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During the late summer of 2015, Tony D and Faebhean Kwest, the guitarist from Raped \/ Cuddly Toys got together for the first time in thirty five years.<\/p>\n
Tony D had featured Raped in his original fanzine ‘Ripped And Torn’ and later on, featured Cuddly Toys in his new fanzine ‘Kill Your Pet Puppy’.<\/p>\n
Here is a transcript of the conversations.<\/p>\n
All the records are from my collection, sorry for some of the surface noise, these records have been well played.<\/p>\n
The Cuddly Toys album on C.D and download can be purchased directly from Jungle Records on their website\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0The C.D comes with an extra D.V.D of interviews and promo videos.<\/p>\n All the photographs, flyers and other memorabilia are from Tony D’s collection.<\/p>\n Oh, and a quick note; Tony D was correct when he informed Faebhean that my favourite Cuddly Toys song is ‘Alien’, added to that, and for the record, ‘Moving Target’ by Raped, is one of the finest punk tracks of the era in my opinion. ‘Moving Target’ sitting pretty as the first track, on the first side, of the first single.<\/p>\n Indebted to Faebhean Kwest.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Moving Target \/ Raped<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Escalator Hater \/ Normal<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Your first record that was released. Do you think that Chelsea and Sham had a similar sound on their debut? <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We were before Sham, but not before Chelsea as they were going back in \u201976. We did not want to sound like any of those early punk bands like Eater or 999. Sean was obsessed with old Bowie and Iggy Pop, where as I preferred, sounds funny, Johnny Winter, Richard Hell \u00a0and the New York Dolls, a band I had actually seen, and I came away with my eyes open, a \u2018Blues Brothers\u2019 moment, of feeling that\u2019s the way forward, and I was not the only person in the world who thought that you did not have to dress in a white suit like Eric Clapton or perform like the Rolling Stones. You could play music from the dark side of the tracks.<\/p>\n Before the New York Dolls what were your influences?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I liked rockabilly, Eddie Cochrane that kind of stuff. I wanted to be Marc Bolan, and maybe a member of Sweet, although I definitely would have wanted to be in T Rex. I liked the simplicity of it, I thought Bowie, and I know he is somewhat of a sacred cow, but to me, he was more an actor, not a \u2018rock star\u2019, he played the part. Whereas Bolan you could imagine that he really would walk around the house dressed like that. I always liked in music and film, people that were somewhat \u2018off the wall\u2019 and are not looking like that they are trying to be eccentric. I\u2019ve known Adam Ant since God knows when, and I would say to Adam, you\u2019re a little bit off the wall, a bit eccentric, and he would reply, \u201cNo I\u2019m not\u201d and that\u2019s brilliant, as you know, he is eccentric \u2018off the wall\u2019. I say that with the great affection. The last time I saw him a couple of years ago, we shared a house with him in Deal, Kent, for a party and he was still as wonderfully \u2018out there\u2019 as ever.<\/p>\n Good. How did you meet Sean, Paddy and\u2026?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We met through an advertisement in the Melody Maker. \u201cWanted for weird glamourous, pantomime band with loud clothes and loud attitude\u201d.<\/p>\n So you never met them before in your life?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No. What it was is that the only places that would put on, you know, the punk groups were either arty farty bohemian places or gay bars like Louise\u2019s in the West End or the Pan Club in Luton. Places like that. If you turned up at a normal rock venue and play, you\u2019d get booed off. The promoters would say \u201cI bet you don\u2019t like Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd\u201d. \u201cNo we fucking don\u2019t, we want to play our generations music\u201d and all the hippies would become more reactionary than our dads! The music papers, they sort of tolerated the punk thing, but even so, an advertisement then was\u2026 \u00a0Yeah that\u2019s how we got together. Sorry I digress.<\/p>\n When did Raped start up?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n 1976. I had already auditioned for the Pistols late on in \u201975 or early \u201976, forgotten now, and I could see the way that the wind was changing and I knew that there was something in the air. I went along for the audition, and went to the wrong place in Denmark Street. I thought I was auditioning for Sparks. I turned up and went upstairs. I got bleached blond crewcut hair; I had a green weird top on, a pair of red drainpipe trousers and white winkle pickers on. McClaren was there and he showed me a picture of the New York Dolls, and asked me if I knew who they were. And I had already seen the New York Dolls at the Rainbow Room Bibas; I still got the ticket stub! McClaren wanted me to join immediately as I looked like an embryonic \u201870\u2019s punk. The auditions for Raped we saw a lot of good and bad people, but Sean turned up, who in those days had long wavy hair, like a Kevin Keegan hair style and flares, and polo neck jumper, despite what he would have ever said. <\/strong>Tony Bagget was in some rock band. Paddy turned up, we didn\u2019t know who he was, or anything about him, but others had not turned up, so he joined!