Andre Chats 10cc’s Debut Album At 50 With Kevin Godley
This week, on the 50th anniversary of 10cc’s debut album, I am reminded how they saved my musical life.
It had been just over four years since The Beatles had broken up. I was left with a huge musical void in my soul that I couldn’t replace. Yes, I LOVED Wings, Paul solo, and the solo works of John, George and Ringo, but it wasn’t the same. I feverishly listened to band after band, hoping one would spark a similar feeling. Sadly, there was just no other band around that came close to stimulating me and making me feel as good as The Beatles did.
That is, until 10cc came along.
My Introduction to 10cc
The first 10cc song I ever heard was “The Wall Street Shuffle” on Ed Sciaky’s WMMR radio show. It was in the summer of 1974, and I was over at my friend Tom Tracey’s house listening on his kitchen radio. From the very first listen, I was hooked on that band. I went right out and bought Sheet Music, their brilliant second album, and instantly became a super fan of 10cc. Soon after, I saved up my allowance money and bought 10cc's debut album, self-titled, and was smitten once again. These guys were GENIUSES!
Worldwide Success
The following year, 10cc signed with a new label, Mercury/Phonogram. With it came a huge financial deal that allowed them to upgrade their already popular recording studio even further. Out of that upgrade came their third album, The Original Soundtrack, which gave them worldwide success, and a huge hit single, “I’m Not In Love.”
The drummer and one of the principal songwriters on 10cc’s first four albums was Kevin Godley. He and bandmate Lol Creme left the group in 1976 to focus on a wildly ambitious and experimental musical work called “Consequences.” The duo’s solo musical career then continued throughout the 70s and 80s. In addition, they became one of the most in-demand video directors in the business. Videos for songs like “Every Breath You Take,” “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and “Two Tribes” were done by Godley And Creme.
English rock band Godley & Creme, aka Kevin Godley (R) and Lol Creme (L), during the filming of the music video for new single ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, UK, 18th May 1984; Godley & Creme directed the music video. (Photo by Towner/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Interview With Kevin Godley
I have had the honor of speaking with Kevin Godley on several occasions over the years. A few weeks ago, he very graciously sat down with me to talk about the 50th anniversary of 10cc's debut album. Listen or read the transcript below:
André
This month marks 50 years since the debut album by 10 CC was released, amidst all the pop, the rock operas and heavy metal. This self-titled work was a wonderful breath of fresh air (for my momma) and so began a tremendous career for one of the most inventive and sonically pleasing bands of all time. And, on this 50th anniversary month, it is an incredible honor for me to have Kevin Godley, 10 CC, songwriter, vocalist and drummer from their inception to ’76, as my special guest. Kevin, thank you so much for checking in.
Kevin Godley
You are very kind. That was a very nice, I was gonna say eulogy, but it’s not a eulogy. It’s a very nice introduction. Thank you.
André
It’s from the heart, for sure. Now, the year prior you were signed to Jonathan King’s UK Records. And am I correct that it was Eric Stewart who had the contact with King, who had eventually fallen in love with “Donna”?
Kevin Godley
I think we’re talking probably, it’s got to be 1972, and in ‘71 we were in-house producers and the house band of Strawberry Studios and we’d recorded some tracks, none of which were acceptable to any label. And so I think it was Eric, who, yes it probably was Eric, who sent “Donna” to Jonathan King and he flipped. He came down to visit us to hear what else we’d done. And we had a good rapport, and off we went.
André
And King, of course, credits himself for coming up with the name (10cc) and you can confirm that?
Kevin Godley
Very much, and it’s not that other version of the name which is banded around.
André
It happened in a dream apparently, according to Jonathan? (He) saw it on a big marquee or something with “10 CC, the greatest band in the world?”
Kevin Godley
Yeah. Above the Hammersmith Odeon apparently, which is a big, a big venue in London. Yeah.
