John Steel of The Animals – The 13th Floor Interview

The Animals begin their two-date tour of New Zealand with a show in Christchurch tonight, followed by another at Auckland’s Tuning Fork tomorrow. This version of the band features original drummer John Steel and Mickey Gallagher, who replaced Alan Price on keyboards in 1965 and went on to be a member of Ian Dury & The Blockheads.

With hits like House Of The Rising Sun, It’s My Life and Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood among the band’s legacy, there will be plenty of memories of the swingin’ 60s to be relived at these shows. 

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to John Steel about those memories and about the times the original band reunited in the 70s and 80s.

Click here to listen to the interview with Animals drummer John Steel:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: I know you’ve got Mickey Gallagher with you, this time around. Tell me a little bit about the band as it stands these days.

JS: I’m the only original member, from the very start, Mickey replaced Alan Price in 1965; and after he stayed with us, he went on to a really brilliant career with Ian Dury and The Blockheads…. Mickey was with The Blockheads for more than twenty five years; brilliant band. He also recorded London Calling – the album – with The Clash… and toured with them for a year, promoting that album. He recorded and toured with Eurythmics… he’s been around the block, Mickey. It’s nice to have him back in the band. We’ve got a really outstanding lead singer and a brilliant guitarist at the same time, all in the same body, Danny Handley. He’s only forty, but his heart and soul is in the ‘50s and ‘60s era of music – rock and roll, rhythm and blues – brilliant front man, really good guy. And our new – well… couple of years now – bass player is our exotic man, because he’s called Roberto Ruiz: he’s got South American parents, born and raised in New York City, and he came over to England  to do some gigs with a band, and met a Lancashire girl and fell in love. His home is now in England, and he’s a neighbour of Danny’s; so, he’s a very welcome addition, and he’s a good guy; so, it’s a happy band, and we’re all good friends, and we get on well; so, it’s a lot of fun on the road; a lot of good banter.

MD: I’m assuming that wasn’t always the case with the original Animals.

JS: No! Quite a lot of friction and rows in the old band; not by fisticuffs, but…

MD: Was it just personalities, or was it musical stuff? What was the problem?

JS: Personalities, I think. Musically, we were reasonably in the same direction, but there was some personal friction, generally… it was good stuff.

MD: Is that why you eventually left in ’66…?

JS: … Yeah. Alan quit the band in ’65, when he got his first royalty cheque for House of the Rising Sun.

MD: Oh yes! “See you later, guys! Thanks a lot.”

JS: Exactly, yeah. Then Mickey came in, and then after him, it was Dave Rowberry, who stayed with us until the breakup in ’66. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride.

Animals 1965

MD: I do have to ask you – because, as far as I know, it’s one of the great rock and roll stories, and saddest ones – about how that whole giving of the writing credit to Alan Price, for House of the Rising Sun, went down: is it pretty much the way that everyone talks about: that somebody just said, “Oh, just put somebody’s name on the record, because it won’t fit on the label”?

JS: Pretty much, that’s exactly how it worked out, yeah. Alan’s the only one who actually believes that he did the arrangement…. If we’d been a bit more clued up in those days – we were a bit green in those days; we never realised how important that was; otherwise, we might have done something about it at the time – but it was too late, by the time we’d realised what a great big blunder we’d made by not getting things down on paper at the time. Alan – God bless him – he’s convinced now that he’s perfectly entitled to it – and legally he is, of course – but it’s water under the bridge….

MD: You did several reunions in the mid-‘70s and again in the early ‘80s. How did you guys get past all that stuff?

