Steve Thompson has written for a huge range of artists across an equally wide span of genres. Steve and his band are playing live shows playing new versions of the songs that he’s written as well as stories from his time in the music industry, working closely with an equally impressive list of producers.
Jason Barnard speaks to Steve to hear his journey through music and the story behind his songs.
Hi Steve – Can you tell me about your new live show – what should fans expect – what songs are featured and why?
The show came about when some friends encouraged me to get off my butt and start performing again. What they wanted me to do was play the songs I’d written for other artists. I’d never done this before. I mean when you write a song for say, Elkie Brooks, Elkie records it and then she goes out and performs it herself. I just sit back and collect the royalties! In the show as well as the two songs I wrote for Elkie, we’re performing songs I’ve written for Celine Dion, Sheena Easton, The Searchers, Chris Farlowe, Tygers of Pan Tang, Sarah Brightman, Alvin Stardust and others. There’s even one I wrote for Middle of the Road (NOT ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’!) There’s another element to the show. My life in the world of songwriting has given me many stories. People seem to enjoy these stories and have been pushing me for years to write a book (which I’ve just started doing incidentally). So, I also tell the stories behind the songs and the artists as well as projecting video clips and images onto a screen. It works well, and people seem to love it.
Can you introduce your band – how long have they been together?
This show first hit the road a couple of years ago, but I began to feel something was not right and disbanded and took 6 months off. Then I put together the present line-up. I’ve had a couple of recent departures because the quality of musicians I’m using means they’re always going to be busy. I’m rehearsing in some new guys right now, but I have a terrific rhythm section of Ian Halford on drums John Dawson on bass. The icing on the cake is the amazing vocalist Jen Normandale. We’ve just been joined by Chris Atkins-Groom on Keyboards who is terrific.
What artists did you look up to in your formative years?
At secondary school there was something wonderful happening. I heard a lot of music. Lads (it was an all boy school) would bring in records to play at break times. I thought the sounds I was hearing were wonderful, particularly The Beatles. I was mesmerized. I could not imagine how these sounds were being made. Then one day I saw some older guys playing guitars. I was gobsmacked. Mere mortals could make this magical sound! I was totally hooked. This is what I wanted to do. Being a child of the sixties, I loved The Hollies, The Searchers, acts I was later to work with. By far the best of all was Brian Wilson’s writing for The Beach Boys. Of course, I loved The Beatles too. Later I became very fond of Todd Rundgren who clearly was drawing from the same influences. Also, Daryl Hall & John Oates who were very much about the songs.
How far does your involvement go back in the music industry and what led you into music production and songwriting?
My first performance on stage was 1969 with my band Bullfrog. We worked very hard and got a deal with Cube Records. We made quite a few recordings but only one was released. Our first Producer was Rodger Bain (Black Sabbath) and then Hugh Murphy (Gerry Rafferty) but we failed to crack it. When it became clear rock stardom was not about to happen I decided to go back to my first love: song writing. My love of Brian Wilson’s work meant I was also interested in production. It seemed to go hand in glove, so this became my ambition. I started to write songs with the express purpose of other people recording them rather than any band I was in. I also assembled a loose team of session guys to make demos. Sometimes in a commercial studio, sometimes in a makeshift studio in a village hall. I started to learn about strategies to get the best out of musicians. I relied heavily on humour and this in borne out by interviews and articles that have appeared since about my production style. “He made us laugh — a lot” (John Gallagher, Raven).
Eventually I landed a role as house producer in a studio called Impulse on Wallsend High Street in the North East of England. I started to hone my song writing and began pitching songs to artists. I don’t know how many studios have an in-house producer as well as an engineer. I was there as an addition if anyone wanted some extra help cutting their tracks. Many clients took up this offer and I worked with a broad range of acts. Quite often I was passing on ideas I’d formed about how to hone a song to perfection. We set up Neat Records and I managed the label. We also set up a sister publishing company called Neat Music which I also managed. We did a sub publishing with Bruce Welch of The Shadows. Bruce’s company was called Neon and a guy called Brian Oliver who managed Neon started to pitch my songs to artists and I started to get records released. Brian brokered a deal with Phonogram for an act I was working with called The Caffrey Brothers. This is when I met ace producer Gus Dudgeon. It was terrific working with Gus and I later worked with him many times over the years. I learned a lot from Gus.