André
Up until this point, Kevin, you guys had recorded so many songs for others in the previous year or two, including that great work you did with Neil Sedaka. So how did you decide which songs to include on your debut album? Were any of these songs written from the Kasenetz-Katz days?
Kevin Godley
No, no. As far as I recall, it was only occasionally that we wrote some of the songs for those days and we were guided by an American producer who came to join us on those sessions. Ritchie Cordell was his name. “Mony Mony” might come to mind.
André
Right. Wow.
Kevin Godley
He was sort of inserted into our ranks as somebody to make sure we didn’t go too far off message when we were recording some of these songs you’re referring to, tracks that were recorded and put out with strange names like Crazy Elephant and so on and so forth.
André
Right, exactly. But he (Ritchie Cordell) wasn’t involved at all when you were recording your debut album?
Kevin Godley
Absolutely not. And I don’t think at that time we’d actually written any of the songs that ended up on the debut album.
André
That’s what I was curious to find out. Now, obviously, you were technically perfect in the recording studio. You guys had your own studio at Strawberry. You were so experienced making singles and stuff. Did you approach the recording of the debut 10 CC album any differently than any of that other session work you had done?
Kevin Godley
Yes, I would say so. It was a big switch for us because, up until this point, we hadn’t considered ourselves to be a band. We were producers, we were backroom boys, you know? We were also a house band, but that was more like being a bunch of session musicians, particularly when we were playing with Neil Sedaka, and it was Neil Sedaka who actually said to us, “why don’t you guys form a band?” And, you know, a very big light bulb went off over our heads, and I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of it before! So we just started doing stuff and eventually we had a hit. As far as I recall, when we started working on the album, we’d already had one hit and I think that was “Donna”. We were planning an album, but we were given a very little time to do it – probably about three or four weeks, or something silly as I recall. So we sat down to start writing stuff and there was very little – how should I put this? – we didn’t really have the time to sort of sit back and listen to what we’d done, examine it in any detail and decide, “well, this track is better than that track and we need another one of those and that’s really great.” There was none of that. The album was essentially what we managed to cobble together within that short space of time. And it benefited from it.
André
That sort of rushed atmosphere, even though you had your own studio and studio time wasn’t necessarily a concern.
Kevin Godley
That’s right. But it was more to do with the commercial schedule,as opposed to, as opposed to anything else and, you know, possible tours and all that kind of thing. But the remarkable thing that we discovered, everything that we’ve done prior to this point just going back to the Hotlegs days, before 10 CC, we had a very clear idea about what we thought good music was. And I think any bands that are starting off look to other artists and refer to other artists and the work that they do because they think that’s fantastic. That’s what good music is. And we were no different. We wanted to sound like The Beatles. We wanted to sound like, you know, the Beach Boys, Paul Simon or anybody who we considered was making quality. But when we came to make the debut album, because there was so little time, anything and everything that we spewed out was recorded and that was it. And at the end of each track, we realized that that didn’t sound like anybody else, nobody’s doing something like that. I mean, taking out a song like “Hospital Song”, for example, it’s like we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. We just sat down and, in the studio, we wrote it and we recorded it and then we moved on to something else, and that’s how those sessions progressed. It was just kind of at the end when we started assembling some kind of track list that we realized there was something going on here that didn’t quite make sense in many ways, but made a lot of sense. In other words, it was inspired, should I say? But also it was because we were doing it very quickly and we were doing it intuitively as opposed to using our brains.
André
Well you mentioned “The Hospital Song”, Kevin, and it reminded me of, and so many of the other songs on the album, the harmonies. The harmony parts on the chorus, “I get off on what you give me darling..”, Did you guys, like the Beach Boys, like The Beatles, spend an inordinate amount of time working on the harmonies on those songs?
