Bay City Rollers

January 2010

A few years ago Les McKeown took me into a pub toilet. I was on the end of a phone line, interviewing him for an upcoming show in Nottingham, when he broke off to relieve himself in the gents.
I say "broke off"; he carried on talking. I only knew where he'd gone by the creak of the door and the echo of the bathroom and... well, I don't need to elaborate on the sound effects that followed.
He didn't apologise, didn't even mention it – but back then, the boozer was his office.
These days he keeps out of pubs, having quit the hard stuff 18 months ago.
"My mum and dad dying in 2002 was the catalyst for me entering self-destruct mode," says the 54-year-old Scot.
"I would drink a couple of bottles of 50% proof Wild Turkey a day.
"When I woke up the first thing I'd do was have a big glass of whisky and a fag. The only time I didn't drink was when I tried to stay a little bit sober when I was on stage."
His wake-up call came two years ago with a visit to the doctor.
"I had a liver function test and they said, 'you're going to die any day now – you've got to stop.'"
By coincidence, he was offered the chance to go on a TV show in the US called Celebrity Rehab, where stars were to fight their addictions on camera at Passages, a luxury clinic in Malibu, California.
Others included models Alicia Douvall and Cassie Sumner, Peter Sellers' daughter Victoria Sellers, Happy Mondays singer and X Factor finalist Rowetta Satchell and Robin Le Mesurier, son of Dad's Army star John.
"It was a reality TV show but the quality of care at this place was incredible," says McKeown. "I looked it up on the internet and people were paying a fortune to go into rehab there.
"I thought, well, I'm never going to be able to afford that; it felt like a last-chance-saloon type of thing."
It wasn't easy.
"Physically, I felt terrible. When you're drinking all the time, it's like an anaesthetic. You don't feel any of the damage you might have done to your hips or your joints. Once you stop you feel like you've aged five years.
"I've been exercising since then and I've just joined a gym where I have a personal trainer.
"I found it difficult sleeping. It took me six months to get back into any kind of a sleeping pattern.
"Before, I would get drunk in the morning, be asleep by 12 o'clock, get up for an afternoon session, be asleep again by five or six o'clock, then get up again for an evening session. I had that odd sleeping habit for years – well, it wasn't actually 'sleeping' so much as being unconscious because of the effects of alcohol.
"I still have some nights where I can't sleep but I get up and do some work, either answering e-mails or doing a song, and that seems to do the trick.
"Part of my new life was taking charge of my shows: the management, the agent side of it, tour-managing, booking hotels and dealing with PA companies... I've taken charge of all those elements because I wanted to fill up my days with positive things to do.
"It sounds quite mundane but it's quite complex and it keeps me busy 24/7."
He's writing a new album, his first featuring new material in 30 years.
"I would say it's like the Rollers but 30 years later."
In the 70s, the Bay City Rollers were Britain's biggest pop group, prompting an hysteria among fans, dubbed Rollermania, that hadn't been seen since The Beatles.
They notched up nine UK Top 10 hits including Remember (Sha-La-La) and Shang-A-Lang, All Of Me Loves All Of You, plus two number ones: Bye Bye Baby and Give A Little Love.
McKeown is the only original member of the group still touring and, as part of the Once In A Lifetime tour, he'll be reliving those days.
Expect him to be a better performer than previous shows
"I'm talking a lot more with the audience. I'm able to communicate with people on a level now, rather than being someone who is in their own little world, making jokes only he can laugh at."
Back in the day, the group weren't big drinkers.
"Apart from milk!" he laughs.
"I did binge drink post-Roller days, starting around 1978/79. But alcohol never played a big part in my life until 2002 triggered by my parents dying. I didn't realise that was what it was until I went in to rehab."
These days, there's no booze backstage. After a show the rest of his band go one way and McKeown heads to the hotel to watch the TV.
"I don't miss it," he insists.
"I don't think, Ah, they're all having fun, getting drunk. I'm quite happy. Psychologically I feel a lot sharper. I've a much more upbeat attitude."

Les McKeown's Legendary Bay City Rollers join The Osmonds, David Essex and Leo Sayer on the Once In A Lifetime Tour 2010 which comes to the Trent FM Arena, Nottingham on June 29. Tickets are £36.50, 08444 124624.

