This is from November 24th 1973, as far as I know this was the first major interview Steve gave.

It was written by Jeff Ward, who along with Ray Coleman wrote a number of well written, insightful and supportive pieces on Cockney Rebel for the Melody Maker in those heady early days.

Erm, I'm not sure about intellectual property rights on this or any other such related pieces, (though it's over 40 years old) - it's been replicated for the love of, and the sharing, of course, not for any commercial gain. (But if there is a problem with it being on the website do please remove it Rachel).

If it was the first major piece on Cockney Rebel I'm guessing that some may have missed it first time round. So here it is for all to enjoy...

'Rebel Rousers'.

Steve Harley runs the risk of being dismissed as an egomaniac – which he insists he is not – but that’s the way he is. Cockney Rebel is a huge risk in itself, because Harley is staking not only his credibility but his future on the band’s originality.

The immediate reaction to Harley may be “Who the hell does he think he is?” But that’s a question, and so demands an answer.

Cockney Rebel are attempting to overturn the mores of the rock/pop world. Read on and let’s see if the hackles rise.

“The band’s speaking volumes. We’re rehearsing music now which is so hard and tough it knocks me through the roof. There’s a buzz in Cockney Rebel saying we’re on the brink of being big, being leaders, not followers, a musical force that others will follow. We must believe it. God, the kids must need something new by now. They must be trying. They must be tired of screaming guitar licks that say nothing. The guitar greats have come and gone. They must be after getting a buzz from something other than an electric guitar or synthesizer.”

Once you have heard the band’s debut album “The Human Menagerie”, Harley has you believing.

He rummages around for a tape to play. The room in his fifth floor Chelsea flat is a mess. The tape recorder perches on the edge of the bed, a speaker is dug out of a corner. It’s a song that will be on the next album; it’s called “Mr. Soft.”

The spools rotate. The music sounds so fresh and aggressively free. That violin bites like a bitch, and that voice...

Harley is clever. He pretends to be like any kid from the street who fancies he can sing and be a big rock star, who acts it out in front of the mirror when no-one’s looking or listening. And at the same time he’s like the end product of all rock singers, gasping, rasping, the last breath before oblivion. He’s been tortured, he’s about as far out vocally as anyone can get.

But then hear “Hideaway,” an inventive parody-tribute to Bryan Ferry and “My Only Vice” to David Bowie, on the current album. And the contrasts, the heavily indulgent, stylised personal statements, “Sebastian” and “Death Trip”. Harley uses a 40-piece orchestra and choir to to convey sinewy erotic/sexual moods – “I wrote them at one time in my life and I knew I’d never write anything like either one of them again. I had to allow myself to be self-indulgent. I’d never get the chance again so I took the responsibility and went overboard. These are not Cockney Rebel statements. They are Steve Harley statements.”

Indeed the other Rebels – Stuart Elliot, Paul Jeffreys, Jean Paul Crocker, Milton Reame-James – would not be in the band if they did not exactly fit Harley’s concept exactly.

“They had to fit a lot of things. I’m heavy as a boss, not a light person. I wasn’t going to take on anyone who was likely to upstage me. Also they had to be guys who didn’t think they could write better songs than me, and I laid it on the line. We’re certainly not the slightest bit romantic. I’m the guv’nor and everybody knows it. Five heads are never better than one. It was a very delicate position because I had to find guys I could brainwash into joining me on the strength of my songs. I didn’t have £40 a week to pay them. They had to have total faith in me and the belief I could make them stars, make a big band out of Cockney Rebel. Bryan Ferry made the mistake of not telling the others in Roxy Music in the beginning that this was the way he wanted it. He should have made it clear, but he didn’t, and it resulted in personality conflict. But no-one can call me an egomaniac because I’ve been honest. If you are in a business where competition is so great, you’ve got to be tough to get to the top. It’s division one or no play. I don’t accept many challenges. I only go into those where I have more than an even chance of winning, and rock was one of them. I looked around and was so disgusted with the level of songwriting. It was so low that I thought to be in division one in the rock stakes wasn’t going to be that difficult. I regret that though. I wish standards were higher because that would give incentive.”

“Menagerie” he said, was an album of subtlety and basically he was a writer, not a singer or guitarist. So he’s aware that on stage he’s not going to get across directly what he stands for, and therefore he compensates, puts on a show. The band dress up like a circus troupe in silk and velvet costumes (a total cost of £1,000 for that gear), and Harley becomes a mix of superidols; Presley, Dylan, Bowie – artists he admires yet who do not blot out his own persona. That remains intact but absorbs styles and idiosyncrasies.