JS: I think it was need and greed at the time…. The 1970s reunion…Chas had his own management and production company, and I was working for him. He’d already discovered Jimi Hendrix and produced his three best albums, and then he moved on to a new band called Slade, which was where I came in. We met up in the late ‘60s, and he said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “Not a lot,” and he said, “Well, why don’t you come and work for me?” I said, “Okay.” I’d moved back to Newcastle by that time, but I upped sticks again and moved back to London, and started working for Chas on the business side of things: to promote this brand new bunch of lads he had called Slade, and bring them up from obscurity. People thought it was a huge hit. In the UK, they were massive, and in lots of Europe, and in Australia, they did very well, I remember; it was an interesting time; but anyway, in the middle of that, there was a period where… Chas and me were in London; Eric was over for whatever reason – I can’t remember – and I think he wasn’t doing so well: he’d… fallen out with War, and I think Eric was in the doldrums at the time. We had a night out together, and it seemed like a good idea to float the idea of getting together for an album. Eric hates having to depend on the name, The Animals; he’s always trying to promote Eric Burdon; but anyway, I think he needed some kind of project, and all we had to do was phone Hilton. Hilton was living in California, where he was pretty much stranded, working in a restaurant at the time; so, Chas sent him a return ticket, and he flew over. Chas had just formed his own label called Barn Productions, and we got together and hired The Rolling Stones’ mobile studio, and set up in Chas’ very nice home in Surrey called Gould’s Farm, and just did the thing in Chas’ front room, and we made an album; but it never got beyond that. We never thought of touring together, or anything like that. It just happened to be that everybody was free to do it at the time. But it was a passable album…

MD: Yeah, it was Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, right?

JS: Exactly, yeah!

MD: That must have been an interesting recording experience, because before you were working with Mickie Most as your record producer, and I imagine having him overseeing the stuff that you were doing in the early ‘60s was different than you guys being on your own in the mid-‘70s. Was it a better working experience in the studio?

JS: Yeah, it was. It was a very different experience. Mickie had his strong points: his strongest point was he could recognise a hit record: he knew when something was a commercial goer. He wasn’t really a hands on producer, the way you had in later years; I mean, Mickie didn’t know what to do with all the buttons on a box… he just stood behind the engineer and said, “I want to hear this,” and, “I want to hear that.” That was as far as that got; but he knew a good song; that was Mickie’s strength. I remember when we did the reunion thing in the ‘70s, Chas had already proved himself as a producer with Jimi Hendrix – you can’t get better than that. He, more or less, took the controls; so, it was a pretty orderly kind of thing, and… it was nothing to be ashamed of.

MD: Definitely not!

JS: I’ve just learned, just last week, actually – that… somebody from Japan – who was doing a thing about a producer and engineer called Alan O’Duffy – wanted to talk to any of The Animals who remembered recording that particular album. I said, “Who the hell’s Alan O’Duffy?” Then I looked on the album sleeve, and there it was: the engineer was Alan O’Duffy! Chas was doing it, as far as we were concerned, and there was a guy at the desk…

MD: I’m sure he has some stories to tell as well.

JS: … Yeah, so, that was one reunion with him.

MD: Then the other reunion in the early ‘80s was a much bigger deal: you guys were signed to IRS and toured. I saw you guys when you toured upstate New York.

JS: Did you? Where was that?

MD: In Rochester, New York.

JS: Oh, yeah! That was the bulk of the tour. The whole of ’83 – apart from making the album and a few other things – was mostly in North America. A guy called Rod Steinberg had been a fan of The Animals, and he was a kind of producer and businessman and promoter, and it was just one of his biggest ambitions that he wanted to get The Animals back together again, and he contacted us all individually. I can remember when I took the call – my daughter at that time was just coming up to eighteen, just about to go to university – and I took this call, and I put the phone down and said to Ann, my wife, and my daughter, “This guy that’s been on the phone wants to put The Animals back together again and take us on tour and record,” and my little daughter said, “Oh, Johnny! Grow up, will ya!” They know it all at that age! As it happened, Rod had pretty good timing, because again, it was a situation where nobody had anything particularly going at that time, and everybody thought, “Well, why not? We could probably make a few bob and have an interesting time for a year or so,” and that’s exactly what it was. We got together and made a record, did a tour, and it was an interesting experience.

MD: Was it an enjoyable experience, or an interesting experience?

Animals 1983

JS: It was interesting; for me, it was quite enjoyable. Actually, me and Hilton were the kind of junior partners in this deal. Hilton was the original guitarist in The Animals, but the main heavies were Chas, Alan Price and Eric. It was like a two sided battle all the way through: it was Chas and Alan on one side, and Eric on the other. Eric wanted everything his way, and Chas and Alan were continually struggling to maintain some sort of sanity in this whole thing.

MD: What were the differences in what they wanted? What did Eric want to do, that Alan and Chas didn’t?

JS: Well, Eric wanted to do ‘the Eric Burdon life story’.

MD: Ah, I see!