<\/p>\n Did Paddy look like\u2026 you know; have the long hair and\u2026 glam?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh yes very much so. I had already been doing a punk thing with a band called Swank, which was what was left of the Swankers. Swankers were members of the Pistols thing. Swank were people like Nigel from the Vibrators, Gary Olson, the popular actor on vocals. We were like really early punk stuff. We actually supported Adam And The Ants, at the Man On The Moon in Chelsea, early 1977 and the audience walked out apart from Jordan and Sue Catwoman! \u00a0Adam was running around with one of those \u2018rapist masks\u2019 from Seditionaries\u2019 and he was mad and I thought that\u2019s the way for me! Swank also supported the Rezillos.<\/p>\n So Swank were still kind of punky?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n One of the first punk groups.<\/p>\n But you left Swank and joined Raped?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, I wanted to form my own band. Gary Grant (Olson) auditioned this other guitarist behind my back, actually got him into the rehearsal studio, and I decided it wasn\u2019t for me. Anyway I thought it was becoming a little boring and tedious and that advert went into Melody Maker for a band a little more glamorous, a bit more pantomime. The band that would become Raped.<\/p>\n What songs did you have written early on?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, \u2018Escalator Hater\u2019, \u2018Moving Target\u2019. We performed the song \u2018London\u2019, which was the Screaming Lord Sutch number. He was quite \u2018out there\u2019 as well; I thought he was a kindred spirit. There were certain bands that the punks liked, like The Who, MC5, oh and Link Wray, people like that. These bands and people were not like the rock \u2018guitar solo\u2019 acts. These people were, again, from the dark side of the tracks. When I saw Link Wray live he was like; \u201cGo fuck yourself, I\u2019m not Elvis, I\u2019m real\u201d, I felt that he was another person that I would like to be\u2026 Raped sat around and all added parts to the early songs, I bought in a bit of New York Dolls and Johnny Winter and dare I say it, a bit of early Jimmy Page.<\/p>\n Tell us about the studio that you recorded the first single \u2018Pretty\u00a0Paedophiles\u2019 in.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Sean had met a man called Alan Hauser, who wanted to put a punk record out. Alan wasn\u2019t the best manager, but he ended up managing us. Alan knew the people behind Spaceward studios in Cambridge. The sessions were alright. It was the first recording studio that any of us had been in. We had done some recording around people\u2019s houses with tape records and things; but not proper studios.<\/p>\n Did you record just the four songs or were there more?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We did record more songs at Spaceward, but I do not know what happened to them. They just disappeared. I think we recorded six or seven songs.<\/p>\n So you did not record any demos or anything, you just went straight in?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s right, it sounds laughable nowadays, but back then, bands were going straight in for quick recording sessions, a bit like it was in the \u201850\u2019s and \u201860\u2019s. Bands nowadays probably spend a week laying down a bass part! I like to think of the bands from the \u2018Swing\u2019 period, Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt who would know the music intimately and go into studios with large orchestras and take just a couple of takes and that would be what would be cut onto a 78 rpm record. If any errors did occur, then the errors would stay on the recordings. But that was all part of the charm, you might get a few bum notes, but you would get the spontaneity which has been lost now.<\/p>\n The title of the single was \u2018Pretty\u00a0Paedophiles\u2019\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n That had nothing to do with me, I did not even know what the word meant, next thing you know Alan Hauser and Sean came up with that name. I\u2019d suggested something like \u2018Pantomime Bastards\u2019, which I thought great at the time! It was just to be annoying I think. This was in a time that bands were singing in phoney American accents, being really cool and who would be the new guitarist of the Rolling Stones, who gives a fuck? And we did not want that, we wanted it to be mad. Sean and Alan said this is what we are going to call it. Later on, any input that I had was being diminished, and the band was becoming Sean and Alan\u2019s thing. \u201cThank you very much for everything, but we\u2019re in charge now\u201d.<\/p>\n Yet you had formed the band.