I’ve heard that you were influential in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. How did this come about?
As I mentioned we had Neat Records, a vehicle to release product and we were looking for the first release. I produced a couple of tracks with one of my session guitarists Andy Taylor who went on join Duran Duran. Andy was always very ambitious. The rest of my team were contemporary with me: around 25 or 26 years old. Andy was just 18 and called us all boring old farts. He badgered me to cut those tracks but unfortunately, they never made it to release. What became Neat 01 was a band called Motorway (which Andy had formerly been a member of). Motorway were strong on the circuit and we felt that they would sell a lot of records at shows and that would alleviate the speculative nature of trying to get air play and a chart position. Then Neat 02 was an 11-year-old girl called Jayne Mackenzie. I gave Jayne two of my songs. She was dynamite and again doing well on the club circuit. Both these records failed to make any inroads into the national charts, but they sold well locally.
Then for Neat 03 the studio boss said he wanted me to work with a band he’d come across that were making waves on the rock circuit. In walked the Tygers of Pan Tang. I couldn’t believe my ears. We were going through a disco and pop period and this was closer to what I had been doing in the early seventies. I thought it was quite retro. I had no idea that the NWOBHM was about to happen. Anyway, I had my rock credentials to draw upon, so I produced three tracks with them. This may be a bit naughty but here’s a story I’ve never told. After the sessions Brian, Rocky and Jess came to see me and asked me to edit one of the tracks. There was a long and tedious guitar solo and they wanted it cut. I chopped out quite a few bars with an edit block and razor blade (as we did in those days) and gave them the tape on a little 3-inch spool. I have no idea what happened to it or if Rob ever noticed the curtailment of his solo. We released the single “Don’t Touch Me There” and it went ballistic.
We couldn’t press records quickly enough. It may be interesting to mention how the record production process was back then. I was taking the master tapes to a mastering suite in London. We’d tweak the tapes whilst listening on mammoth speakers. Eventually an acetate was cut on a lathe. After I’d done this a few times I started scratching cryptic messages in to the inner ring of the warm acetate. This would obviously be transferred to the finished pressing too. If you have any of those records you may want to check. The acetate then went to Leicester where they were used to make metal plates. The plates then went to a pressing plant in Wooler, Northumberland where the final records were pressed. Right now, that pressing plant in Wooler were struggling to keep up with the demand. In stepped MCA Records. MCA licensed the single and eventually released a Tygers Album produced by Chris Tsangarides. My involvement with the Tygers was ended (for now)
It was about this time that I went off to make the recordings with Gus Dudgeon. Gus is very thorough, so we spent 4 weeks cutting just 3 tracks. The A & R man for Phonogram was my first producer, Rodger Bain so we talked about the old days somewhat. We also talked about this NWOBHM thing that was raising a storm. Rodger commented that he thought Tygers of Pan Tang was rather a silly name for a band. Then he mentioned that he had just signed a band called Def Leppard. I said “Rodger, don’t you think that’s rather a silly name for a band”? Then Gus and Rodger started quizzing me about my production techniques. Bizarre!
When I got back to Neat I found it was wall to wall heavy metal. The NWOBHM had taken hold. The label boss, Dave Wood had signed Fist and White Spirit whilst I was away. I demurred to produce either one. They were great bands, but I just didn’t want to go in that direction. I had just returned from making some sophisticated recordings with Gus and I wanted to push my songwriting career. Then Dave signed another act and I could not refuse to produce forever. When I heard the demos, I quite fancied it anyway. The band were Raven and they were doing some interesting stuff. Quite clever arrangement ideas. So, I was to produce another Neat single. But also, a new departure for Neat: an album! This was to be “Rock Until You Drop”. A bit of a landmark album as it happens. Making that album was crazy. I had to gaffa tape the headphones to their heads because they kept flying off when they went nuts performing their stuff. I’ve told this and several other stories on Raven’s “Rock Until You Drop” DVD.