Kevin Godley
No, I don’t think so. I mean, later on further down the road when we were doing other albums, I think we did, I think if I’m not mistaken, the first album was recorded probably on eight track. and from there on, we moved to 16-track and then 24-track, and so on and so forth. So there wasn’t the luxury of that. And don’t forget we’re talking about analog days here. In terms of the technology applied to the process of being intuitive, one had to be very, very selective because, and this is probably down to Eric more than anybody else, if you need to blend a load of voices together, you’d have had to mix things together and commit yourself to doing things. It was very much like editing film was in those days, you were actually dealing with the material itself. You snip, you cut, you stick pieces of film together. You weren’t dealing with data. So you had to commit yourself to an idea all the way along the line. So that was very, very educational, that first album, in many respects, both technologically and in terms of approaches to the craft of songwriting and recording.
André
And, you had mentioned that you were, I wouldn’t say rushed, but there was certainly a timetable to record this debut album. Was King kind of a micro manager or did your manager, Harvey Lisberg, run blocking for you?
Kevin Godley
Well, you know, we were (up) in Stockport, north of England, and he was (down) in London. So, I don’t recall him coming down that often. He believed in us. And I think, you know, I think he must have come down a number of times during the process because we couldn’t email any mixes to him, that’s for sure. But he was very encouraging, and he was full of belief for us. I think he heard maybe two or three demos of what we were about to do before we actually recorded them properly at the beginning of the process. So in a very unusual situation, the record company left us alone for such a young band and we just delivered what we delivered at the end of the period that was allotted to making the album.
André
We are having the pleasure of hearing from Kevin Godley from 10 CC, of course, and his amazing video directing and solo work he’s done and we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of the debut album by 10 CC. Still one of the greatest debut albums of all time in my view. And it’s so great to have him on here today. Kevin, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you. In all the times that we’ve chatted on the 10 CC albums. Eric Stewart is always listed as the engineer and reduction mixer on the album. So, when Eric was laying down a guitar part or vocal or keyboard part, who was at the desk? Or did he do it at the desk, or did you guys sort of do some spot engineering while it was happening?
Kevin Godley
Oh, no, there was a secondary second engineer that worked at the studio. Don’t forget, by now the studio was a working concern. It wasn’t just our personal studio. There was another really good engineer called Pete Tattersall who would come in on situations like that. But when Eric did his guitar solo stuff, it was mostly done from the control room, OK?
André
Direct?
Kevin Godley
It wasn’t out in the live area via an app, it was done direct into the control room so he could set it off, and play, and stop it, and set it off and play. But in those kind of situations where that wasn’t possible, then Pete Tattersall would come in and hit the buttons.
André
What an incredible album. I’d say the majority of the songs on the album are Godley-Creme compositions. I guess that’s just the way it worked out. Whether it was “The Dean and I” or “Donna,” “Hospital Song.” Fantastic songs on there. Kevin.
Kevin Godley
Well, yeah, there’s some crazy songs on there. I mean, “The Dean and I” was a controversial one because I remember when we played it for Eric and Graham, the look on Eric’s face was one of horror (laughs.)
André
(laughs) Why?!
Kevin Godley
(laughs) Well, because Eric was a rock and roll guy. He was a proper musician, a proper rock and roll musician, and what we’d kind of conjured up was something more like something from Rogers and Hammerstein. And it wasn’t until we began to record it and he managed to put his stamp into the recording that it began to make sense for him. I have a sneaking suspicion that we wrote songs specifically to piss Eric and Graham off occasionally.
André
(laughs)
Kevin Godley
No, I’m serious because, you know, we were sort of ex-art students and we like being a little bit, you know, there were no limitations, no rules. And I think that was evident from the first album.
André
Kevin Godley, my very special guest. He, of course, starting out in 10 CC and then moving on to an incredible solo career, directing videos, movies. And we got a chance to talk about a truly beautiful album in my collection. And it was a joy to have you on Kevin. Thank you so much and all the best to you, sir.
Kevin Godley
My pleasure and Happy Birthday, 10 CC. The 50th!