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes originally. Sean was practically living in Alan\u2019s place, and was there all the time. Album designs became Sean\u2019s baby, that was it, whether we liked it or not. In fact one of the bones of contention, one of the reasons I was dismissed from the band was because of his plans after \u2018Guillotine Theatre\u2019 album, he wanted to do an album of Bowie and Iggy Pop covers. He was just trying to be annoying and a Bowie clone.<\/p>\n The same question about the band name \u2018Raped\u2019.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Originally we were going to call ourselves \u2018The Solicitors\u2019, until Sean realised what Soliciting meant, and then \u2018The Glass Spiders\u2019 which was getting too silly, Bowie to a large degree. Some more names were thought of. \u2018Wolfling\u2019 was one; I pretended that there was another band called \u2018Wolfling\u2019 because I thought it was a shyte name.<\/p>\n We just came out with a really stupid name (Raped) like that. The name was changed because of John Peel of all people. He had already been playing our stuff on the radio a few times. He wanted to do a session with us, and suggested a complete opposite extreme name to Raped like \u2018The Fluffy Bunnies\u2019 or \u2018Cuddly Toys\u2019 or something and we thought, yeah. I still have a letter that he wrote to us which has got his inked stamp on it, stating \u2018John Peel, the World\u2019s most boring man\u2019. Brilliant, I liked John Peel.<\/p>\n So you all sat around and chose Cuddly Toys?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, Sean suggested, Chocolate Fireguard, The Moonrockets, Rocking Rhythm Boys\u2026 That would go down well wouldn\u2019t it! Glass Spiders name came up again, or the Ziggy Wiggie band or something\u2026 Oh fuck off please!\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we just call ourselves the Bowie impersonators? I wasn\u2019t even that much of a Bowie fan, although I liked him, Sean was obsessed by him.<\/p>\n Was there any danger to the band being called Raped, did you get any aggression towards you?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No, no, not really. It was all part of the punk period and germaine to 1977. It was usually students, and the rock establishment who would get pissed off about it. It was just being annoying. You cannot take it in the context of nowadays where everyone wants to hang around with Simon Cowell. It was also a kick back to the Americanisation of bands with Marshall amp stacks and white suits or whatever. We were just annoying U.K boys really, and thought the name would be funny (followed by ironic ha ha ha\u2019s – ed)<\/em>, but not as bad as the \u2018Moors Murderers\u2019 or the \u2018Cambridge Rapists\u2019.<\/p>\n When I first interviewed you for Ripped And Torn, we went to a gay bar.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, we went to one in Earls Court, a heavy gay bar, leather and whip type places. We went there just to be annoying, I mean nowadays, you would probably be taken to a Starbucks or something! It was just an odd place to go to. You weren\u2019t freaked by it either; you showed a bit of class! It was full of fellas with big beards and leather hot pants and things like that, yes.<\/p>\n There was a connection to gay bars at that time, The Roxy used to be a gay bar and\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It was, yes. It wasn\u2019t really a connection; it was just that these places were the only ones willing, or able to put on these oddballs. It\u2019s like the only places that would be willing to put on \u2018black disco\u2019 acts were gay bars, and is partly why disco had such a large gay following really.<\/p>\n We were regarded as so \u2018out there\u2019 the established rock establishment didn\u2019t want anyone like us, they hated us with a passion. It must have been like what Elvis had experienced when he first went on stage and was considered a white musician performing \u2018coon music\u2019 and he would have experienced something similar, almost hatred. Jazz was regarded with the same sort of hatred in the early 1900\u2019s. Even Strauss was booed off stage, and Debussy was threatened with \u2018Le Fauvre\u2019.<\/p>\n So did you go to gay bars when you were not performing?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No, not intentionally!<\/p>\n Raped played The Roxy of course.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We did yes, many times.<\/p>\n That was an old gay bar called Chaguaramas.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, owned by Kevin St. John, who was quite funny and put a lot of the bands on there and Andrew Czezowski. I had watched many groups there and Andy asked us to play.<\/p>\n Do you remember the first time there?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n No not really, I don\u2019t remember the first one although we played with nearly all the bands like Menace and The Lurkers and all the bands like that down there. I had been to the Roxy initially early on when it first opened and I saw The Damned there and thought that they were absolutely brilliant. As close to the stage as I am to you right now, knowing that they were not \u2018guitar heroes\u2019 but they were great. Our generation! It didn\u2019t matter, and we were the same age. They looked like me, but an extreme version of me, and I liked the songs. I just thought they were brilliant.