THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS on the day that Herman The Bachelor became
Peter The Bridegroom. His beaming bride, Mireille, is alongside him.


    "Last year I was the kind of man I hated most," Herman revealed to me recently at his new London apartment, following his marriage to his beautiful French bride, Mireille. "Marriage has changed all that," continued Herman - hereafter referred to as Peter because that is the real person and not the "puppet on a string bit."
    "I used to go out nearly every night and get smashed out of my mind in clubs and on stage. I was always looking at my watch and wondering how much longer I had got to do. I just drifted from girl to girl and place to place without any stability in my life or home to go to.
    "Now I've got a home and someone worth coming back to - look I've even got a 'telly' in the fireplace." Peter believes that the fireplace is the proper position for all TV sets. In spite of his healthy disregard of the importance of TV he has found time to become something of a critic.
    "I sit there watching all these new groups like the Marmelade come on and start winking and smiling into the cameras and thing 'my god - how terrible and I used to do that.' You can spot those that are going to last and those that are for the quick fade out after a few minutes.
    "Herman's Hermits have become a business now where before they were just a kind of 'joke' in the pop world. I'm really taking things much more seriously. For example I could be touring in America now and earning five times what I am getting up in Wakefield doing cabaret. But cabaret is a new thing to us and we are trying to progress."
    Traditionally the North of England is a tough testing ground for pop artists with the 'drink-a-pinta-beer' merchants all going down to club after mill for a jug up and a laugh at the pop singers.
    "We got on fine," said Peter. "If you treat people as equals they always react fairly. I just asked 'em how their football club was doing and swopped jokes with them - we found we could really entertain for probably the first time in our lives."
    Apart from being able to produce snacks and drinks before you can say 'Merci', the lovely Mireille's other talents stretch to being a part-time spy for Peter in the audience, where she sits and notes their reactions.
    "Being French, Mireille has this thing about projecting yourself as a personality. Let's face it, that's what a lot of show business is about and it

 

is the people who are accepted as personalities who really last, like Val Doonican here and Dean Martin in America. You know from the way they behave on TV that they can't be bad blokes and they establish themselves as people and are accepted."
    Peter has been trying to progress in other directions as well and his big ambition is to take the pop image away from the juvenille conception some people have of it and him. He wants to grow up with his music.
    "Nowadays too many people think of pop groups as just a load of dirty long haired yobs. That might be true of a few but it certainly is not true of the majority. Unfortunately the few have given the others a bad name and when someone like Tom Jones, Engelbert and Malcolm Roberts turn up in smart suits and ties they are welcomed with open arms by the establishment."
    Sad to think that is is not what you are but what you look like that matter most in this business. You only have to ask your Mum and Dad (at least most Mums and Dads) what they think of the Rolling Stones to work that one out. What about Herman's musical progression - doesn't he ever feel the desire to escape from the Hermits into more musically advanced things?
    "I've been through that," smiled Peter. "I've got albums by the Cream, the Electric Prunes and Mothers of Invention to prove it. You know what happens - they all end up going right back to the beginning again. Anyway, I feel we have improved muscially - people are surprised how good the Hermits sound on stage now."
    The new improved Herman also assures me that he is a "worker" now that he is married.
    "I used to be a lazy oaf before," admitted Peter. "I hate wasting time now. I want to have a really nice house for Mireille and myself and make a real name for myself in show business. You see this is my life - I can't give it up. I suppose I could afford to buy a couple of supermarkets and live off the proceeds of investments but who wants to do that? I have so much to do yet - I'm only 21. Still a baby in this business, really."
    Finally Peter recalled his theory about celebrities who establish themselves as characters being the most sensational pop singer ever - bigger than Elvis - that is if he could sing. "David Frost!" said Peter.



THIS IS THE WAY IT IS today as Peter and Mireille set a romantic pose
in their London apartment - which features their TV set in the fireplace!


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