Playing The Fool did very well for us and gave us more time to formulate our next move. We toured the album and hired one of Ray’s school friends, Jeff Altman, to spruce up our stage show with video footage from backscreen projectors and other eye candy. Usually, hiring lighting, props, and effects for a live show is laborious and expensive and involves working with big corporations. With Jeff’s help, we simplified the process to a grassroots level that was infinitely more affordable and enjoyable. For the tour, we hired four more friends from Portsmouth, which was great because it was fun to be with people we knew, and we paid them well. Somehow, they were able to find more friends and fans who helped them build our stage sets. Ray or I would come up with something, and we’d say, ‘Okay, now go build it.’ And they did. They made a neon Gentle Giant sign and even a neon violin for Ray, but it never worked—the neon interfered with the electric pickup, and so when we plugged in Ray’s violin, it buzzed and made horrible feedback. We had to remove the neon and just have the sign behind us, which also made the violin hum a little, but we were able to deal with that.
When we finished touring the live album, we all did some soul-searching to decide what we wanted to do for the next era of the band. It was the best worst thing to happen. Bands and music genres move on. The live album was the stamp of where Gentle Giant were, but the future was unwritten and uncertain. Seeing other bands who had been on our level at one point, then absolutely blew up—especially Genesis—affected us in a profound way. It was a major wake-up call. If we wanted to remain successful, we needed to do something different. That’s the point we started from when writing our ninth studio album, The Missing Piece. Suddenly, we were under a new kind of pressure.
Maybe it came from me, the music industry, or the other guys in the band. Maybe it was all three. Bands of our ilk were either going downhill and breaking up or having hit singles and becoming bigger than ever. Radio had changed, and if you weren’t willing to change with it, you were history. We were fine with some changes if they came without pressure and on our terms. At the same time, we felt the evil presence of punk breathing down our necks. In the UK, we had entered the era of the Sex Pistols, the Damned, and The Vibrators, and they were metaphorically howling, ‘Hey, all you old farts get the fuck out of our way before you get run over!’
Almost overnight, we were competing for chart position with kids who were wild in the press, swore on TV, and were useless live. At one point, we visited our good friend Chris Thomas in the studio. He had worked with us as a Moog programmer back in the day and went on to become a respected producer who worked with Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Roxy Music, and tons of other big bands. Malcolm McLaren had hired him to work on singles with the Pistols, and he subsequently ended up in the studio with The Clash.
‘Come hang out with me and see this band,’ he said to us one day. ‘Everyone’s talking about them.’
We went over and watched The Clash in the studio, and they were so fucking awful that we were amazed that they had generated such a huge buzz. They couldn’t play three chords without having to stop.
‘Chris, are these guys really going to make an album?’ we asked, incredulity dripping from every word.
‘Look,’ he replied. ‘This is going to be big.’
And it was. And somehow those guys learned to play together and became a damn good band that made some interesting, innovative albums. At the time, however, we were completely confused by what we were seeing, and I think they were strung out when they were playing together. There was a dog in the studio with them, and it took a shit on Joe Strummer’s boots while he was playing. He didn’t notice. We were looking at each other with amazement, cracking up as we watched this group trying to play a three-chord song and failing miserably. Of course, they had the last laugh. Punk was taking over in England, and bands like Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull were being shooed away as ancient and unworthy.
Disenchanted by what was happening in England, I spent lots of time long-distance commuting to New York for weekends with Sharon, who I knew would be my future wife. If it hadn’t been for Laker Airways, I think I’d still be paying off the credit card debts.
When Gentle Giant were together, we realized we needed to write an album that was more commercially palatable and provided us with an opportunity for some strong radio play. We never worried about sacrificing our integrity, since integrity shone through everything we did. The real challenge was to combine that authenticity with a new songwriting approach that took us outside of our sphere of influence.
Since I was now the band’s manager as well as the frontman, I was wearing two hats, and no one looks good with two hats on their head. I’m not sure if I wore one better than the other; maybe I lost out on both. I became more aware of where Gentle Giant were positioned business-wise, instead of just musically, and I strategized about what we needed to do to modify our sound for a new era. It was a necessary evil, and I went into it with Ray’s assistance and support. At the end of the day, I was the captain of the ship, he was my first mate, and it remained that way until the end of the band.
Without changing our core sound, we strived to write hits. We had released numerous hits when we were Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, so we certainly know how to write and play songs that were simple and melodic. We looked at Genesis as the standard bearers of what we wanted to do without being sonically influenced by them. They had recorded their 1976 album Wind & Wuthering at Relight Studios in Hilvarenbeek, Holland, so we went there for three weeks to work on The Missing Piece. I thought it would be like a vacation in the bucolic countryside and that the new location would be inspiring. What a mistake. It was fucking awful. Never mind that we were always comfortable recording in London and liked being near home, Hilvarenbeek was in the middle of a giant field in southern Holland. When we weren’t recording, we were looking at cows and watching people occasionally pass by on bicycles.
When we finished in the studio, we went back to the hotel, where there were no amenities—not even a working TV. We still enjoyed being together, just not all day, every day in the middle of nowhere, with nothing new to talk about. We were away from our loved ones. We were lonely. It was worse than being on tour in the French countryside. After John had recorded his drums, he had nothing to do, so he’d start drinking. He was still a great player, but he became an annoying drunk.
Ray and I stayed sober, so we kept working on music even when John and Gary were done. Staying in the studio was preferable to doing anything else in that damn town. I started to resent that by midday we were the only ones in the band doing anything, and my aggravation and anxiety went straight to my gut. I needed an ulcer flare-up like I needed my larynx ripped out. Everyone was relieved when Ray and I told them we were done with Holland. We packed up our shit and returned to Advision in London to finish up.
We emerged from the studio with an album that met all of our objectives and that we really liked. It was straightforward, only mildly experimental, and full of ebullient choruses and cool rhythms. Capitol loved it and planned a campaign to work the singles ‘I’m Turning Around,’ ‘Two Weeks In Spain,’ and ‘Mountain Time’ to radio. They shot videos, set up promotions, and prepared for the record to be a big hit. They were wrong. The Missing Piece came out in August 1977 in the UK and September in North America. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get the music on the radio, and the only ones who heard it were our devoted fans, some of whom were disappointed that it wasn’t The Power And The Glory or Free Hand, though those of them who realized we wouldn’t ever make the same record twice praised the strong songwriting and catchy hooks.