GIANT
STEPS
PART
TWO
UP AND
RUNNING
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
FAIRY
DUST
We knew John Weathers from his work in Joe Cocker’s backing group, The Grease Band. He was working in a carpet factory when we tracked him down and asked if he would fill in for us on a tour of the UK while we looked for a full-time replacement for Malcolm. We hoped he would work out, but after our previous misfortune, we didn’t want to make John an offer he couldn’t refuse but that we might later regret. Nonetheless, John was excited by the opportunity to play with us, and within days we dove into rehearsals. He was a talented player who instantly adapted his style to fit our approach. So far, so good.
John’s first tour with us was both a trial by fire and an accidental test of humility. We were so caught up with walking him through all the hairpin turns of our music that we weren’t paying attention to the tour schedule that our management was putting together. Then I saw some calendar notes that mentioned something about Jimi Hendrix.
At first, I was confused. Jimi had died in 1970, and I’ll never forget the pit I felt in my stomach when I found out he was no longer with us. He was on top of the world, and then he was gone. Simon Dupree had shared the stage with him at festivals in Europe and watching him play was mesmerizing. He was a trailblazer as a songwriter, player, and showman. When we were on the same bill, we went out and did a couple of songs and then Jimi went on and blew us away. I was never happier to be destroyed like that. He was a phenomenon and a thrill to watch. He was so ahead of everyone else, he made us look like a tiny ripple in a pond—and we were damn good. How could anyone who claimed to be untrained be that good? I had seen Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Rory Gallagher, and this was another level of talent. As far as the greatest moments in rock go, it was right up there with seeing The Beatles.
When you’re that good, you’ve got a right to be arrogant. But Jimi was such a nice person—soft-spoken but sweet, and always positive—and one of the coolest people we had ever met. We were younger and didn’t have anywhere near that kind of star power, yet at the couple of shows we played with him, he complimented us, took the time to sit with us and talk about music and life, and treated us like equals. Then, he and his band were off doing their thing, winning over the world, and we were building our career. The next time we met him, he was a much bigger star, yet he was just as pleasant and friendly as he was the first time we met him. And then he died.
When we found out, we all cried. We were crushed when we realized he would make no more music. It was unimaginably tragic that so much talent could be snuffed out like that. We had followed his career like his other excited fans, eager to get our hands on everything he released, and at night I sometimes dreamed of playing with him again.
Now, though, I wondered why our name was on this flyer with a picture of Jimi Hendrix after he was gone. I figured it must be a cover band, but why would we be opening the show? Soon enough I learned that it wasn’t a cover band. It was actually Jimi. The venues that booked us wanted us to play before a screening of the concert film Jimi Plays Berkeley. It wasn’t just a tribute show or two, either: there were twenty-four dates opening for this movie. Years later, I saw the film This Is Spinal Tap, and the scene where the band plays a venue with a marquee that reads ‘Puppet Show and Spinal Tap’ brought me right back to our shows opening for Jimi Plays Berkeley.
I figured that these shows might be a good way to break in John Weathers, since none of the venues were huge. But having headlined as part of Cocker’s band, it didn’t fill him with confidence to find out that Gentle Giant would be the support band to a movie. The tour started on a dubious note on April 1, in Blackburn. We played for about 250 people, left the stage, and then the Hendrix movie was set up, but no one could get the soundtrack to play. Instead of screening a silent Jimi concert film, the promoter canceled the rest of the show and gave back half of the 60p (about 75 cents) admission fee.
Here are some debacles from other shows: the film never arriving; horrible acoustics; concertgoers spending most of our set at the bar; the night where there were so few attendees that the promoters urged fans to move up and sit at wooden tables and chairs in front of the stage; our equipment truck failing to arrive in time for a show; John nearly getting into a fight with a fan who came backstage and announced that he’d rather see us with Martin or Malcolm; Phil tearing his trousers when they got caught on a microphone stand; us canceling out of sheer frustration. Comically, Three Friends was released in the US, England, and the rest of Europe in the middle of our ‘Hendrix’ tour.
In a weird way, the humbling tour with the Hendrix movie lit a fire under us to get back in the studio and write an album that would cement our status as a headline-worthy band that transcended labels like ‘prog,’ ‘psychedelic,’ and most of all ‘pretentious.’ We were motivated, charged, and working non-stop to become better songwriters and performers, to present a better range of dynamics, and to be a more commercially accessible band without sacrificing artistry. Some of the frustrations we had experienced during the Three Friends cycle injected us with piss and vinegar, which made us a better band. Maybe more than anything, the immediate chemistry between us and John eliminated the need for babysitting and handholding. He was a pro, and he presented us with ideas for great rock beats and held down the rhythms like an experienced sailor holding down the helm in high winds. Any struggles we’d had getting drummers to nail tempos, rhythms, and fills were over. We had found our man. John was a giant among Giants.
He was also as dedicated and motivated as we were, so when we proposed going right back into the studio after we finished touring, he was all in. That was the Gentle Giant way. We would never take an extended break to fuck around on the beach or take a pilgrimage to Mecca to find ourselves. We weren’t in the financial position to go on a long holiday, and besides, we didn’t want a break. We enjoyed writing and recording and performing together, making creative strides, and becoming more accomplished—not for fans or our career, but for our own musical growth. We wanted to play the music we wanted to listen to. Downtime wasn’t conducive to that.
We had enjoyed making Three Friends, and we figured that having a central theme again was a good place to start with the new record. The original idea was to write a fleshed-out song about each member of the band. I’m not sure that came through in the end, which is just as well, since writing a musical epic and internalizing it as something like ‘The Ballad Of Derek’ (though we would never have called it that) would be silly and, yes, pretentious. In the end, Phil and I agreed to base some of the lyrics on literature and philosophy and loosely intertwine them with stories drawn from our personal lives. ‘The Advent Of Panurge’ was inspired by Gargantua And Pantagruel by François Rabelais, ‘A Cry For Everyone’ was rooted in the existentialism of Albert Camus, and ‘Knots’ dipped into ideas from a book of the same name by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing. These grand themes encouraged us to explore a wide variety of sounds and styles, from the elegiac medieval melodies of ‘Raconteur Troubadour’ to the beat-heavy rock outs of ‘A Cry For Everyone’ and the instrumental ‘The Boys In The Band.’