The second-time lucky guitarist recalls a time when Roxy were still “weird amateurs”
YoU failed an audition to join Roxy Music when they hired Davy o’list, but became their sound engineer and got the job later. Why did you stick around?
When I went for my audition, Paul Thompson wasn’t even in the band yet, so it was just Graham Simpson, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno and Andy Mackay, and I thought, ‘Oh, these guys are special.’ They were five years older than me – I’d only just left school the year before – and so grown up; they had bank accounts, they were teaching, they had proper jobs. They’d been to university, to art school; I was brought up in South America, came to England in the ’60s – I was very much a wild person being brought into this sophisticated environment. I knew that it was going to be successful and I just wanted to be part of it. Was I playing a long game? I wasn’t that clever. I was sort of hovering around. I loved Davy O’List from The Nice – and when he passed the audition, I thought, ‘Good luck to him, he’s fantastic’ – and when it didn’t work out with him, I seemed to be there, so I had a go again.
The Roxy sound is massively decluttered by your arrival; how did you see your role?
I just got in there and did my best. If you can imagine me at that time just turned 21 and a bubble comes out of my head saying, ‘This is like I was in The Velvet Underground!’ When I’m recording the album I’m thinking, ‘What would The Velvet Underground do?’ Just be mad and do whatever. Just keep it on the beat.’ I had my 21st birthday [on
January 31, 1971] and had a big jam with all my mates and I had no gig at all, and the following week I ended up in Roxy. I joined the first week in February, the management contract was signed second week in February, we started recording the album three weeks later, eight weeks later and it was out and in the charts – it was ridiculous really.
The album sounds quite tentative. Correct?
Absolutely right. And therein lies the trick of capturing a live performance in a studio – it’s not easy. The Beatles and Pink Floyd – they lived in Abbey Road. We had like four weeks to get in, record it, mix it and get out, so there wasn’t time to think, ‘Shall we have this take or that take’ – bashing it out. When I listen to it I think, ‘That would sound weird even now.’ Listening to the boxed set, it’s fascinating to listen to how the songs changed from those original demos – and you can see why they got turned down, because it’s a bit too way out. Once they got Paul Thompson in and it had a strong backbeat, it really focused everything.
Why did you go back into the studio after the album to record “Virginia Plain”?
It must have been written in the weeks after I arrived. There was a desire to do a single in the old tradition – under three minutes. In 2:58 we encapsulated the whole idea of Roxy – the imagery, the sound – and it still sounds brilliant, I must say. We became fuel-injected after the album – on an upward trajectory. And we were very keen to try and improve. Everyone would say we were amateurs, but we were inspired amateurs.
You turned up for an early show wearing a cricket jumper. Was the style part of the band a bit lost on you?
That was at the second gig I did. Quite frankly, I had no idea. I didn’t know what to wear for the photo shoot for the first album, but I got a white shirt and I asked my mum – who was a little Colombian lady – please can you sew some glittery things on it. So I got on the bus and then walked into the photo shoot and Antony Price [Roxy’s in-house
fashion expert] said, “Phil: no, no, no and no. Put this on: black leather jacket. Put these glasses on.’ Boom. Done. There was an amazing team involved. They absolutely summed up what Roxy were in terms of image. I was delighted because there were all these things that were being dealt with by these clever people and I could just be a primitive guitarist.
The image stuff obviously nettled some people at the time. How did you see that?
Prog was the antithesis of showing off and dressing up; getting to 1972, there was that period when all that came to a grinding end because of drugs – heroin killed everything, and everything became grey. And there was no showbiz element, which there had been with Tamla Motown and The Beatles, so with Bowie and with us it was going into colour and being flamboyant and having fun, but with some decent music. We never thought we were glam rock. Marc Bolan and Bowie had started quite a few years earlier and had been trying to find their thing; we came out of nowhere with an already-formed thing. And after
For Your Pleasure, everything to do with glitter disappeared.
Tell us about the famous diamanté-studded fly sunglasses: have you still got them?
Yes! And people still come to my studio and put them on to take a picture. I’ve got a picture with Jarvis Cocker wearing them. The other week [Spandau
Ballet’s] Gary Kemp came and I stuck them on him.
“When I’m recording the album I’m thinking, ‘What would The Velvet Underground do?’”