ian mcculloch – Sun 13

13 Questions with Pete Wylie

How do we describe Pete Wylie? Maverick? Glorious pop star? Liverpool’s best songwriter? All of these are true but only really scratch the surface of a Pete Wylie’s legend.

He is one of the class of 76, who found his path irrevocably altered by attending Eric’s just as the ripples of punk had reached the provinces. Some of the stories from this time include him turning up to Eric’s wearing a toilet seat around his neck, threatening Julian Cope on the dance floor and being given a guitar by The Clash’s Mick Jones with the advice “pay me back when you’re famous.”

Wylie was part of the ‘imaginary band’ scene of the time, where members of the Eric’s inner circle would meet up and talk about putting band together, but pretty much leaving things at the discussion stage, with some bands only existing in the minds of the people sat around a table in the Armadillo Tea Rooms.

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Eventually some of these bands took things further and actually got some instruments and even wrote some songs. One such band was the much talked about, short lived and prophetically named Crucial Three, which also boasted Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch in their line up.

Eventually though, Wylie really hit his stride with Wah! Heat. Wah hit the ground running with their first single being the seminal Better Scream and the classic follow up single, Seven Minutes to Midnight.

Wah’s biggest hit. Story of the Blues, saw Wylie take his epic, widescreen pop to number three in the charts, also scoring chart hits with Come Back and his solo hit Sinful.

Wylie’s voice, songs and ambitions were heroic in scope and have provided us with some of the most perfect pop moments in history.

Sun 13 managed to subject Pete Wylie to one of our 13 questions features. Read on to hear more about the Dunning-Kruger effect, CB radio and being an intellectual in disguise.

1. Where are you and what are you doing? How is that working out?
“I’m at home in Disgraceland, rueing the day my lecky bikes were stolen, and recording a song/video for The Florrie’s ‘feed the kids’ appeal. It’ll be online by the time you read this so, you can decide how that’s working out..”

2. How have you been coping with the lockdown situation?
“There are aspects of the way things are that suit me. Time on my own can be productive, but too much opens the Pandora’s box of the brain. I’m earning nothing either, but that is something I’ve become accustomed too, so will ride it out.

Hell is other people, as Jean-Paul Sartre said. And seeing the conspiracy covidiots skunk odoured shite makes me very angry.

The cosmic right wrong‘uns have a problem with understanding simple stuff. Like: two things can both be true at the same time. Like lockdown is vital AND the people in power can be useless scum at the same time. Dunning-Kruger in full effect.”

3. Who is the nicest ‘celebrity’ you’ve met?

“Who are ‘celebrities’? My definition differs from most. And if someone is ‘nice’, I couldn’t care less if they’re celebrities or not. Same goes if they’re horrible.”

4. When did you last get into an argument?
“I get into arguments every day, both in and out of my head.”

5. When did you last shout at the TV?
“I shout at the telly every single day. The news, the adverts, the crap, the missed sitter…”

6. When did you last consider quitting social media?
“Right now, I’m assessing daily. Facebook will be the first to go, but it’s where I get to talk to people lately, and tell people what I’m doing, so it’s a dilemma.

Where do we go when the online interference gets too much? CB radio won’t replace it.”

7. Tell us a secret.
“I’m an artist. And I’m a well educated intellectual in disguise as something else…”

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8. How would you describe yourself?
“LoudQuiet. Like a Pixies song. {they got that off WAH! y’know. Gil Norton is the mixing link…]”

9. What words of warning would you give your younger self?
“Don’t listen if someone claiming to be you comes from the future to give you a warning. You already know everything…”

10. When were you last told off?
“I tell myself off all the time. But I’m learning not to be so hard on myself.”

11. What has been your favourite decade for music?
“Without a doubt the seventies; for being there, for living it, for learning, for Bowie, for punk, and for all the great music/ films/art, and for the visceral thrill of lived experience.

But I’m glad I’m here now.”

12. What band or record changed to course of your life?

“First Bowie. I’d been into him since Tony Blackburn had Changes as his record of the week on Radio One, but Starman/ Ziggy catapulted me into obsessive love. Saw him and the Spiders December ’72, and that was it for me.

Then The Clash, differently and directly, and especially Mick Jones who was about the first person who ever had faith in me and encouraged me, and I love him for that till the day etc. And Complete Control is one of the GREAT records.”

13. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Is there anything else you’d like to say?
“Firstly thank you. Secondly, see what you can do to help your fellow humans. finally, my motto:

GIVE A SHIT OR BE A SHIT. PWx”

13 Questions with Come in Tokio’s Phil Wylie

When I was a young, impressionable sort of chap, inexperienced in the ways of the world and just dipping my toes into the world of playing music, I thought that all a band had to do to make it big was to make good music.