One day I got a phone call from Tony McPhee who wanted to cut something for Neat. I booked a drummer and played bass myself. We cut two tracks. I put him up at my flat that night and early next morning he left without saying goodbye. I never saw him again and the tracks never got released.
Another time Keith Satchfield asked me for some songs for his band Fist. I think he was hoping I could inject a commercial edge. I gave Fist three songs. They insisted that I join the band (can’t have “outside” writers). And so, I played dual guitar with Keith and we cut the three songs. These never saw the light of day. I was never fired from Fist so perhaps I’m still in the band!
And finally, my last production for Neat. We had a young tape operator called Conrad Lant. Lovely lad. He was in a band and he was forever telling us about it. They would save up for months and buy enough pyrotechnics to sink a ship. They would do a gig somewhere and virtually demolish a village hall. Conrad wanted to make a record. He banged on and on about it until I finally relented and gave him 3 hours downtime. The band were Venom and we cut three tracks. One of them was ‘In League with Satan’. I loaned Conrad my bass from the Bullfrog days. Conrad put it through a fuzz box and plugged it into his Marshall amp. He made a hellish racket. This has gone down in NWOBHM history as the moment ‘Black Metal’ was born.
‘In League with Satan’ came out as a single and Venom’s career went stratospheric. However, I played no further part in it. I quit Neat to pursue my own dreams. I had enough of kick starting other people’s careers. It was time to kick start mine!
I’ve listed below five of my favourite tracks of yours. Can you tell me about the writing of them and how the artist who recorded them came to do so?
The Last Teardrop – Elkie Brooks
I’d like to rewind a little to a few years before Elkie recorded this. In 1982 I signed a publishing deal with MCA Music. Gus Dudgeon sent MCA a letter complimenting them on having the good sense to sign me to a publishing deal. I thought that was nice and really generous of him to do that. He then asked MCA to get me working on songs for Elkie Brooks as he was about to record a third album with her, having produced ‘Pearls 1’ and ‘Pearls 2’. My new publishers were suitably impressed. I hatched a cunning plan. I suggested that Gus and I write a for Elkie together. That way he could drive the song in the direction he wanted. Gus was dead keen, he’d never written a song before. We worked on the song for three days and like all things Gus it was a major production. It involved MCA getting movers in to shift a grand piano around their offices, sharing a rehearsal space with Motorhead and late-night driving around London and hooking up with another producer Peter Collins. That’s another story I’ve told elsewhere. Gus went down to see Elkie at her home in Devon to discuss the next album. We had finally completed our song ‘Going Solo’ and Gus was going to play it to her. However, she fired him as her producer so that was the end of that.
Fast forward to 1991. Out of the blue, Elkie Brooks called me up. Someone had passed her a cassette at a theatre stage door whilst she was on tour. She liked what she heard but nothing was quite right for her. She explained that she was recording a new album and looking for songs. She wondered if I had anything suitable and I promised to send a few songs. A few weeks later she called back and said she loved my song ‘One of a Kind’ which I had co-written with Tommy Morrison. She then said she was still looking for a single for the album and ‘One of a Kind’ was an album track not a single. She invited me to have a go at writing something strong enough to be the first single off the album. I put my heart and soul into it and wrote ‘The Last Teardrop’ especially for her. I sent it off and, in a few days, she called me and said “that’s it! That’s the single”. Bingo! Now, because of our past endeavours I sent both songs to Gus Dudgeon and explained what was happening. He called me up and treated me to one of his customary two-hour phone conversations. He was delighted with what was happening, but he thought ‘The Last Teardrop’ could be better. I said why do I need to do this, Elkie has already accepted the song. He replied that if the song could be better I owed it to myself to make it better and not to just coast in. So, I decided to humour him and work on it. I should point out in the past Gus had been my record Producer and at another time my publisher having signed me to Dick James Music. In 1991 he was neither of these things but there he was pushing me to do my best. He thought the opening lyric in the chorus was weak. He also thought the chorus needed to build more and suggested I draw more emotion out of the song generally. I worked on this for a few days and sent Gus a new demo. He called me up as soon as he received it. He was ecstatic. He played my demo down the phone to me with a running commentary. “Listen to this bit …. Wait for it, wait for it. … whooooooot”. It was as though he was introducing me to a song I’d never heard.
