Another Tony Stewart Interview in NME but from May 12 1973
Midnight was our cue to quit the Swiss restaurant and return, like five Cinderellas, to our hotels. It wasn`t a case of trembling at the thought of changing into kitchen maids, but more of over-indulgence and weariness. The meal was over and the booze flowing; record company executives swapped yarns; managers made merry; Focus and Stone The Crows lent back and rubbed well-fed bellies at the banquet held in their honour. Our Mercedes Pullman drew up in the Montreux drizzle, and Focus’s Jan Akkerman, his lady, two others and myself climbed in. The chauffeur doffed his cap, clicked the engine into a whisper and warned us not to flick fag-ash on his pile carpet, while Akkerman continued with a vicious attack on America. He growled: “America? Bah. I was glad to go home. You know, they’ve got no culture”. Akkerman is not a gentleman to understate. But during the 10-minute drive he crystalised his thoughts on the so-called American way-of-life, and reluctantly decided that it’s a necessary evil. The next morning bass player Bert Ruiter told me the same thing: “Everyday for five weeks we just played, stayed in hotels and slept on planes. It’s not my way of living, but we have to do it”. As yet there are no signs that the experience has benefitted their music. And maybe it never will. As we passed the time in the splendid lobby of the Hotel Suisse, Bert stated: “No country could make us better than we are. Maybe it’s strange, but we’re into each other for the music.” This, good people, is the Focus reaction to success, at a time when “Hocus Pocus”, “Moving Waves” and “Focus 3” are hitting the American charts (achieving that on their first tour is nothing short of bloody incredible). “Do you understand it?” Akkerman asks. “I don’t. Like `Hocus Pocus` is just a send-up; nobody can change that. It’s just a send-up of those rock groups…
Focus’s return to Europe was not as triumphant as it could have been. At Montreux the band encountered innumerable hassles with their equipment. It resulted in them walking off stage, later returning to do a set that was purely for the audience — because by this time the telly crew had knocked off.
Then in the Dutch daily papers it was falsly reported that Focus has broken up. To top that, says Ruiter, quite a few people believed it.
Nearer to us, they opened their British tour at London’s Rainbow last Friday. And frankly it was a disappointment. They were too loud with no middle range, the music seemed untogether, and it was only during “Eruption” that they settled down.
Neither did everything go well in Holland. Akkerman says candidly that he “blew some gigs”. One eyewitness – we’ll reveal no names and tell no lies — reckons the guitarist was a mite unpopular. The audience called him “houndelul”. Translated, this refers to part of a dog’s anatomy…
This is success.
“Houndelul, spits Akkerman, “I hope it’s the last time I play there.
“We loved to play in Holland,” he continues. “We didn’t feel high or low, we just wanted to play. But if people say things like that I don’t care anymore. We’d better stop. Because it wasn’t my fault I was so late.
“Mv cat had a kitten.” he explains. “I came back from Montreux on an early plane. When I got home it had been born on the floor, so I was just in time.”
Actually, I remarked, I’d been told one of his ducks had broken a leg.
“Oh no, Akkerman retorted. “The other cat had broken a leg. I’m concerned about that. I don’t care about…”
He hesitates, and then recalls the gig in question. “There were something like 15,000 people involved. But still, I said to myself, I’d take a few hours less sleep. But the people don’t care about that, and just call me names.
“And I played well, very well. To me it’s a challenge if they start booing,” he continues with a hint of mischief. “I think, oh, I'll make you shut up.’
“But I don’t have these feelings here. In Britain the audiences are very straight. If they don’t dig it, forget it — they don’t bother. But that crowd of 15,000 started booing, and it was as if they were going back to their childhood. I have enough booing on my farm with all the cows. It’s the same thing.”
After Montreux I met Akkerman at the Post House Hotel, Haverstock Hill, London, and once again we got back to the subject of America.
“It’s not that the people aren’t friendly,” he explains, “but they’re so extrovert. I am too in a way – but when it comes from all sides it yells at me, and you have a feeling it keeps you down. Like if you make one mistake, they’ll kill you. That’s fear. In New York especially — it’s so depressing.”
Cracking the American market is a big feather in Focus’s cap when you consider they were only a support band to acts like the Beach Boys, Zappa and Santana. Thus, most of the time, their set was considerably shorter than usual.
In Montreux Bert had described the difficulties quite vividly.
“Sometimes it was like a boxing game. There were so many aggressive people, and when we played we had to hit them. After that we had time to play a little of what we wanted — but it was usually the hard stuff, like ‘Anonymous’.”
Akkerman elaborated on the best policy to adopt:
“I think you must forget all about making the right music for America, and just do your stuff, then leave at once. That’s what we did, and it turned out to be successful. But the next time we’ll play for two hours and longer.
