| MAIN MENU | History | The Players | Thumbnail Gallery | The Music | Comment | Links | Home |
| Comment |
What madness broke this band apart? If ever there was a rock band with the essential musical ability and excitement that makes for success then this was it. And yet it ended up just like the two names it possessed in its short life, first 'Stranger', then 'Down at Heel'. Friends drifted apart and mounting success turned into ruin.
When an offer to sign for a new label and the promise of a top name producer came along the members of Down at Heel could not put aside its personality squabbles and pour that emotional energy into the work of making music. I would have done it - pulled out just before my final year at University to pursue my dreams of stardom. Wasn't it worth the risk? After all, we had the product. But I could not broker a peace between Nigel and Gavin. Instead Nigel and I formed a new alliance with half of the band Isis, and Gavin joined 'Hole in the Wall Gang' in Accrington. All our stars faded and of all the Blackpool musicians of the late 70s, John Sykes was the only one to progress, first joining the Tygers of Pan Tang and then Thin Lizzy.
After all these years people still think fondly on Down at Heel, and other musicians from back then remember us as the best. We were the ephemeral shimmer of sunlight covered too soon by storm clouds, a fleeting moth that flew too close to the flame. It broke my heart to see Thin Lizzy achieve such success at a time when we should have been giving them true competition. And when Sounds magazine broke the so-called New Wave of Heavy Metal (NWOHM), introducing Iron Maiden, Def Leppard (mentored by Chris Whalley from Isis), Sampson and others, I knew that our chance had gone, the door to the dream closed. We should have been there - that was our gig by right.
An analysis must start at the top. The band recorded a 'demo' tape funded by the bassist Nigel Sattin at Smile Studios in Manchester in December 1977. It is a startling display of what rock music is all about. There are rough edges. The vocals are poor. Very little time was left to record them which in hindsight was a mistake. But underneath the music is filled with fire and assurance. On guitars, Gavin Simonsen and the latest recruit , yours truly. On bass, Nigel Sattin and the drummer, Chris Downton. Vocals were handled by Nigel and me.
This line-up played only one gig that I remember - at the Ritz Club in Millom in Cumbria. It was not an easy place. We were warned that the week before the audience had taken a dislike to the band and the singer had been stabbed.
"Why?" we asked.
"Well my advice to you is to play rock'n'roll, you know Status Quo sort of stuff."
How many 12 bar songs and shuffle rhythm songs did we know? Two! The first two sets bombed and we huddled in the dressing room clearly worried that Millom would find itself with four 'dead' musicians that night. The minutes to the last set ticked away. As singer, and playing my first semi-pro gig I was not happy.
Then Gavin said, "To hell with it, let's just go on and do what we do and pull out all the stops!" In other words, let's fight back.
The audience had in effect said, "Come on, impress us," and that's just what we meant to do. We ripped through the songs, stomping on Jumpin' Jack Flash and Can't Get Enough before exploding in a frenzy with Johnny B Goode. I put all my energy into the performance, trying to engage the audience by acting confident and self-assured. I strutted and posed. The band behind me pulled all the tricks they could think of and the audience got off their seats and packed the dance floor for the first time that evening. We were at last a success. Gavin admitted afterwards that he was now satisfied with my inclusion in the band and that he had not been so before. I had earned his respect. Now we were to become fast friends and I need no longer cling to Nigel like a shadow.
Chris left after the studio session. The search for another drummer was difficult because Chris was probably the best around. I didn't realise it at the time but soon came to understand. Eventually we hired Ricky Hyde. Rick was a wonderful player even if he didn't have the same feel as Chris. But there were faults: he spent so much time playing in a cabaret band to pay off his car loan that Down at Heel were severely restricted in when they could rehearse. Also, he was unable to socialise with us. We felt more like a three-piece band who used a session drummer. We needed Rick to pay off the car and join us properly. Another disappointment to us was that his busy style in the rehearsal studio became more simple in concert. But then I'm being super-critical. The best gigs we played were with Ricky.
