HERMAN’S HERMITS’ NOONE STILL GOING 60 YEARS ON We looked like clean cut boys but were hooligans like the Stones
EXCLUSIVE
in Las Vegas
IT turns out when Herman’s Hermits star Peter Noone sang I’m Into Something Good, he was predicting the future.
Peter, now 76, is still going strong and loving performing – 60 years after the band’s jaunty debut single topped the charts.
Herman’s Hermits, along with The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, were part of the British invasion of America in the Swinging Sixties.
And while every band had a wild side, Herman’s Hermits, with their neat suits and haircuts, were seen as the boys nextdoor. When the Stones were in town you would lock up your daughters – but you would invite the Hermits for tea.
However, frontman Peter is keen to set the record straight and reckons Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and co played the bad boy image “to the max – to our detriment”.
He said: “We were neck and neck with the Stones. But we were the boys next door, they were the boys your mum didn’t want you out with.
“At the time, we were as good a hooligans as they were. They pretended to be hooligans when they really weren’t, they were grammar school twits, like us. We got on great with them.”
And, like the Stones, they are still going. Tonight, the Stones start their US tour in Houston, Texas, but workaholic Peter puts them to shame with his 100 live gigs a year. Not that there has ever been any rivalry, of course.
Speaking from his home in Santa Barbara, California, Peter said: “People believed there was competition between the Stones, the Beatles and Herman’s Hermits. But we were mates. Each of us was unique, you couldn’t get a record deal unless you were different.”
Peter is currently playing dates in Vegas and has no intention of ever hanging up the mic.
He said: “I don’t know what else I would do if I wasn’t working. You ask older people, ‘Why are you still doing it? Do you need the money?’
“They’ll say, ‘I can always use a bit more money’. But this is what’s keeping me alive. It is not making a living, it is making a life. My future is doing what I do now until I drop, like Eric Morecambe did on stage. I want to go out like that.
“I’ve tried lots of other things but really where I’m most at home is live concerts. Once upon a time I felt old. But then I see Mick Jagger, Paul Mccartney and Frankie Valli, who are all older than me, still performing. One of the Stones said, ‘Peter, how many dates have you got this year?’ I said, ‘I’ve got 100. Every year I get about 100’. He said, ‘Well, remember, if you stop working, you’ll probably die.’ My grandfather stopped working and died. I’m not going to sit around like him, reading gardening books or learning Italian, pretending there’s a future.” Peter, the son of two accountants, was born in Lancashire and raised in Urmston, Greater Manchester. He went to the local grammar, then drama school. In
‘‘ I don’t know what else I’d do if I wasn’t working. It is not making a living, it is making a life. My future is doing what I’m doing now until I drop on stage, like comedian Eric Morecambe
1961, he played Stanley, son of builder Len Fairclough, in Coronation Street.
Peter formed Herman’s Hermits when he was 15 after being inspired by The Beatles. He said: “Our first gig was at Urmston Football Club. We were paid £4, which covered the petrol and a bag of chips.
“The Beatles showed how you could do it. Suddenly, everybody in my street was in skiffle groups. It felt like anyone could be lead singer, guitar player and drummer.”
Peter said his dad encouraged him. “He’d look at bands in the area and say, ‘He’s got talent. You are going to have to work much harder than him.’”
That hard work and enthusiasm paid off and the band had hits with
Silhouettes, There’s a Kind of Hush, Mrs Brown, You Have Got a Lovely Daughter and I’m Henry VIII, I Am.
Peter became friends with Elvis Presley and visited him on the film set of Paradise, Hawaiian Style in 1965. He also met Stevie Wonder at Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan.
The band played in the US alongside The Who and shared backstage laughs with Dusty Springfield. Peter also hung out with the likes of Little Richard, John Lennon, Paul Mccartney and the Stones’ Brian Jones and Jagger.
Such was their fame he made the cover of Time magazine and the Hermits appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, as well shows with comedian Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin and actor Danny Kaye.
In 1970 they opened the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother – and the band also appeared in three films.
Peter left to go solo in 1971 but was reunited with some of the Hermits in the mid-80s and began hitting the road again. And he has not stopped
since. Peter, who married wife Mireille on his 21st birthday, said: “Every day, I feel I want to work hard. I drive my wife crazy because I’m a workaholic.
“I’m non-stop. I write personal letters to my fans. All working-class people from Manchester and Liverpool commit to it.”
And Peter is glad his voice has held up – having done vocal exercises for 45 minutes a day every day since 1983.
But while he used to always be striving for the next challenge, he is now happy doing what he loves.
“I got to a point about five years ago where it turned back into pure fun.
I walked onto the stage and I go, well, this is what you do. This song’s almost 60 years old. And look, that woman’s singing it!’”
In 2019, Peter won entertainer of the year at the Casino Entertainment Awards in Las Vegas.
But he remains connected to England, saying: “I miss it very much but I do go a lot to visit my daughter.
“I’m a tourist now and invisible. I once said, ‘How do you become invisible – you walk into a room with John Lennon or Elvis Presley, you’re invisible’. Now I’m invisible in England.”