I sent the new version to Elkie. At first, she was a little freaked out that her Producer of almost ten years ago had had a hand in the new version. However, she agreed that the new version was superior and that’s the one she recorded. ‘The Last Teardrop’ and ‘One of a Kind’ were on her ‘Pearls 3 album’ and ‘Teardrop’ was the first single off the album.
Paris By Air – Tygers Of Pan Tang
‘Paris By Air’ was originally written for Tony Halliday, a 16-year-old girl I was writing for and producing. She had a lot of potential. At first, I was giving Toni songs to sing that I had lying around but I realised that if I wanted to get her a record deal I needed to write stuff that matched her age and attitude. I was listening to her stories about her humdrum life on a council estate. She had a strong desire to break out and make something of herself. I was having a beer with my publisher, Brian Oliver in The Ship on Wardour Street. He was giving me tips on where to find inspiration for songs. “Take this pub for instance”, he said, waving his hand around the room and pointing to a poster “you could write a song called The Duke of Wellington”. My eyes alighted on a different poster and I replied “No, I’m going to write a song called ‘Paris By Air’”, (as the poster declared). I then described what the story would be, a young girl trapped in a council estate and a humdrum life longing to escape. The song was almost written (at least lyrically) before the first pint was consumed.
Back home in Whitley Bay I put together the song. Toni was young and an unseasoned singer at the time and I put together a very simple melody which revolved mostly around just three notes. I had a bunch of mates record the track with me and I’m on a Rickenbacker 12 string. Toni came in and did the vocals and we had yet another track to help us shop for a record deal for her.
At the time I was living in a house in Whitley Bay with The Tygers of Pan Tang. Every morning as I set off to the studio to turn out some more tracks to feed the NWOBHM John Sykes would be sitting there and practicing guitar. When I came home in the evening, he was still there, still practicing. He would often ask me what I had been recording that day and I would often play rough mixes and stuff. One day I had just cut ‘Paris By Air’ and I played him that. Rocky Laws was present and loved the song. I later learned that Rocky had lobbied the band to record the song for a year or so. And so, it came to pass that the Tygers recorded ‘Paris By Air’ for their fourth album, ‘The Cage’. This necessitated some changes of lyrics to suit a male singer. For me the lyrics don’t work quite so well in the male context. However, it had no effect on the songs success and it came out as a single which was a hit. The album was a huge success and went top 20 in the UK and sold well around the world. I had two other songs on ‘The Cage’: ‘Lonely at the Top’ and ‘Letter From LA’ (co-written with Jon Deverill.
Hurry Home – Wavelength
In my days as a NWOBHM producer I didn’t drive so I would take a bus or a taxi to the studio. One morning the chorus melody for Hurry Home came into my head. I have no idea why as I was producing Raven at the time. When I got home that evening my wife was on the phone to her mother saying she had to go into hospital for an operation. I picked up my guitar and did that jokesy weeping violin thing. Then words started to form: “Lying awake, Thinking of You”. I was using the chords from a rock song I was writing but much slower. Then words started to form around that mornings bus queue melody: “Hurry Home, Hurry Home”. I went through to the kitchen and finished the song in about 30 mins. My wife loved the song, but I thought it was sloppy.
