HELLO GOODBYE
It began as an adventure, sparked on the bus. It ended when adulthood broke the spell.
Michael Head recalls the Hi! and Bye of The Pale Fountains.
HELLO 1980
I was in a band with Yorkie, a local legend in Liverpool. We’d been called Ho Ho Bacteria, Jerry’s Egyptian Ring From Devon and then Egypt For Now. I was learning to play the guitar and the one-fingered keyboard thing wasn’t really doing it for me, so we decided to go our separate ways. I tried to learn Love’s Forever Changes as best I could and I just evolved from there, songwriting-wise. Hanging round back in Kenny [Kensington, Liverpool] I met Biffa [AKA Chris McCaffrey, bass], and we decided to form a band. We got our grants from college and went to [famous Liverpool music shop] Frank Hessy’s, and both got our instruments on the same day. We used to rehearse in a pub called The Lord Seldon in Kensington, and then in Biffa’s cellar, which was too small. Then we roped in Jock [Whelan, drums] who lived up the road – he had a set of drums in his cellar. Biffa was the one who gave me the belief. I’d written some lyrics, and one feller said he didn’t like them and told me to explain them, and Biffa said, “I like them, it’s good.” It was that thing we all fear, the rejection or humiliation after putting your soul on the line. He trusted me and I trusted him, and I became a songwriter then. The rehearsals started getting better and better, so we thought,
“We need a name.” It was winter, and I
remember talking about it when we got on the number 10 bus. We used to wear these second-hand double breasted suits, and getting on the bus was a high step, and we got fucking soaked because these dead baggy pegs with 1940s turn ups were flapping away. We were talking about The Love Fountains, which wasn’t a good idea ’cos we were doing about three songs by Love, and then Biffa went “Pale Fountains”. By the time we got off, we were the Paleys. Young bands, you put armour on and become a unit, you create a little world for yourself. At that age, it’s an adventure, because you’re still a bit of a kid, in a way.
GOODBYE 1987
We’d done two albums for Virgin [1984’s Pacific Street and 1985’s …From Across The Kitchen Table]. The money had run out and Virgin didn’t know what to do. They wanted to use session musicians, which wasn’t gonna happen. So we moved back to Liverpool from London and just stopped answering the phone. One of the last things we did was when the Bunnymen asked us to go on tour with them [in late ’85]. It was great fun, you know, and Biffa was chuffed because he was bang into them, but we didn’t think it was going to be some big injection into the Paleys’ future, and I think we knew subconsciously that was probably it. Me and Biffa were still seeing each other but we weren’t in each other’s pockets like we had been the last five years, in hotels and vans. We’d worked our arses off and we both needed a change. Biffa had settled in with his new girlfriend and was getting into different things, film and photography. I’d got a flat on my own, and without going on about it, I discovered marijuana, which did evolve my songwriting in a different way. I kept writing with every intention of forming a new band. I didn’t know it would be called Shack – that was another last-minute name, when we had a gig. It seems to happen quite a lot. The Paleys just sort of fizzled and dissipated. We never actually turned round and said, “It’s over”. The last time I seen Biffa was on Renshaw Street in Liverpool on Christmas Eve in 1988, and he died a few months later. We hadn’t seen each other for a while, gave each other a big hug, and he said, “Come round to ours!” He was living with Jayne Casey at the time. I said, “Yeah, I’ll shoot round.” [McCaffrey died of a brain tumour in 1989]. I often think of the Paleys. Those couple of years, from 17 to 20, 21, it’s like 10 years, you cram so much into them. It’s still a big part of me. And the number 10 route’s still going, yeah. As told to Ian Harrison
“LASTMINUTE NAMES… THEY SEEM TO HAPPEN QUITE A LOT.”
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band’s Adiós Señor Pussycat is out now on Violette.