JS: It was I Did It My Way, was Eric’s idea of a tour, and Chas and Alan, basically, wanted to make a successful business project, really: to have a successful album and a successful tour, and do it in a business-like fashion; and Eric was a bit more of a loose cannon.

MD: I’ve met Eric a few times, and I could see how he can be a loose cannon.

JS: That’s the way he’s always been; that’s the way he is.

MD: Have you had any contact with either Alan or Eric in the recent past?

JS: Not recently no. Alan’s kind of ploughed his own lonely furrow; apart from those two reunion things, it’s strictly been ‘the Alan Price career’, which has gone increasingly into obscurity, as far as I can tell. Nowadays, he only does about one gig a month: he’s got a regular gig near where he lives in his part of London – it’s basically a jazz club – and he does a regular gig there every second Thursday in the month, or whatever it is. As far as I understand, that’s what he does; but then, he doesn’t need the money, because he’s got the…

MD: Yep! Still got that House of the Rising Sun money rolling in.

JS: Yep! And Eric: we’ve been friends since we were fifteen, but in more recent years, there’s been a bit of friction set in between us, which is unfortunate, as far as I’m concerned, and unnecessary, as far as I’m concerned as well, because there’s become this kind of dispute thing about who can claim to call themselves The Animals; which happened a few years ago, and it’s still dragging on now. It’s very annoying, and, as I say, I find it very unnecessary. Eric just works mainly in North America, and I work mainly in Europe, mostly, and then you have the world that wants to see the band. But there’s become this dispute about who should have possession of the name, and Eric seems to think he’s the only one entitled to it, for whatever reason; and yet, for thirty years – after the break of The Animals – he limped along for a couple of years afterwards as Eric Burdon and The New Animals, and then he joined with War. He spent 30 years trying to get out from under…he even wrote a book called I Used To Be An Animal, But I’m all Right Now.

MD: I guess… it must come down to – at some point – money, and the fact that – at this point in his life – he’s got to earn a living somehow.

JS: Yeah, I guess so, but… at the age we are now, it’s like two bald men fighting over a comb.

MD: Now, before we wrap up: I’m fascinated by the fact that you were involved in the whole Slade thing…. Tell me some stories about you guys working with Slade…. I’m a big Mott the Hoople fan myself; so, I’m really into that whole scene. What was your involvement in all that?

JS: Oh, from the bottom up. Nobody had heard of them; nobody wanted to know about them. Chas really fought tooth and nail to get some recognition for them, and eventually scored wonderfully. I suppose the biggest thing I can recall is that we made a movie; not a great movie, but it’s become a kind of cult. I don’t know… about Australia and New Zealand, but in the UK and some parts of Europe, it’s become quite a cult movie. One critic, Mark Kemode – who’s a big film critic – it’s one of his favourite movies; and I don’t know how that happens, because it’s not that good. It was a terrific experience, because I’ve always been a movie buff anyway, and it was so great to be an executive producer, and be a part of the whole process – looking at the script and changing things, and going to the shoots, and doing all the stuff – that was really enjoyable; and the guys in Slade really enjoyed it. They weren’t trained actors by any means, but they did a good job, and we had a lot of fun; but apart from that, it was great to see a band go from, pretty much, complete obscurity, to being a huge success…. In one year, in 1973, they had three number one singles in the UK that went in at number one; that was a record at the time. It was a great experience to be part of something like that. It was an exciting thing to watch them come from nothing. They’re still great guys. I’m still in touch with them. They always kept their feet on the ground as well.

MD: So, you guys will be playing the hits when you get here. You’re leaving in about a week or so. I assume you’re concentrating on The Animals’ hits pre-’66 that you were involved in.

MD: Yeah, because that’s where all the big hits were… House of the Rising Sun and It’s my Life and Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, and all those things. They’re the core of the show that we do, but there’s such a great catalogue of stuff that we did – some great album tracks and b-sides, and things – there’s nothing I’ve ever been ashamed of in there; everything’s worth doing again; so, we keep going around and freshening them up and bringing them out. We never do the same set exactly every night, because we always say, “let’s do this, instead of that.” We play I Put a Spell on You, or we’ll play Night Time is the Right Time or See See Rider; all of these songs that we just pull out and freshen the set up with; It’s mostly the big hits. It keeps us all fresh and happy, and we just love getting out there and having a good time. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in what we do.

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