We played a short version of ‘Focus III` then ‘Anonymous’. After that we did ‘Tommy’, the single, and then “Hocus Pocus”. By that time everybody was crazy and yelling for more. “America,” he adds, “is still into rock ‘n’ roll really. Oh, they want boojie, woojie. Edgar Winter, you know, is a beautiful musician, but he plays this all the time…” And Jan hums a cliched boogie riff. He continues: “They better hire Micky Mouse if they want that, but not me”. This aspect made Focus a slight downer for American audiences on first hearing. Having heard the single “Hocus Pocus” they thought the band were another gang of rock ‘n’ rollers. “That’s what they said,” says Akkerman, “and it was audiences on first hearing. Having heard the single `Hocus Pocus’ they thought the band were another gang hard to get going. But they really got into it – faaaar out,” he mimicks.
“If I should read one of those young kids’ diary’s I’m sure on every page it’d read, ‘far out’. Really.
“Our music swings, but it’s not rock ‘n’ roll; it swings, but it’s not jazz.
“But there’s hope for America,” he decides, especially when a group like Yes do a very good job over there. They’re probably one of the only white groups who’re really interesting.
“Rock ‘n roll, which is white blues, makes no sense. Alex Korner did a good job for the blues — but now the blues has had it. You know it’s still here, but for me it’s had it. I was playing it when I was ten… and they’re still living in that.
“And the only group who dare to make music without that are Yes. It’s the only answer to the black music and rock ‘n’ roll.”
Akkerman believes that the initial difficulty for the Americans trying to understand Focus’s music is that Americans have no real culture. However, he does concede that in 200 years time the blues could be termed “classical”.
America’s culture is mainly from the Continent,” he says. “Because most Americans are Europeans. They’re English, Balkans, Italians…”
But culture or no, Focus have been accepted and are now big business in America. There’s no two ways about it. And with recognition come some rather sad human behaviour patterns. Groupies.
“It’s so strange in America. Ten times a day some chick calls you up, and sometimes my girlfriend Lamie may take the calls.
“They say, ‘yeah, can I speak to Jan? I’m a girlfriend of his from LA’. And Lamie says, ‘he doesn’t know you, forget it.`”
Raising an imaginary receiver Akkerman adopts a mock American accent. “Hey shit man. I get that ten times a day. Myself, I’m not such a romeo.”
But on a more serious note, he continues: “But anyway, we’ve found our recognition now, and that seems to go with money. At least we’ve earned it; we worked for it. But I don’t know how many people are earning a lot of money off us just by doing nothing. And that’s always frustrating.
“Sometimes I feel I can’t go on anymore, and that’s bad. Because business people, and so many like them, make their game out of it. Business is already more important than the group itself. We just continue playing.”
Fame also means there’s petty, senseless bitching from some other bands Focus appear with… sneaky little roadies screwing up a gig by twisting a few mixer controls the wrong way.
And there’s an equally abominable game played by buck-drunk business moguls, called blood sucking. Or, to put another way, releasing product years-old and pretty dire.
On the first matter, Akkerman tells of a US gig they played supporting a well-known American rock band, who, to save them embarrassment, I have not named anywhere in this article.
“We had their PA system,” Jan recalls. “We were on stage five minutes and everything was whistling and we had 10,000 people screaming and yelling at us. So I said, ‘come on guys forget it, I don’t want to play any more’.
“So the other band went on. Within two minutes of them going on stage everything was beautiful — perfect. Before, the organ only had half power because they took some bulbs out. It seemed to me they had switches marked, ‘distortion, distortion, distortion’. Then some with ‘sabotage — off/on’. And it was actually that way.”
You should also have noticed the recent release of an Akkerman solo album, “Profile”, here in England. Now I welcome it, because it’s a good set. On the other hand, Jan complains about its initial release on artistic grounds, maintaining he was not considered.
He says: “I did the A side and some of the lute pieces one-and-a-half years ago. They just wanted a product, but I didn’t realise that at the time. And they took those pieces and put them together, and then they had a product. Here’s the Jan Akkerman solo album.”
You don’t agree with that?
“No. Would you? The A side is all right, it’s autobiographical… but at least they should have given me time to change some of the things. Even if I don’t have a contract with them, to me it seems a matter of ethics.
“The B side is going to be completely re-done for America in LA or Hawaii. And it’ll just be the lute with a classical orchestra. And on the very long part of side A there’ll be tablas and I’m going to fill in some harmonics and add some new ideas. The music itself is O.K.”
By comparison, “Profile” is not such inconsiderate record company action compared with the story of a certain Dutch import album. By the now-famous Akkerman, it’s called “Guitar For Sale,” and is just nine years old.
Jan recommends: “It’s better if you don’t buy it at all.
“When I was still at school, every Sunday I went into the studio and did some takes. And that’s the solo album.”
Come on, why buy it when you should be saving your pennies for the next Focus album? Already they’ve nearly completed another piece which they say is similar to “Eruption”, and which will be recorded after the British dates.
“Then,” Akkerman elaborates, “we’ll put the thing together and do something with the new material and also with new equipment. Yesterday we had a new PA, but we’re going to have some new things on stage.
“For instance I’m going to electrify the lute in a very special way… so it sounds natural. But as clear and as loud as my normal guitar.
“And Thijs might have a mellotron and that’ll add something to the sound.”
Reflecting, he adds: “We’re just beginning now. We’re exhausted in many ways, but we’re going to have a six weeks vacation. By that time, I`ll be jumping at the ceiling so I can play.”