This was around the time I quit Neat Records and I signed a publishing deal directly with Bruce Welch. Other people loved ‘Hurry Home’ so I made a simple demo and gave it to Bruce along with a few other songs. Then I got on with the process of trying to write that elusive hit. Then one day out of the blue I got a call from Producer Chris Neil. He told me he loved my song Hurry Home. He was producing Sheena Easton at the time and he said he wanted to use it on her next album. This was really exciting as Sheena was huge at the time. Chris called me again a couple of weeks later and explained that he had played the song to Sheena and she didn’t like it. He said fear not, he was working with another band made up of two welders and three taxi drivers and he would record it with them. I was crestfallen. This was in no way as exciting as a Sheena Easton cut. However, the two welders and three taxi drivers turned out to be Wavelength and I have forgiven Chris Neil. One day I was about to go into the dentist when the receptionist said there was a phone call for me. By now I had moved publishers to MCA Music and they had tracked me down. ‘Hurry Home’ had entered the charts at 68! Wow! I felt no pain in the dentist’s chair that day. Then ‘Hurry Home’ climbed up the charts slowly hitting 27 for two weeks running and then climbed again to its highest position of 17. Then it began to fall, but ever so slowly. In all the song spent 3 months in the charts. Those 3 months were amazingly exciting. Sheena Easton later did record a song of mine and only a year ago Sarah Brightman released her own version of ‘Hurry Home’
I Don’t Understand You – The Hollies
This one happened soon after I left Neat Records. I had signed a publishing deal with Bruce Welch. Bruce was riding high as a Producer then and I was pushing him to get me some action. When he was asked to produce The Hollies, Bruce went through my catalogue and selected ‘I Don’t Understand You’ for the session. I had recorded in Odyssey Studios a few weeks earlier. Wayne Bickerton owned Odyssey and I was there to play guitar on Chris Farlowe’s recording of my song ‘Looking For Love In A Stranger’ with Wayne producing. I liked the studio and recommended it to Bruce for the Hollies recording. So, one day Bruce and The Hollies go into Odyssey Studios to record ‘I Don’t Understand You’. It was a complex song and Bruce called and asked me to come to the studio to help restructure it as it was too long. I was in such a rush as I responded to the emergency phone call that I dashed right into the studio not the control room and there was Allan Clarke doing a vocal. He turned and said “Hello”. I was so embarrassed. Later the bass player was overdubbing piano and I said to Bruce, “he’s doing it wrong”. So, Bruce sent me through to do the piano part myself. Later I coached The Hollies as they laid down their harmonies. Imagine that! I thought nothing of it at the time, but I should have noted it as a red-letter day. I also learned how The Hollies got that beautiful harmony blend. Allan sang the lead, but he was also in the choir around the mic with the other guys, so his voice is in there twice. Sadly, it’s just another of those songs in any songwriter’s life that never saw the light of day.
Hypnotised – Colin Blunstone
Interestingly when I moved from Bruce Welch Music to MCA Music, Pete Waterman, my mentor there played The Hollies recording to Colin Blunstone and Colin recorded his own version with Dave Stewart. We touched base briefly back then in 1982. Fast forward to 1985 and I appeared on the same bill as Colin. The event was a fundraiser for the Bradford City Disaster appeal after the fire at the Valley Parade football stadium, held at St. George’s Hall in Bradford.
Along the way, I got chatting to Colin about songs and stuff, and we thought it would be a good idea to write something together. I was doing a lot of work with John Verity at the time, co-writing and playing on a couple of his albums. The three of us agreed to cut some tracks and a few months later we descended on John’s ‘Somewhere in Yorkshire’ studio. I recall that Colin had a couple of ideas for titles and storylines. ‘Scared to Death’ was inspired by a certain fallen-from-grace rockstar receiving a bad press in the tabloids. And ‘Hypnotised’ came about because a friend was quitting smoking that way. Over the course of three days, we did indeed write and record those two songs. Sadly, all I have left of them are partial recordings. The tapes are long gone.
This story appeared in full as an exclusive for the Zombies Fan Club. I have blogged the story here: steve-thompson.org.uk/colin-blunstone
What other tracks that you have written are you most proud of and why?