It's all very well getting the music right, but a band is just as much about business as anything else, and musicians are not always the right people to do it. Every gig we played we got paid less than we were promised. And we didn't get that many gigs. We needed someone whose responsibility was to work on that side of things, promoting, guiding, encouraging and pushing. We needed an agent who would allow us to concentrate on the music.
OK so we were offered a recording contract - so what! Without management we would have been totally stitched up by the industry. It's a very cruel commercial world, playing on peoples' dreams and ambitions, sucking them dry and throwing them away. So few get a fair deal it's ridiculous.
When you join a band it's like a marriage. The situation with Ricky taught me that fidelity is important. From what I learnt I have never played in more than one band at a time. To do otherwise would be anathema to me, for commitment is everything if you're going to make it work. And you have to spend time together, to socialise, value the others players and let them value you. Gavin and Nigel and I did so, but from the earliest days there was a rift between Nigel and Gavin. There were the normal tiffs over girlfriends, and when we got steady girlfriends we spent longer apart from each other than we should have done. This didn't help matters.
I spent more of my time keeping the peace between the other two, who failed to agree on so much. Nigel had introduced me to the band and I had an early affinity with him, fearing the rather abrupt Gavin. But after Millom a good friendship developed between Gavin and me that Nigel saw as divisive. Somehow he felt safe with Gavin as long as he had me to support him, but when my allegiances were evenly divided he felt threatened. As Gavin and I started writing music together and trying to steer the band in the way we saw as being right, Nigel felt marginalised. In a way he was unfairly treated. He would bring good songs to us but we would argue against their simplicity. We wanted to push boundaries and become more 'progressive'. In hindsight I was wrong and should have backed Nigel. Nigel probably saw me as Gavin's pawn and the rift of distrust between them grew.
Eventually we seemed to run out of steam and were not the cohesive force we once had been. We met at the Windmarith Pub and gathered round a table upstairs. I brought along my friend Gary, a drummer I knew. Instead of being the impartial observer that he should have been he took the stage to air all his words of wisdom about our predicament, whilst the rest of us stayed silent. It was Gary that talked about packing it all in and splitting the band. Somehow that became the way to go. But it should not have been so. Without Gary, we would have talked as friends out for drinks (no ladies present) and hurts would have been forgotten and healed. After all, this was where we used to drink when the band first formed - it was the scene where much of our camaraderie was born. We would buy the three lagers and one mild (for me), tell awful jokes and talk about music. This meeting should have been cathartic but it was not to be.
When the offer came through from the recording company it was too late. Nigel and Gavin were just not on talking terms enough to let bygones be bygones and get on with the music. And yet we all knew that we should have done it, wanted it, and owed it to rock music. I stumbled into depression and didn't play in another rock band for 4 years. The golden year of all our lives had gone, memories were all that were left and the serious business of settling down had begun.
I soon deserted Blackpool for London, anxious to run away from the hurt of it all, giving up the chance to form the band with Nigel, and Chris and John from Isis. Nigel was soon to follow as he moved away to Weymouth. Gavin stayed. He was not one for being 'soft' and he stuck things out. My friendship with him remained but for Nigel the thawing out of relations took a long time.
Gavin's untimely death in 1999 has robbed us of the chance to look back as old men together and chuckle about those distant days. It robbed us of the opportunity for Gavin to eventually agree to a get-together sometime - hire a room and spend the week blasting our way through all the music we could think of. It has left too many loose ends. Gavin never told us he had remarried or where he was, that he was starting a family. We found out about his death through the Internet, much too long after the event and many too months and years since either of us had last seen him. I thank God that the last two times I did see him he was briefly the same really happy Gavin I had known in the 70s, in love again with his music.
And Down at Heel? It is only a once-upon-a-time fairy tale, receding into the folds of time and haunting us still because there was no happy ending.