Time has robbed me of this delusion however, because, all too often good bands are allowed to fall by the wayside and the fame, fortune and legend that is rightfully theirs is denied them. There are many reasons for this, such as fashion or money, but a lot of it comes down to pure dumb luck.Some bands get the breaks and some bands don’t.

One band who didn’t get the breaks was Liverpool’s Come in Tokio. The fact that fame was not to be this does not diminish the fact that the music they made was some of the best to be committed to tape. In fact, to those in the know, it adds to their legend. Come in Tokio have become a legendary lost band. A band who should have made it but who instead have a special place in the hearts of those who know them.

My own first exposure to the wonderful music they made was on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. Come in Tokio recorded three sessions of four songs each, featuring such classics in waiting as Say You’ll Never Go Away Again and Nature Call. Their sound was huge in scale and ambition, driving, epic and emotional rock anthems whose natural home should have been on stage in front of increasingly bigger audiences.

After such exposure, it should have been a done deal that Come in Tokio were snapped up by the record companies that had started to circle the band, but for whatever reason, this never happened and the expected breakthrough fell away.

But the worth of a song, and of a band for that matter, is not measured in terms of records sold but is instead measured by the worth of the art they create. And in that case, Come in Tokio are one of the most successful bands I have ever heard.

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Sun-13 spoke to singer/guitarist Phil Wylie and asked him 13 questions. Read on to find out more about life in lockdown, raiding the archives and seeing Ziggy Stardust with Ian McCulloch.

1. Where are you and what are you doing and how is that working out?

“New Brighton, in isolation with nearest and dearest (3 of us), feeling loved. It’s a strange time for all as we see humanity at its best and at its worst.”

2. How have you been coping with the lockdown situation?

“Trying to remain philosophical, though frustrated at times, always hopeful things will get better sooner rather than later.

Before lockdown in March I was gigging 1,2,3 times a week, my week usually consisted of prepping the forthcoming gigs”

3. What have you been up to recently?

“I’ve been rummaging through boxes containing photos, cassettes and DATs from my Come in Tokio days, laughing, cringing, loving, listening to a wide variety of music (mainly 60’s and 70’s). Discovering things I missed first time around and rediscovering old favourites.

I don’t tend to go out as I spend my working life in pubs and clubs. The lockdown has stopped that routine and to fill in my time and to alleviate boredom I’ve been on a journey to find old Tokio stuff, pictures, songs etc. purely on a sentimental journey.

I found stuff I never knew I had, so I put them on computer to dick around with speeds, tones and frequencies, which has been laborious but interesting for me and occasionally learning some additional songs by others to include in future gigs.

I’ve been shielding during this time for myself and for my wife who is recovering from successful cancer surgery. So in truth, apart from not being able to gig, things ain’t that much different in our household other than less money coming in.”

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4. When did you last get into an argument?

“Had a real ding dong with a hotel in Southport over a parking fine about 5 years ago.

Generally, if people think differently to me, that’s their truth, I do draw the line at racism and Tory supporters but all my family and friends are like minded so it doesn’t occur.”

5. When did you last shout at the TV?

“Today, Matt Hancock. Emphasis on the cock.”

6. When did you last consider quitting social media?

“I haven’t, because I’m not selling or promoting anything I just dip in and out to stay in touch with friends.”

7. Did you have any hobbies as a kid?

“I was football and cricket nut. Also, our mum worked at Birdseye and was in something called the record club so for a small fee my brothers and I would choose and collect 3 singles from the charts each week.”

8. What was the first gig you went to?

“David Bowie, the Ziggy tour, Liverpool Empire 1973. I was a fan after seeing Starman on TOTP, my brother asked for a ticket from our parents, it was given on the condition he would take me and included in our group of four who went was Steve Spence, the drummer in The Crucial Three and Ian McCullough.”

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9. When were you last told off?

“What day is it today….I was told off last week for being too considerate a lover.”

10. What’s your first memory?

“Two strong musical memories on hearing We can work it out by the Beatles and Reach out I’ll be there by The Four Tops, even as a kid they both blew me away and left me with emotions I didn’t understand.”

11. What’s your guilty listening pleasure?

“I understand the question but I have none. If people think differently, fuck ’em.

As a kid Herman’s Hermits, but before Bowie, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney and in the late 80’s Harry Connick Jnr.”

12. Vinyl, CD, MP3 or Streaming?

“CD and streaming YouTube.”

13. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

“Thanks Banjo. Buy low, sell high.”