<\/p>\n One memorable night we were down there and Generation X turned up and wanted to play and headline the night. Kevin St. John or Andrew Czezowski told them you can\u2019t as Raped are headlining, but we agreed to toss a coin, to see who would go on first. So we tossed a coin, and the coin went our way so Generation X supported us that night which was quite funny, wasn\u2019t it. There is an epilogue to this story, as years later when Billy Idol was going to America, he was holding auditions and I went along with my late wife, and he knew me anyway so I got a second audition, for a very short while I could have been a member of Gen X! He done very, very well for himself, I must admit I do like some of the stuff that he did over there, \u2018White Wedding\u2019, good, nice tracks.<\/p>\n Yeah he got the production that he deserved really.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. He did.<\/p>\n You played other venues as well; do you remember any of the others, the Music Machine, the Vortex<\/span>? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. The Music Machine that was a beautiful place, full of nooks and crannies. It used to be an old music hall theatre. The stage was beautiful. The kind of stage that you could imagine Vesta Tilly, Marie Lloyd and all those performing, I\u2019ve always loved the music hall, even when I was a kid, I was made up with it, we played there. A wonderful sound!<\/p>\n The Vortex?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes we played the Vortex. We played the Global Village Trucking Company, which became Heaven, and the strangest thing about that place was that you could go on stage there and play with an amp the size of a match box and you will hear this most incredible, the sound was able to carry right to the other end of the hall. You could hear every note, ambiance for music that I have ever heard in my life. I\u2019ve never known a venue like it, I hope that hasn\u2019t changed but it didn\u2019t have loads of sound deflectors like you have at the Albert Hall, it just had this incredible sound. So we were playing with these little amps and people right at the back were listening to us.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t called Global Village Trucking Company\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No. it changed its name shortly afterwards, probably to exorcise our evil after we performed there!<\/p>\n And then there was a place called the Centro Iberico.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, that was a bonkers place. We got the gig through Alan I think, he knew some people there, I think he was trying to chat some women up that were there. We turned up and there were loads of Spanish anarchists there, it wasn\u2019t long after Franco had died and the end of fascism in Spain, so we played the place and it was full of people saying I am going to smash the Spanish state, I had never been to Spain so I did not have a clue about it. There were pictures of Franco there with things like safety pins sticking out of him. And I always remember, someone told me a strange and funny story there, that when Hitler went to see Franco and tried to get him to join the axis with Mussolini, and apparently Franco was so annoying, horrible and just pedantic that you come away almost feeling sorry for Hitler because apparently he said \u201cI would rather have my teeth pulled out than listen to him again\u201d. Anyone that could do that to old Hitler and old Mussolini was, brilliant, quite funny. That story was floating in my head while we were playing there.<\/p>\n Who were you playing there with?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh I can\u2019t remember some fucking really awful bands, people that kept saying; \u201cI know punk, I know this and that\u201d and you just wanted to say; \u201cYou don\u2019t, you haven\u2019t a clue sweetheart\u201d, bands that think that they \u2018knew\u2019 punk, because they were wearing bin bags and safety pins, and just jumped about playing so badly shouting and screaming. That\u2019s bollocks, what you on about? It\u2019s like nowadays when you get people saying; \u201cI\u2019m a punk\u201d, no you\u2019re not. Punk was a just a period of time from 1976 through 1978 really, and then it died. It stopped. Which is fair enough, something else came along. If punk hadn\u2019t died there might not have been that new romantic thing, the Blitz kids and those party people.<\/p>\n We, as anarcho punks thought it all carried on, Crass and all that, 1982, 1983.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Crass were \u2018out there\u2019. We really got on with Crass and became good friends with them but I wouldn\u2019t have called them punks. They had a punk history and a punk background but I feel they moved on. They didn\u2019t stay static in amber, they moved on from that.<\/p>\n At one time, I used to feel really saddened when I used to see in 1975 or \u201976, before the punk thing, well at the start of punk, early \u201850\u2019s Elvis and people dressed up like Teddy Boys and saying that the only music that ever exists is rock and roll. No, something else is going to come along which will be good in its own way. And it\u2019s true, the punk thing happened in 1977.