EVERY week - or so it seems - we read in the NME news pages of a group breaking up. But there is an exception to the splitting rule. One that isn't at first obvious - Herman's Hermits.
The group has been together for five years without one change of personnel. In supergroup days this is a long time and I wondered just how they had all managed to stay together.
The group's 21-year-old bass guitarist Karl Green (no relation, though we like to keep the name in the charts) was being honest when he told me: "No one wants to leave and lose all that money."
The odd thing about Herman's Hermits is that Herman is a confirmed Londoner, though he was born in the North. The Hermits all live in Manchester.
"We get on very well," Peter told me - Peter Noone being the one and only Herman - "but we only see each other when we work. The only time we get to rehearse is when we're working, so, with me down in London and the rest up in Manchester, we don't see a lot of each other."
Karl was with a group called the Heartbeats five years ago. Peter joined and Herman's Hermits were formed. In this country, Herman gets all the publicity while the Hermits tend to live in the shadows. Just how much does this affect them personally?
Fan clubs
"It's only like that in England, and we don't mind," Karl said. "We're a five-man group in America, we all have our own fan clubs.
"At the moment we're doing cabaret here and people recognise us for what we can do. We all do numbers and make some jokes, so we're all involved in the act."
What the Hermits have done, quite sensibly, is to put their money into other enterprises. Karl has an agency for show business people, Barry has a garage and Keith and Lek have their own jingle company.
Things are very O.K. at the moment for Herman's Hermits, but just what will be happening after a further five years? Karl has an ambition to go into acting, though there are one or two other things that occupy his future thoughts.
"I can't see us still all being together in five years," Karl mused. Explaining further, "I don't think five fellows can stay together for ten years and still live together happily.
"What do I want to do? Well, I've got the agency, anyway. I might like to sing with my wife, that's something I've been considering for later."
Having made a couple of films, how does Karl feel about acting? - "I'd like to do something like we've never done. Those films were . . . oh, you know! I'd like to do something like Hywell Bennett did in 'Twisted Nerve.' I think that's the sort of part I could play - leave myself behind and pick up a character."
End of chat with Karl. Ten minutes later, my phone rings for the umpteenth time (today is my birthday) and there was Peter Noone himself.
"Australia is very important to us, and Mexico. If we go down all right, we can go back for five years for good money."
How does he see the change in the group over the past five years? "There's been a complete
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 Together for five years - without even a hint of a split, "No one wants to leave and lose all that money" - are HERMAN (centre), and HERMITS (l to r) BARRY WHITWAM, KEITH HOPWOOD, LEK LECKENBY and KARL GREEN.
change, we've changed one hundred per cent. I've changed myself most.
"The rest of them have always lived in Manchester, they think it's the greatest place in the world.
"I've been living in London for years and I don't want to live abroad. We're doing a week of cabaret in Manchester, but the only time I come up here is when we work here.
"I don't see any of my old friends . . . I don't know. I think they think I'm a big star and they can't talk to me.
"The people I used to know think everyone who's ever become a star is a raving iron." ('Iron' is a cockney term for poof. It rhymes with iron hoof!)
"They think that everyone who's made it is a queer."
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Peter's initial doubts regarding "My Sentimental Friend" and the pleasure he expressed when it began to sell so well. This was, I believed, the beginning of a new approach to records by Herman's Hermits.
"It's just a question of making a good record," Peter answered when I asked him if he would continue in this vein or if he would be prepared to make another clap-along-with-me record.
"We leave it up to Mickie Most to pick the records, we always have done."
Then he asked me: "What did Karl tell you about the group?"
I told him the various ventures and he came back with: "I'm in property, say that."
Herman's in property. 'Tis said.
After the cabaret in Manchester, Herman and Mireille left for a holiday in France and then Israel where they will meet up with the Hermits for the start of a long tour, taking in, among other places, Australia, Mexico and Hong Kong.
He won't be back in England until the beginning of September when a new single will be recorded. On their travels, the group will be concentrating on their cabaret act with a view to doing Las Vegas later.
"It's very different for a group to do somewhere like Las Vegas after people like Engelbert Humperdinck and Tom Jones," Peter agreed. "Everyone says 'oh, it's just a bloody group,' but we're not really just a group, and that's why we've been doing so much in that field . . . so that we can get the right idea of what to do and when we go to America and do cabaret, we won't be just a group."
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