“I feel on top of the world being to be up there giving a show. I want people to go away and think ‘Christ that was good’. I want them to be able to forget about the petrol crisis and the Middle East and to have a good 60p worth or whatever. It doesn’t matter that the lyrics aren’t understood. I’ve stood there and made up songs because that is unimportant. My thing is to send shivers down your spine, and if I can do that, it’s immense. We’re very much show business – we’re not jeans, T-shirts and motorway caffs. We don’t have any spots on our faces. We’ll spend all our earnings on a good hotel to look fresh. We spend a lot of money on costumes, we go out to entertain. You’ve got to look good and be untouchable. I wouldn’t go on stage unless I looked a million dollars. I’d go away and get a job with the council. You’ve got no right to be on stage if you don’t look like a million dollars, not if you think you are in showbusiness. I want kids to go away and say ‘Steve Harley was talking to me – he couldn’t see me in the dark but he knew I’d paid 75p to get in, 75p I can’t really afford.' That’s very important to me. The worlds of gigs and recordings are very different, only slightly are they related. To be on stage is to be a Messiah. Our job is to take a thousand people up to cloud nine, that’s all we’re there for. Too many seem to forget it – it stems from the Woodstock period. That was death and the worst period that rock went through. Grace Slick, James Taylor, they were the ones to blame. They’re just dummies. Who wants to pay to watch Taylor slumped over his guitar doing nothing more than performing his records? You could hear it better on the stereo. And Jimmy Hendrix, he was a phenomenon, a brilliant guitarist, but what did we get? Thousands of little guitarists all over the world with 300 watt stacks screaming out long boring solos. This is why I could never work with a lead guitarist; they always want to be the loudest. They make rude noises and they couldn’t do anything for my songs. These guitarists have ruined contemporary music completely. I hope it is dying out and finished, I really do. Rock has been abused. I hope people will become just a little more discriminating.”

Yet, while Harley has never taken the actual singing very seriously, he feels no other singer could interpret his songs. He’s sincere, though venomously single-minded. A kind of despot in an expanding empire, whose quiet delight is to listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing a Cole Porter song, or to the sound of Glen Miller. He can’t compare anything to rock to that sensation, though there are people he respects; Ferry, Bowie naturally, Ray Davies Peter Townsend.

“I went to a Bowie concert and happened to go out to the loo. I went down four corridors to get there and I could still here Bowie singing. Even in there I knew he was talking to me, and to everyone else in the audience. That was great; it’s character and personality... charisma! He’s the only one really, I need him and people like him to make better songs. I hope that when Bowie hears Cockney Rebel it’ll knock him sideways and he’ll say ‘God, they’re really good and they’re unknown, they're gonna be huge and I’ve got to step on it to stay at the top. I’II chase him until I either fall flat on my face or make him run. He needs someone like Cockney Rebel and the world needs him, but there is no-one around to kick him up the arse. The world needs that kind of genius, and if he falls flat because of lack of competition, the world will be a worse place. I hope his next album gives me a kick. Dylan can’t do it, Lennon can’t do it, so who is there? I have to drive myself on after him because there is no-one else to do it. I need Bowie to be great.”

Harley’s dynamism has fashioned a whole Cockney Rebel image and ethos in a remarkably short time. When the band’s get to a gig even the roadies get changed into special gear. Chief roadie Terry Pinnell wears a white-powdered face, top hat and tails and brings drinks onstage on a silver tray, like a butler or valet.

Harley can’t explain how this little tableau originated, but smiles; “The guy’s just a nutcase. He said to me one day that he had a great idea. If people come to me with ideas, they usually fall on stony ground. But he went out and bought a silver tray himself. Our roadies are quite unheavy; we have the cleanest roadies in the business. They come in, shower or wash and change like us. They’re special, they’re not the average roadies.”

Neither are the band the average rock musicians. They seem entirely fused to their respective instruments. James is especially intriguing; he’s a dancer and mime artist and was the musical director of a theatre group until Harley asked him to join the group six months ago. Onstage James dances around the piano, sends himself up, plays jokes at his own expense, gets the crowd laughing at him. He engages in a kind of limp-wristed semaphore duel of gestures with Harley. James was the last to come into the band.

In the beginning there was just Harley on his own, doing a folkie spot at the Three Tuns, Beckenham. Various musicians used to drop in and one was Crocker, a violinist. He went away to join Trees but later came back to team up with Harley – “an immaculate musician, he really seemed to dig my writing” said Harley. Then came Stuart Elliot, drummer, and Crocker, much into astrology, said Harley must take him on before he’d even heard him play because their three signs were compatible.

Harley says now: “He’s certainly one of the best rock drummers I’ve heard in years.” Finally, bass guitarist Paul Jeffreys joined on hearing about the band by word of mouth. Auditions were never held. However it was James who seemed to put the seal on the line-up. Harley knew that he had found the band he wanted: “The moment he joined, it was Cockney Rebel, Before that it was just experimenting...”

Brilliant. Interesting to see how the man has mellowed over the years but still remained true to his core beliefs.
Sometimes I wish he hadn't mellowed so much

Excellent article, which I have never read before.It explains the foundation for the rifts which developed as the band became successful.It is a shame that this group did not continue after the two albums.

Top stuff GedKen, a little piece of history revisited, thanks for sharing.

Thank you Gedken for that piece.
An interesting read..... just imagine being there and being part of that interview too
jo