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s why when people say to me; \u201cThey don\u2019t make music like they used to\u201d, I go yes they do. It\u2019s not the same but they do, it\u2019s different, things change as it does do. I like playing lots of 1930\u2019s guitar music right now, and I know that music has changed incredibly since then, but the shape of the guitar, the shape of the amplifiers, the sound, the way people react is different, of course sometimes people wallow in nostalgia from before and want to re-live their youth. And that\u2019s fair enough, it\u2019s like lots of people go and see these Mersey Beat bands, Gerry And The Pacemakers and that sort of stuff. Its good fun, but they are not eighteen years old lads in tight fitting suits anymore; they are bunch of overweight sixty year olds, which is fair enough, but don\u2019t ignore what\u2019s happening now.<\/p>\n Cheap Night Out\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Foreplay Playground<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n OK, let\u2019s talk about the second single. That was recorded at Morgan Studios. What do you think the difference was between that and Spaceward?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, Morgan Studios was much better, I think maybe Led Zeppelin had recorded there, and lots of bands like that. We went in there and it was much more sophisticated. The desk man was less chaotic than the man at Spaceward, he was a bit more smooth. That didn\u2019t mean that the sound was smooth, it just meant that he seemed to have far more experience which does help. It sounded better, was a much better studio, a huge studio.<\/p>\n How come you got into that studio?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Because of Alan. Alan Hauser our manager got us there. I think he knew them.<\/p>\n The sound of the first E.P was far rawer than Morgan.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, well we went straight in there and \u2018boom\u2019, recorded six or so tracks in the day, so of course it was going to be much more urgent, much more, bang, straight in. Whereas we had the luxury at Morgan to do the whole track and wow, we did double track, and which sounds laughable but, despite the fact that Les Paul invented that in the 1950\u2019s, we didn\u2019t have much of a clue of it.<\/p>\n The mixing desk was twice the size and really good mics and of course, we were going to sound better. I don\u2019t want to say that one sound is better because I actually listened to my old E.P a few months ago and I was actually pleasantly surprised to hear, and this will sound big headed, how good my guitar sound was and how precise it was. I hit all the right notes and used all six strings! Wow\u2026 And I can\u2019t recapture that. People have said to me; \u201cOh you don\u2019t sound like you did in 1976-77\u201d or whenever, and I have to say, of course not.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a Tom Jones fan but I would agree with him totally when he said that people going to see him expected him to sound like he did when he first sung \u2018Delilah\u2019. Of course I\u2019m not going to sound the same and of course he will not. Dave Vanian does not sound the same as he did when he recorded \u2018Neat Neat Neat\u2019. He\u2019s a top man and has a fantastic voice, but he would not sound the same. Same with me, my guitar playing is totally different. I have a huge wealth of different styles and sounds to pull in nowadays. Maybe because I did not know any rules, I was able to do things that technically are wrong but are correct for the time, because I did not know I was treading on any musical toes.<\/p>\n One of the tracks had Sean\u2019s sexual grunts recorded. Where did all that come from?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh yes, fuck me. We did the recording of the song \u2018Foreplay Playground\u2019, it wasn\u2019t originally called that by the way, I can\u2019t remember what is was called now, but it was more of a blues thing really as I was putting in my Johnny Winter and Rory Gallagher licks into the song. There were no words for it and then after we recorded it, Sean went in the next day and sang his words… He tells us that these are the words. \u201cAre they? Oh dear\u201d.<\/p>\n You were telling me that the title \u2018Foreplay Playground\u2019 came out of the blue to you and the sleeve with all the underage school kids. What was your reaction to all this back then?\u00a0 How was it received?<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Well, it was not something that I wanted to do myself, Sean wanted to go to an annoying school somewhere, and although we were not in the school grounds the Headmaster got rid of us. The Japanese photographer wanted to do pictures at Buckingham Palace I think originally, and that\u2019s as far as I know really. I did not have anything to do with the title or anything. I was being side-lined, next thing you know; \u201cThat\u2019s the name of the album, that\u2019s the name of the single, that\u2019s the name of\u2026\u201d Oh great.