I asked if we would ever see a 10cc jukebox musical? “You know, I’ve heard several different ideas, but nothing’s ever reached fruition. The mention of a musical made me think of the Broadway and West End shows being produced around rock groups and their catalogue of hits. And I think if that doesn’t show you how powerful music is, then I don’t know what can”. A song that never fails to move me is “Somewhere” from West Side Story, written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Is there a piece of music Gouldman keeps coming back to that he cannot live without? “You know, there’s so many pieces of music that I love or wish I’d written-it’s very hard to say. It’s like medicine, it’s life affirming and life giving”. Not only for me to be able to enjoy the life that I have, but it’s so much. “Well, I mean, it’s like breathing, eating and music-it’s that important. Which led us to discuss the power of music. I was 11 years old and that changed my life”. Well, the moment I think I wouldn’t be here today is when my late cousin Ronnie bought me a guitar. I wanted to know what set Gouldman on this musical journey and if there was one experience he was so glad happened? Well, I’m not very good at anything else, so I’m happy to still be doing it”. Gouldman added: “Anything you enjoy and look forward to and can do-as long as it’s good for you, and playing music is good for you-it’s good for your health. It’s a joy to do it and I think, in a way, it keeps you young as well”. A lot of us don’t have to do it, but we love to do it. There’s a lot of people who are older than me who cannot stop playing because they love it. This unending need to create music carries over to performing live, too. But, really, essentially it’s for yourself in a way”. Like a lot of my contemporaries, we write and record because we have to do it, and hopefully other people will like it. I don’t look for any million-dollar sales, but I love to record and write-and it’s great to have for the fans. I do it because I need to do it rather than anything else. ‘If you can do it better, or if it’s better for the song then you do it’”.ĭoes Gouldman still enjoy tinkering in the studio today? “I do. “That was because we always chose the best person for the job. “10cc is quite unusual in the way that we had three number-one singles with three different singers,” Gouldman said. The band was different to other chart-topping groups in that all members were multi-instrumentalists and singers who swapped roles depending on the song. We always tried to put something unusual sounding onto the track early on that would send us in a slightly different direction”. I think that was very important and made us what we were. A lot of the time, we didn’t have anyone else in the studio with us at all. “We were really emulating what the Beatles did in the late ’60s, in that the technology improved and we were very lucky we had our own studio and be completely self-contained. The creation of the last one-10cc’s most iconic synthesizer tape-looped soundscape, with its disguised lyrics of love-embraced the studio technology of the time. The group had a string of global chart hits in the 1970s, including: I sometimes feel a bit guilty about it, but what can I do? Someone’s gotta do it!”Īnd he’s been doing it since the 1960s with various incarnations of 10cc. It’s like being in a gang when you’re a kid, actually. “It’s just a joy to be with them, not only to make music with them, but, as travelling companions, we have a lot of fun together. He was also a bit bashful as he talked about being on the road with his touring band. They have been coming to the live shows for more than 40 years. He had been walking around with his wife, shopping for a handbag requested by his daughter back home, and was reminded of “how very nice and very sweet” it is to have loyal Japanese fans. The founding member of legendary British rock group 10cc told me how excited he was to be back in Tokyo, which he called “a great buzzing city”. Meeting up with Graham Gouldman in January, backstage at Billboard Live Tokyo, was more like having a fireside chat with an uncle in a woolly sweater than music-industry slog. Embassy From Social Club to Business Hub.Publicity Uniquely the British School in Tokyo.Book review An illustrated guide to Samurai history and culture: from the age of Musashi to contemporary pop culture.In focus Bccj member highlight: Robert Walters Japan.BCCJ Brave Conversations, Positive Transformations.
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