As I said earlier, Sheena Easton recorded one of my songs ‘Please Don’t Sympathise’ for her ‘Madness, Money and Music’ album. A year later Celine Dion also recorded this on, in French: ‘Ne Me Plaignez Pas’. It was a hit single (certified Gold) in Canada and the album it was on sold 400,000 copies in Canada and 700,000 copies in France. I’m quite proud of that achievement. However, the song I’m most proud of hardly anybody has heard. ‘The Greatest Adventure’ is in my opinion a very powerful song musically and lyrically. The melody and chord structure are pretty stream of consciousness writing. Some strange twists in there but it works. Gus Dudgeon (that man again) recorded this with a guy called Frank Ryan. The album failed to make any impact at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tNn_-1Qd_o
And finally, a song that never made it beyond rough demo stage: /Hollow Victory/. A powerful melody and lyric in my humble opinion. The lyric is the most personal I have ever written. Generally, songwriters who write for other artists can’t be this personal but this one works on two levels. The surface level which people can relate to and the deeper meaning that only I know. And I’m never going to divulge that meaning!
What do you think makes a great song and what other songwriters that you’ve worked with have you been most impressed by?
I think a great song must move you either lyrically, melodically or rhythmically. If you can get two of those, great. If you get all three: jackpot! I always strive to make a song as strong as possible. I can’t compose fillers. Artists can write those themselves. An outside writer must really come up with the goods to get included in the track list.
When I was with MCA they sent me to their L.A. office for three months. I was impressed with the work ethic there. All the writers had mailboxes (pigeon holes) in reception and they would come into the office to work on songs. Each office had a piano and there was a demo studio in the basement. The demos these guys were producing were so good that Quincy Jones and other big producers were coming around and taking the 2-inch 24 track tapes away and putting artists e.g. the Pointer Sisters on them. For instance, the Pointer Sisters record ‘Automatic’ was recorded in that basement demo studio. The guys who wrote that were two MCA staffers Brock Walsh and Glenn Ballard. I spent some time writing with those guys and working in the studio. They really impressed me, and I learned a lot from them.
I knew these guys were good but there was no Google in those days, so I couldn’t check them out. They seemed more impressed with me and fact that I was English. They referred to the “English” lyric writing style. Glenn defined it “means f*** all but sounds great!”
A song that came out of these influences was ‘Desert of No Love’ which Tygers of Pan Tang recorded on their ‘The Wreckage’ album. ‘Desert’ was one of a clutch of songs I wrote whilst in L.A. absorbing those influences.
Are you working with any other artists at the moment?
The singer of one of your “favourite songs” you asked me about has come back into my orbit. That’s all can say at this moment so watch this space
I’ve also been working with playwright Tom Kelly. We recently wrote a musical “‘Jobling’ and premiered it at the National Centre for the Written Word. It was well received. It was performed by a 20-piece brass band which was very interesting. It was quite challenging to work with a brass band, the band leader and I coming from two different worlds. It worked well though and added authenticity to the story. ‘Jobling’ is set in 1832 and is about the last man to be gibbeted in England. There are not too many laughs in the show but tons of emotion. We do one of the songs in my show, ‘Last Days’.
I’ve also been doing some distance collaboration with John Verity on some new material. Hopefully we’ll get an album out of this collaboration. We jokingly refer to it as “Before We Depart” (This Mortal Coil) – one last album before we pop our clogs!
I’ve heard you are working on a new album – can you tell me more about it – will it have a mix of old and new songs?
This is the album with my band tentatively entitled “Steve Thompson: Songwriter”, same as the show. The intention is to record the entire set (17 songs) so yes, it will be a mixture of some newer and some older songs just like our set list. We’ll not release all 17 at once and maybe there’ll be even more with some special mixes and some bonus extras. I want to capture the energy of the live show, so most tracks will have an ending not a fade. We may precede the album with an EP because all my band are busy people and it’s going slowly. Hopefully we’ll have something before the next show. Often when an artist records your song they make little changes, little customizations. For our album the songs revert to how the writer intended them. ‘Paris by Air’ goes back the original lyric with a girl singing, our very own Jen Normandale. Steve Lamb from the Tygers of Pan Tang will guest on ‘Paris by Air’.
So even if you have these songs by the original artists our version will hopefully provide something new and fresh.
Thank you Steve for answering so eloquently, fascinating.
More information can be found at: steve-thompson.org.uk
