Talking 10cc – Graham Gouldman

Sep 19, 2014 | News Beat

By Jim Stewart

10cc’s Graham Gouldman in 1966

It may only be a few months since I last spoke to Graham Gouldman but when you have a work ethic like his there is always plenty of new and interesting information to catch up on.

A new month-long UK tour with 10cc begins on October 4th in Aberdeen with Kent dates at THE ORCHARD THEATRE, DARTFORD on the 12th, TUNBRIDGE WELLS Assembly Halls (29th), Central Theatre, CHATHAM November 6th ending at The Winter Gardens, MARGATE the following day.

You’re going back on the road again in October, this time with 10cc, but not Flying Music. ‘I’ve been very busy with 10cc over the last few weeks, all over the place, the Autumn tour is with Kennedy Street, back with Danny Betash which is really good as he was 10cc’s original agent from the very early days, and it’s great to be back with him again.’

Do you have anything special this time, as you did previously with ‘Donna’?

‘We haven’t yet, but it’s this constant battle of thinking of things to we want to do and things we have to do, so the hits will be staying but we may try and change some of the other things, move something around a bit, or go back and do something we dropped a time back, I’m just juggling it around a bit in my head, not only for the audience but for us, but we don’t ever get complacent. We try out lots of ideas, some work better than others, but the only way to try them fully is with a live audience, there’s nothing better than playing a live gig.’

How did your ‘Heartful Of Songs’ tour go?

‘It was absolutely great, Rick and Mick weren’t available, and Mike Stevens couldn’t do every gig, so now I’ve got two gangs to work with, but I really enjoyed it, it was refreshing to do the songs in the way we did even though I’m doing them all the time, some for five decades now, but it’s nice to tell the audience about the songs, how they came to be written, and this was the perfect setting to do that.’

Since we last spoke you’ve been inducted into The Songwriters Hall Of Fame. ‘Yes, that was amazing, what can I say, lovely ceremony, we had five days in New York, day one I had dinner with the main BMI people, the next day I rehearsed the song I was going to sing and met up with some friends, and day three was the ceremony.’

Who introduced you? ‘They were a band called Big New World, they did an amazing version of ‘I’m Not In Love’ it was very cool, newish, they are a duo, two young guys, and then they introduced me.’

It’s like The Beatles Grammy Tribute; some of the newer artists were really good, showing the songs have really got legs. ‘That’s it, it was quite exciting in a way, and then I did an acceptance speech and sang ‘Bus Stop’ with the band.’

It’s been long overdue, but as we’ve said before it is so hard for British acts to get the recognition they deserve. ‘It’s funny really because Donovan and Ray Davies were also inducted and we’re all pretty much from the same era, in fact Donovan and I were born on the same day, strange.’

You’ve done a number of festivals this summer, including The Hop Festival with Ray Davies.

‘Yes, that was a good one, in fact, they all have because we’ve been blessed with good weather, but Hyde Park was the standout, such a huge crowd, we did that with Tom Jones, and Little Mix, a very ‘elective’ mix, a very wide range of music.’

Have you considered an autobiography? ‘I have considered it, but what

I’m thinking at the moment is not to do it, I don’t want to do anything wishy-washy, I’d like to tell the truth about certain things but it wouldn’t be right somehow, I could do a ‘kind of autobiography’ but it wouldn’t be right to suppress certain things, so I’ve got other things I’d rather be doing than reminiscing in that way.’

Next year is the 40th Anniversary of ‘The Original Soundtrack’ album, are there plans to release a special 2CD edition or something similar?

‘I don’t know, that is up to Universal, I know they are putting out a special version of ‘Ten Out Of Ten’, which the album we did with Andrew Gold, he co-wrote three songs that were all released as singles, but I don’t know if they have plans for anything else. They will all come out in special editions in time because that’s what the record industry is all about, recycling.’

As I said at the start of the page there is always something new to talk to Graham about, and he has told me next year he has a number of very exciting things lined up, and so I look forward to another chat.

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