<\/p>\n I had no input, ending up as an unpaid session guitarist. Apart from playing the guitar to the point of, I was going into studios without Sean or Baggett being there. Alan was very good with this, going in early to record my guitar without those two being around saying; \u201cOh I don\u2019t like that guitar, let me show you how it should be done\u201d. Asking various hangers on their advice on how I should play!<\/p>\n I used to get that and it used to fucking wind me up. I hope it doesn\u2019t sound like I am being bitter, but actually I am being bitter! When we were doing the album \u2018Guillotine Theatre\u2019 that\u2019s when I knew it was the beginning of the end for me. And I was not going to be a vital part of the band. They would say; \u201cWhy don\u2019t you play more like\u2026\u201d Oh who\u2019s that guitarist for Bowie?<\/p>\n Mick Ronson?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No, not Mick Ronson, he was brilliant, love his sound, the other one. Earl Slick. I would say I don\u2019t want to sound like him, who hasn\u2019t got grounding in British rock music or the punk scene of Britain. Why would I like to play like him?<\/p>\n So we know that Raped changed their name to Cuddly Toys, and with that change, came a change in sound. What was that about?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Well, we just went from snotty punks being really annoying, and of course to do anything musically, people did not want to hear the; \u201cBlah blah blah, we\u2019re on the dole, blah blah blah\u201d kind of thing. It might be good for a short while, and it\u2019s good to have realism. I don\u2019t really know what it\u2019s like now, and I am trying to think of what it was like back then in 1977 or \u201978, but we never wanted to be a punk band. We weren\u2019t really. I certainly did not want to be a punk, and I can say that now, as I was in the heart of all that in the mid \u201870\u2019s. I can get away with that. We didn\u2019t know what or how we wanted to be. We didn\u2019t want to be experimental, new wave or all that nonsense. We just wanted to be a little bit different. It\u2019s something that John Lydon once said about Sex Pistols spawning hundreds of bands that all looked and sounded like Sex Pistols rather going out on their own tangent, and that\u2019s true that is. We wanted to be different to those bands, and not be restricted.<\/p>\n We would get people at gigs coming up saying; \u201cWhy have you got so many chords in your songs? You only need two chords\u201d. Well, yeah. There are great songs that only have two or even one chord, but we wanted to do a bit more than that. Branch out with all our influences.<\/p>\n And despite the fact that\u2026 And let get this straight, my name is not on a lot of the songs apart from one or two, which is bullshit, because you can see, without my input, they wouldn\u2019t be the songs that they were. Same as Jagger & Richards, Django & Grapelli. The Bowie stuff, \u2018Ziggy Stardust\u2019, \u2018Honk Dory\u2019, if it had not been for Ronson\u2019s input, the sound would just not be there. Whether Bowie likes it or not, that\u2019s the way of it. Influences that I added would be classical music, which I have always loved, opera which I have always loved, 1930\u2019s music, which countered Sean\u2019s Bowie obsession, because if it just been him, as it eventually ended up, the band sounded like a third rate Bowie, or a third rate Tubeway Army.<\/p>\n Can you remember the first songs that you wrote after the change?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh God, I think \u2018Aliens\u2019, you know those new songs as soon as you hear them, my guitar style had changed, bringing a bit more of a rockier edge. I cannot remember exactly which songs we wrote early on, \u2018Aliens\u2019 was one of them.<\/p>\n Penguin at KYPP likes \u2018Aliens\u2019, I think that\u2019s his favourite Cuddly Toys song.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Really? Excellent!<\/p>\n How did you get the \u2018Madman\u2019 song off of Bolan and Bowie? How did that come about?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Despite what other people say; and people have said that we found a cassette in the street, it\u2019s probably more likely that we would have found a discarded Brotherhood Of Man cassette in the street! Bolan gave the song to us; we were talking to him and complaining that we did not have any three chord songs anymore. Bolan gave me this cassette, which I still have at home, with him, Gloria Jones and Bowie had all recorded in a glorified hotel room by the sound of things. We did another song off the cassette, a song called \u2018Jaguar Scratch\u2019, which has never even been on a bootleg! I\u2019ll play it to you sometime\u2026<\/p>\n Mick Ronson, I met a few times in the \u201880\u2019s, I played him some of our stuff, and he liked the guitar playing, saying it was simple, effective and exactly right. I felt quite vindicated. I thought, wow, someone that inspired me so much. One of my favourite rock guitarists.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/2015\/scan646_zpsokwitntk.jpg\")
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