There’s a wonderful German word, Schadenfreude, which means experiencing happiness or vindication from someone else’s pain, trouble, or humiliation. There was an element of that in my ascension to stardom. I didn’t take joy in anyone else’s failure, but as people who had once belittled me clamored to shake my hand and have me sign something, maybe a part of me took some joy in knowing that they were still common people in Portsmouth. I’m not exactly proud of that today, but when I look back, I still feel a strong sense of accomplishment knowing that our hard work and refusal to give up paid off. We were Top 10 pop stars. It was glorious. It was the end of the beginning of the beginning of the end for Simon Dupree.
CHAPTER
FIVE
WE ARE
The MOLES
If I had a quarter for every time I was around drugs or was offered drugs and turned them down, I would never have had to worry about making money with music. I was straight before ‘straight edge’ was a thing. I didn’t just do it to extend the precious years I have left on this earth; I wanted to avoid anything that might be a distraction from the music that meant everything to me. I wanted a lifestyle that was opposite to the one my father had. I went to the gym, ate healthily, drank lots of water, and took vitamins.
Ray and Phil also stayed away from cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, though neither of them was as paranoid as I was about dying young. We never wanted to waste a moment of our life, so after we had a tremendous hit with ‘Kites,’ we all seriously considered dropping everything and moving on with far more challenging, experimental music. It was more than a consideration, it was fate, but before I dropped my pop star persona, I accidentally dropped something else.
‘Kites’ was still a big hit and we were in London hanging out with the guys in Status Quo. We went to a nightclub where all the local musicians and scenesters hung out, and I was feeling pretty good so I ordered a vodka tonic, figuring I’d only have the one and remain in control. While everyone waited for the waiter to return with our drinks, I went to use the men’s room. When I came back, my vodka tonic was on the table. Usually, I would gingerly sip drinks, but I wanted to celebrate our success and figured, ‘What the hell,’ so I took a big gulp from my drink, and it was refreshing. There was just enough vodka that I could taste it, but it didn’t burn my throat, and the tonic water was pleasantly bubbly and bitter.
Some girls from a group we toured with, The Paper Dolls, were with us, with a few of their friends in tow. After my big sip, one of them smiled and looked directly into my eyes.
‘I thought you might want to know,’ she said. ‘Our guy just slipped some acid in your drink. I hope you’re okay with it and have a good time.’
I had never done acid because I’m terrified of losing control.
‘When the hell?’ I replied. ‘Who would do that? I don’t want that.’
‘No, you’ll love it,’ she said and laughed. ‘Just go with it.’
I’ve never been the kind of person who just goes with anything, but what choice did I have? Within fifteen minutes, I started feeling really bizarre. I was keenly aware this wasn’t what I wanted, and I started to panic, which made everything much worse. I said I needed to get some air and went outside the club. I was practically panting, yet I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs, and every time I breathed it sounded like a wind squall through a tunnel. My heart pounded, and with each beat, the earth shook so hard—so hard the sidewalk started to crack, I felt like the ground was going to collapse beneath my feet, so I stumbled over to a lamppost for support. I clung to it like I was in a deep ocean, and it was a flotation device. For the next six hours, I hugged the post for dear life.
It must have been around midnight when some people asked me what I was doing. Maybe they were checking if I was all right, but their voices were warped and distorted, and they echoed so much I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
‘I need to stay right here’ was all I could summon. They were the only words I still knew, so I kept repeating them. I was sure that if I let go of the post, I would get swept away somewhere and die. In the lamp-lit streets, my mind was causing horrendous hallucinations. The road flooded with blood, and it pooled around my ankles and started rising toward my knees. People around me were gradually decaying, and skeletons were floating in the ocean of blood. Screaming drowned out any other noises around me. I don’t know if it was my own screaming or if it was in my head, but it wouldn’t stop. And when I closed my eyes, my skin started burning, so I kept them open and stared at the flesh on my arms, which was bubbling like boiling water. I knew if I closed my eyes again, my arms would disintegrate and I wouldn’t be able to hold onto the pole anymore.
I hung onto it until morning, when it started to get light. As the acid started to wear off, I remembered that I was supposed to drive home that night, but I didn’t feel up to it. I stayed a bit longer, and when I was again able to speak full sentences, I called a taxi, had the driver take me to a hotel, and slept until it was afternoon. Then I took another cab back to my car and drove home, shivering all the way. More than ten years later, I wrote ‘Inside Out’ about my bad trip, and we eventually did a video for the track that includes images of lampposts that still make me shudder.
Simon Dupree & The Big Sound were very much a Portsmouth band. The only time we felt at home in London was when we were recording or performing, and the city dwellers never embraced us the way they did with trendier British bands. Maybe in reaction, we sheltered ourselves from all the influences of London and everything that was going on in the ‘cool’ scene. We were never cool, which greatly benefited us. I have never been cool, and I hope I remain that way because I just want to be whatever I am. I don’t want to have to fit a mold. And I never want to gear anything for mainstream acceptance, as we did in Simon Dupree. I hated that.
Living in Portsmouth, you didn’t have to act cool, so we always had great shows there and the whole of the south coast, including the Isle Of Wight. Several of those shows were booked by the notorious gangster Wilf Pine, who was part of the English mafia. That may seem scary, but we were the darlings of the English mob, including the notorious Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald Kray—racketeers, robbers, and, yes, murderers—who loved our music almost as much as they loved the money they made from our sold-out concerts. Really, though, it was more than just a financial relationship. They liked us as people and took us under their wing, making sure promoters paid up, watching our backs to make sure nothing went down at our shows, and catching us onstage whenever they could.
This relationship lasted well into the Gentle Giant era. After one of our sold-out shows on the Isle Of Wight, Pine and his cohorts, Mick and ‘The Canadian,’ came backstage after the gig.
‘Fantastic show, guys,’ said Wilf in a raspy working-class accent. ‘So, are you boys hungry?’