; used with permission)
Gouldman spoke with Best Classic Bands on the eve of the tour.
Best Classic Bands: You turned 78 on May 10.
Graham Gouldman: I can’t deny it and why would I? I look at people like Paul McCartney and Ringo and the Stones and I’m just a young whippersnapper. I’m dreading the day that they stop. Ringo is really super fit. Looks after himself… good diet and exercise, very disciplined.
BCB: Speaking of Ringo, can you talk a bit about the experience of touring with him? I know as a young man you were a huge Beatles fan.
GG: Yes, and I still am! They still inform what I do, in a way. It was absolutely brilliant. It was surreal, actually. I put an album out called, Modesty Forbids. And the opening track is called “Standing Next to Me.” And that track is about my experience touring with Ringo. It kind of tells the story of what it was like. You’re playing and then you look around and go, “Oh my God, it’s Ringo Starr!” I never got over it. I can never really forget that we were all band members together. It just didn’t really happen… to be a band member with someone of that magnitude. It’s impossible. He was lovely, he was generous. He doesn’t suffer fools easily. And it was a delight. And the other delight was working with Colin Hay, Steve Lukather, Gregg Rolie, Warren Ham, Gregg Bissonette. It was fantastic.
BCB: I imagine some of those guys you’d never met until rehearsal.
GG: No, I had never met them! It was lovely. David Hart, Ringo’s tour producer, had a meeting with my agent and then we arranged to meet. And he asked me a daft question: “Would you like to be in the band with Ringo Starr?” What’s a boy to do? That’s it, delighted.
And I’ve just finished a new album, I Have Notes, and I co-wrote a track on that, “Couldn’t Love You More,” that’s so blatantly Beatles-y that I had to ask him to play on that, which he did. [Gouldman’s solo albums are available here.]
BCB: I saw that Kevin Godley joined you on stage at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this year.
GG: He did. It was fabulous!
BCB: How did that come about?
GG: Kevin and I have worked together on lots of projects over the years. He just made a video for me for one of the tracks on my new album. And, because it was the Albert Hall, I thought this was special and I could ask him. He agreed and was quite nervous, I have to say. Originally, the song I wanted him to do was appropriately titled “Oh, Wow.” What happens is, during our tour, we have Kevin on video singing “_ Hollywood.” And in it, at the end of it, he sort of takes a bow and walks off stage right. So, I said to him, “Wear the same clothes that you wore in the video,” and he walks onto the stage from stage right and it was a magical moment. He sang “Old Wild Men” and then the [Godley and Creme] song, “Cry.” And that really was amazing.
BCB: Did the audience know who it was?
GG: Yeah. One of the boys said, “Don’t you think you should announce it?” And I said, “Absolutely not.” There are gonna be some diehard fans who are gonna get it right away. And he just walked out and whoosh… Fantastic.
BCB: Will you be performing any non-10cc stuff?
GG: As much as I ‘d like to, there’s just too much 10cc material. There’s one song that’s not a 10cc song but it’s kind of special because it’s a song I recorded with Brian May. And it has a current interest. It’s the song about the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s a sort of sorbet between courses of music.
BCB: How do the two of you know each other? Just two guys roughly the same age working in the same circles?
GG: It’s a little bit of that but it’s also a very good friend of mine, Spike Etney, who plays keyboards with the [current] Queen band. I didn’t have Brian’s contact info and he put me in touch with Brian. I sent him the song and he said, “I love this song.” He plays lead guitar on it. Sings on it. And was very involved with the lead production on it as well. He’s a lovely man.
BCB: Let’s talk about a personal favorite, “I’m Not in Love.”
GG: We had avoided writing a love song. Eric came up with a perfect title, which sounds like an anti-love song. I had these two very simple chords that open it up, this suspended chord that resolves and Eric had this verse. So there were those parts Eric wrote and those parts I wrote. I give Eric credit for writing a lot of the lyric, not all of it but a lot of it. The part, “Ooh, you wait a long time for me,” just came into my head, the words and the music. Not that there’s that many words but it means something, when you’re writing something and it comes in as a complete package. You don’t have to touch it. It’s great when that happens.
So we had the song and we recorded it kind of like a bossa nova. It was almost like a Burt Bacharach version of it. Which we didn’t like it at all and we erased it. Which is a shame, looking back now. The song stuck with us all. Kevin came up with a different rhythm, this slower beat, this “bump, bump, bump, bump…” And I think it was Kevin who said, “Let’s do it just with voices. Nothing else.” That’s an interesting idea.
But even the rhythm track was imbued with some magic. We came up with a method of creating loops, recording them onto the multi track… and the four of us sat at the board and we’re playing it like a musical instrument with all the voices.
So we finished the record, we knew it was great. None of us thought, “Oh, this is a hit,” or anything. We just knew it was great.
[Best Classic Bands will share more of Gouldman’s insight into its recording in a future story.]
BCB: How about “The Things We Do For Love”? Eric’s vocal and those harmonies are just exquisite.
GG: Yeah, it’s perfect. Only three of us did that record: myself, Eric and Paul Burgess. The stars were aligned with that, with the writing, the recording and everything. Every production idea seemed to work.
Related: How Neil Sedaka helped create 10cc
BCB: Are you able to confirm or dispel the myth of the name of the band?
GG: Oh, that old chestnut? Doesn’t everybody know?
BCB: Is it what I think it is?
GG: What do you think it is? Say it! Say it!
BCB: I think it’s the amount of a “load,” so to speak.
GG: (laughs) The average male ejaculation is supposed to be 9cc, we were told. So, we’re 10cc. That isn’t actually how we got our name. But it’s much more fun than the real reason.
BCB: Reminds me of Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap in that scene with Rob Reiner as the film’s director, where he’s showing off his amps.
GG: (laughs) I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s a similar thing, isn’t it? This one goes to 11.
BCB: Do you have a Spinal Tap moment?
GG: Every band does. Many times over the years, we’ve said, “Hello Cleveland.” You get lost.
10cc’s recordings are available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Tickets for their 2024 tour are available here.
No Comments so far
Jump into a conversationNo Comments Yet!
You can be the one to start a conversation.