Leo Sayer

October 2009



It has been more than 30 years since Leo Sayer topped both the UK and US charts with his signature hit You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, so what makes him feel like dancing these days?
“Not a lot really,” he says.
“I hate to say it. It’s all clever but it’s all done for money. And it’s all very much a business.”
It annoys him that the industry seeks to “bury the past” and spend more on promoting new talent.
Which is one of the reasons he moved to Australia five years ago.
“The popularity I’ve had down here has always been great,” he says, hastily disposing of a Carr’s water biscuit.
“They’re a fine old thing. I’m also supping up a cup of Taylor’s of Harrogate tea. I must be thinking about England.”
He adds: “I hit the ground running here in 1974, I think. They put a huge campaign together before I arrived. So it was a bit like when The Beatles went to New York. It was mad.”
And he can still get regular bookings these days.
“I work all the time. I’m in the middle of a load of gigs at the minute. I’ve done about 82 shows in the last five years. It’s keeping me young.
“I miss England in a lot of ways but the lifestyle here is not that different. It’s just the weather. It’s like Lanzarote but a bit further,” he laughs.
Sayer, who had his biggest hits in 1977 with You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and When I Need You, has garnered a new generation of fans in Oz thanks to The Wiggles. The children’s TV phenomenon did a cover of You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and invited him on to the show.
“It’s been crazy. You know, I’m a single bloke at the moment and I’ll get in to a shopping centre and a very attractive lady of about 30 or 40 will come up to me and say ‘I adore your music’.
“And I think ‘ooh, this is cool’. Then she says: ‘Yes, me and my son listen to it every morning’.”
Doh!
He recently converted a room in his Sydney home in to a recording studio in order to make new music.
“I’m still creative. If other people think of me as a nostalgic artist, that’s not really how I think of myself. I’m moving a little more with the times. I couldn’t make Beyonce or Jay-Z type of music. I just don’t know how to do that.”
Three years ago he was back at the top of the UK chart when Meck remixed his song Thunder In My Heart, although the marketing plan was to keep the name of Leo Sayer out of any publicity.
“First off they said ‘don’t tell anyone it’s Leo.’”
Bit of an insult, isn’t it?
“Yeah but that’s typical of English pop. We love to bury the past and reinvent. They spend more money on Duffy than they do on Dusty Springfield. I don’t understand it. Let’s kill anyone over 21 – that’s always been a British kind of thing.
“But it doesn’t work with the public because we all want to see Duran Duran again, Spandau Ballet again and hold on to Eric Clapton and Elton John. Look at The Beatles reissues. Kids will have spent more on The Beatles (Rock Band) game than the latest war games.
“The lasting power of music goes against the marketing ethic of ‘let’s find some new acts.’
“I say it’s The Beatles 10, Simon Cowell 0.”
It is nostalgia that brings Sayer to Nottingham next year on the Once In A Lifetime tour with The Osmonds, David Essex and the Bay City Rollers.
“Paul Young is a friend, he’s done it, and he was always telling me it’s a fun tour to do.”
It helps that he knows the other artists: “In those days we were all mates because we all did Top Of The Pops together.
“There was no video so we had to perform our songs live. There’d be David Bowie over there, Marc Bolan, David Essex, Mick Jagger, the Bay City Rollers... so, coming together for this tour, it was an easy thing for us to say yes to.
“There was a great camaraderie – none of that ‘I’d like to kill you’ kind of competition going on that there’s been in a lot of the acts since.
“I never had to be in hand-to-hand combat with David Essex for a place in the charts,” he laughs.
“There seemed to be room for all of us in those days. Maybe because pop music was so much more important as the voice of the age.”
Who is going to be the best and worst behaved on the tour?
“Who knows? We all grow up. Though I don’t think I’ve grown up as much as I thought I would. I don’t feel like a 61-year-old.”

Once In a Lifetime 2010 Tour with The Osmonds, David Essex, Leo Sayer and Les McKeown’s Bay City Rollers, Trent FM Arena Nottingham, June 28 2010, £36.50, 0844 8471726