 "IF I'd have carried on as I was going, I'd have ended up a peasant, always drunk," said Herman, with more seriousness than the statement suggests. "Everything that happened before December 31, 1968 is past. We don't think about it anymore." Those who know Herman at all well, are familiar with his sense of fun, his take-it-as-comes attitude, his laziness and his free and easy ways. But, a change is taking place. Which does not mean that he is to live the life of a recluse - though with a wife like Mireille nobody could blame him - and give up his gadding about town. It's just that he intends to take things much more seriously than in the past. "There's three things that I'm aiming for," he told me as we sat in his Belgravia flat in the afternoon sipping drinks and trying to ignore Radio One. "I want to do more promotion on my records, get into the cabaret thing properly and make a start in films that aren't musicals." He then went through the items one by one, beginning with the records. "We've never taken much trouble with records," he admitted. "We've left it all to Mickie. He's got the plays but we've never done a lot of promotion. When the last one came out, we were in America and couldn't plug it." "We've always made a record and let it happen. All our records except two have been consistently good sellers, so we've never worried, but now we want to follow them through and put a couple of weeks aside for each one to work on it when it's released." This week Herman's Hermits are in cabaret in Yorkshire, their second week recently. This is a try-out period with a view to breaking into the American market. "It's an easy thing to do, cabaret," Herman pointed out. "You don't have to stand there for forty minutes and shout your 'ead off like in a theatre. They like it when I walk round and ask how the football team's doing, they think I'm one of the boys." "They sit there with their pints and sort of say 'entertain me,' but it's not hard. You can get them joining in on songs when it comes to the 'heh, heh, heh' bit. What we want to do is cabaret in America. It's so big there, you can earn a fortune." "We couldn't have just gone and done it before because they wouldn't have wanted to see Herman's Hermits do a string of their hits. We're learning new routines now so that if we do do cabaret in America, we'll have something to show them that they'll want to see." With two films behind him, both of which are unmentionable in his presence at pain of a |
volley of abuse. Herman is quite concerned about a straight role without the Hermits. "I'm waiting for the parts to come along," he explained. "I've seen some scripts, but none that I've been interested in. I don't want a lead part, just a part where I can do some acting. I don't mind what kind of film it is, a war film or something would do, but I don't want those parts that Alan Bates and people are getting. All romantic leads. And I don't want them to use my name so that they can have me singing the theme song. I'd rather be billed under me real name." The lovely Mireille borrowed the car keys to do some shopping and Herman went to see her off. He returned and recalled the days of old, when nothing mattered. "We used to do a tour, then do our money until the next one," he commented. "We used to think 'Oh well, we'll earn another load of money in three months, so what the hell?' All those East End pubs you and me and Norrie Drummond used to go round and everything. "We were earning as much as we could in America. We couldn't have got any more, so it didn't matter to us. I couldn't go on like that forever, so now I'm spending more time planning things and thinking about the future. You get fed up going round the clubs all the time, don't you?" He's also determined not to get involved in any more long gruelling American tours. "Fifty days at a time was too much," Herman stated. "After twenty-four days, you'd start to get browned off, up till then I'd been fun. But then you'd start saying 'only another twenty-five days to go.' You'd start playing automatically and be fed up. It must have showed to the audience. We talked about the charts and both agreed that nothing much seems to be happening. Summarily dismissing most of the so-called "big new things," we tried to think of a reason for the decline in the general public's attitude towards pop. "The Monkees spoiled it for everyone," Herman offered. "They showed that anyone could do it. Even little old ladies sitting watching tele knew what was going on. "The few groups that smash up dressing rooms and turn up late ruin the whole scene. This is why people like Tom Jones and Engelbert and Malcolm Roberts have got everything going for them. People see them all smart and clean and say 'Now that's the kind of person I like,' and they're right. "Something big's gotta happen soon. It was like this just after the rock and roll period had ended. Nothing was happening, then along came the Beatles. "A lot of these groups that have hits today won't last. It needs something really big to come along and start everything off again. "In America, if you get in the charts, you're nothing because you're not 'hip, man, and cool, baby' anymore. If you got say the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Ali the Midget Turk on in the same town, people'd go and see Ali the Midget Turk because he's not in the chart. That's the state it's got in!" |