Right away, Worldwide booked us to play a two-day festival in Heidelberg, Germany. The British Rock Meeting Heidelberg Open Air Celebration, as it was called, foreshadowed our turbulent future with the company. The event featured Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Rory Gallagher, Fairport Convention, and others. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch the flight and file onto the charter plane. The sky was clear and the conditions seemed to be optimal. The pilot announced we were ready for takeoff. I closed my eyes and leaned against the side of the headrest, hoping to catch a nap before we landed.
The plane began its ascent and then abruptly lurched …hard. At the same time, there was a mechanical scraping noise. Mick Fleetwood, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, screamed, fainted, and slumped to the floor of the plane. Three nearby overhead compartments opened, spilling their contents. The pilot wrestled with the controls and the plane began a steep bank to the left. A voice crackled over the loudspeaker.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’re experiencing some minor technical problems with the aircraft which explains the turbulence you might have felt. We’ll be returning to the airport out of an abundance of caution. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened. We should be on the ground shortly.’
The plane landed safely, and we returned to the boarding area with no idea what had happened or when we would be able to reboard the plane. I was starting to wonder if we were going to make it to Germany in time for our set when a flight attendant announced that it was safe for us to return to the plane. Our tour manager talked to the flight crew and learned that three of the four engines on the plane had failed, and had we not had such a skilled pilot, we might not have made it back to the airport. We were assured that the mechanics had repaired the plane, the engines were now fine, and we should promptly reboard. A few minutes later, the flight took off, and Gentle Giant and blues-rock master Rory Gallagher were the only bands left on the plane. Everyone else found an alternate source of transportation.
Friction in the air dovetailed with friction on the ground. Gary and Martin had been snapping at each other for days. The two had been at loggerheads ever since Gary stole Martin’s girlfriend. Gary wasn’t smitten with her or anything, but he craved companionship, and since he had left his old girlfriend behind in London when he came to Portsmouth to work with us, he figured Martin’s girlfriend would do. She was friendly to him, so he moved in and outcharmed Martin to win her over. When we were on tour in Europe, there was such bad blood between them that there was no way we were going to go on much longer without a blowout. That incident came backstage in the middle of the European tour.
‘Bandmates are supposed to be like brothers,’ Martin shouted, after a six-pack too many. ‘How could you do this?’
‘Hey, she didn’t want you,’ Gary said. ‘She likes me better.’
‘I really care about her! You’re an arsehole,’ said Martin, practically in tears.
That just egged Gary on. ‘Maybe you should spend more time working on your playing and less time trying to win back some bird.’
Those were fighting words. The two came to blows backstage, which marked the only time a member of Gentle Giant threw punches. Neither of them was physically injured, but Martin’s pride was crushed. Between us riding him about his inferior playing and Gary stealing his girl and popping him in the nose, the runway was cleared for Martin’s imminent departure. Gary certainly had been underhanded with Martin, but we needed him as a guitarist and songwriter, so there was no question as to who would stay in the band and who would go. Martin was already on the outs with us, and really, Gary only sped up Martin’s inevitable and necessary break with the band. Gary stayed with Martin’s ex for about a year before he hooked up with someone he liked better. There’s a reason lots of women won’t date musicians.
I think Martin was relieved when we fired him in late September 1971, in the middle of a tour. That left us in the unenviable position of immediately finding a new drummer and continuing like nothing had happened. We interviewed dozens of new drummers over two days in London. No one was right, and everything seemed hopeless as the final candidate stepped up to audition. We were expecting yet another drummer who thought he was the only one onstage and overplayed like Keith Moon on amphetamines, or a player who wanted to play traditional 4/4 beats without flair. Instead, we got an eighteen-year-old kid named Malcolm Mortimore who surprised us by keeping up with us and injecting some colorful fills into the songs.
We asked Malcolm and a few other players to come to our rehearsal studio in Portsmouth for a more intensive second audition, where he was confident and played with an abundance of energy and style. His meter wasn’t always perfect, but we figured he was nervous and not entirely familiar with all the changes in the music, so we invited him to join the band. Malcolm moved to Portsmouth and, in between unpacking his belongings, had a week to learn our entire set before our next show in early October. He did pretty well with us on his first run of shows. I don’t know if he was running on adrenaline, touched by his muse, or if we were so happy to have someone with confidence behind the kit that we overlooked any mistakes he made (which wasn’t likely, since we rarely overlooked anything). Malcolm had a great touch and good technique, and he evolved into a great drummer who would go on to play with Tina Turner, Tom Jones, Van Morrison, Mick Jagger, Coliseum, and others. But when he joined Gentle Giant, he was far less musically experienced than we were, and all the style in the world couldn’t cover that up.
CHAPTER
TEN
COLLISION
COURSE
We never copped to being simply a prog-rock band, but if fans and critics were going to call us prog, we decided it would behoove us to follow some of the tropes. Hence the concept album Three Friends. Phil and I came up with the idea and loosely based the storyline on our experiences growing up in Portsmouth in a working-class environment while striving to be a world-class band. When we were back in school, we were on the same level as the other students, and we were treated equally—at least in theory. Our mates were the kids we saw every day, and we had a shared set of experiences that bonded us such as joking around in class, hanging out at lunch, and playing sports together. Then we left school, and everyone branched out into our own different worlds. Our friends weren’t together all the time, and we could no longer connect with them the way we used to. It’s a fairly universal experience that we all go through on some level.
In Three Friends, three former classmates all go in separate directions after school, and when that happens, they can no longer be real friends anymore. I wanted to illustrate how social class is connected to the kinds of barriers that are built over time. When someone ascends the ladder of success, they develop different values and morals, and, even if they continue to wave the flag for the working class, they’re doing so from gilded towers; they can’t personally relate to the struggles of the common man, and they may accidentally act in a condescending manner, which makes their former friends resentful. Similarly, the person who maybe isn’t as bright or lucky as his former friends slides further down the totem pole and becomes less accomplished than the more middle-class people with whom he formerly associated. Everyone branches further into their own worlds and none of them connect. Class and vocation drive them apart, and those three school friends end up in completely different places and can no longer relate to one another. When you’ve got one person in a position of upward mobility, another who’s in homeostasis, and a third who’s on a downward trajectory, society dictates that they can’t be true friends.